Page 1 of A Wrecking of Salt and Fire

Part One

στην αρχ?

(In the Beginning)

Chapter One

Katrin

“Help! Please!” Katrin screamed into the night, her voice smothered by the thundering skies. Scanning the darkened shoreline, she couldn’t make out if the guards were still posted along the beach. Fires below the cliffs were doused by the pouring rain, but the men should still be there. They were always there. A moment passed as she listened for stomping boots in wet sand, for a horn to alert the castle of a threat, for anything.

No answer came. There was no one. No one to protect her.

Thick rope dug into her wrists as her captor dragged her body down the beach. She clawed her nails into the flesh of the man, blood seeping from his skin as she squirmed. Hot breath cascaded over her ear. “Resistance is futile, Princess,” the man hissed, pulling the rope tighter.

Salt from the rain slid down her forehead, blistering her eyes. Squinting through the rain, a ship came into focus, the faint outline of a six-letter word on the stern, two silver serpents with their tails curling around each other on the black sails. Images of the banners of surrounding isles shot through her mind, but this was not an emblem she knew.

Pulling at the rope to gain some balance, Katrin thrust her head back toward his face, smashing into his nose.

“You bitch,” he hissed, releasing one of his hands from her wrists to cover his nose before tightening the rope. Crimson stained his palms and the coarse threads that held her tight.

“You will regret this!” she seethed.

Her captor let out a mocking laugh, one that rattled along with the thunder from the skies above. Only then did he release her from their struggle, and for only a moment, to bend down and whisper, “My only regret is not taking you sooner. Maybe I should just kill you now, save him the trouble. Although, the amount of coin he has promised me is too good to pass up.” A toothy grin flashed across his face. “Eínai i katára sou.”

Goosebumps rose along Katrin’s bare arms. Bile began to rise in her throat as she realized he knew the Elliniká Glóssa. The language was forbidden a century ago, stripped from the books in the isles, even carved out of the murals in the ancient temples. “What does that mean? Who are you taking me to?”

Her captor laughed again. “He is your curse. Bound to you and you to him by the Grechi.” His voice was as serpentine and deadly as the creatures on the ship’s sails. The man bent down, meeting her stare.

Those eyes. She would never forget those eyes.

Katrin’s chest heaved as a familiar copper tang coated her mouth. It rose and fell in an attempt to steady, her hands pressed deep into her thighs as she bent over. Low tide and the salty summer air burned in her nose. Sanguine and amber hues of the sun crept over the eastern cliffs of Alentus, a fair warning that a storm loomed in the distance. Rain she could manage. She would welcome the swirling tides and thrashing winds, the cooling of the air that caused the sky to rattle an unyielding call. Icy chills of her memories—that she could live without.

Hours before, she woke, the only light trailing through the gossamer curtains from the crescent moon and the constellations that dared show their spark this late in the summer. Blood trickled down her fingers, crusting under her nails. Scratches over the scars that never truly healed from years ago burned like embers crackling in a hearth.

Every night was the same routine. Fall in and out of a fitful sleep. Awake in a pool of sweat and blood, ready to hurl the previous night’s dinner from her gut. Get out of bed. Slip on a pair of tight black trousers and a thin sleeveless tunic. Sneak past the guards through the hidden passage in her chambers.

It was reckless to be outside the castle alone before dawn, but she could not help it. Wind caressing her skin and the silence of the night cascading around her were the only things that made her forget anymore—forget his wretched features. Blinding red irises, crooked smile and elongated nose, raspy heated breath along her skin.

Thickened night air filled her lungs and she ran.

Ran until the scratches began to scab over.

Ran until the breath in her lungs burned more than her past.

Ran until the salt from her sweat stung her eyes.

Ran until even her bones begged her to stop.

Ran until she felt nothing.

The only people she would pass at this hour were the farmers tending their crops, although they were too busy with their hands in the dirt to notice that their princess was winding through their fields alone. Only one, a younger man, would wave to her as she passed by. Katrin would give a curt nod and he would smile, she would smile. It was the only time she felt she didn’t need to force the upward tilt to her lips, jealous of the young man who could tend to his olive groves in silence and get joy from such a simple life.

Escaped tendrils of hair whipped in Katrin’s face, as she took in the faint blur of three ships sailing closer to the docks below. With the sun quickly rising, the markets would be opening, and she needed to sneak back through the hidden passageway of the castle before Kohl or Ember or her mother came looking for her. Because they would, if she was not where she was supposed to be; if the guards caught wind that she was sneaking out of her chambers each night.

Then she would likely be permanently locked in her chambers, for fear she might wander off the cliff or worse be taken once more. Except she would not let anyone take her, not again. Not when she now recognized what the foggy glow in her eyes meant that night five years ago. A cloudiness in her mind that drove her to a dreamless sleep before she awoke on those shores, the gritty edges of rocks and shells scraping her feet. Recognized the smell of the drug her captor used.

Katrin could still feel the phantom hold of the coarse rope digging into her wrists. Her fingers traced the scars that were left, the scars that matched the ones on her back, the ones in her mind. Everyone at court knew about the scars on her wrists. They were easy to explain. Slashes scattered across her shoulder blades, down the center of her back—those remained her burden to carry.

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