The leviathan docked at the four-hour mark.
Vane felt the mana anchors engage through the stone under his boots — the specific resonance of a large vessel locking to the island's infrastructure, transmitted upward through the hill the way the island transmitted everything, through the rock rather than the air. He had been tracking the vessel's approach since it entered the island's field twenty minutes ago. He had not let himself calculate what arrival meant in terms of what came next. The calculation would have produced a number and numbers that were wanted rather than known had gotten people killed in Oakhaven.
He fought the western approach. He filed the leviathan under confirmed. He kept moving.
Thirty seconds after the anchors engaged the ambient field changed.
