Page 50 of A Wrecking of Salt and Fire

The leader of the group smiled. “That’s alright, I like my women feisty.” He beckoned the other men.

Katrin stood her ground against them, slicing away across limb and gut, injuring a few. She kept it up for a while, but she was only one person and they were now four. Eventually she grew tired, and it was at that moment one of the men snatched the dagger from her hand, chucking it down the alley back toward the main road.

“Not so dangerous now, are you?” the leader said, his ruddy face sweating and bloody. “Now you’ll get what is coming to you.” He swung at her face, landing a right hook across her jaw as two of the other men held her arms back. Katrin stumbled a little, spitting blood on the ground. She glared up at him, her body boiling, feeling as if she might explode from the heat, from the pain, from the exhaustion. One of the men holding her back screamed, clutching his hand that was now covered in blisters.

“What are you?” the man gasped.

Katrin smiled—wicked and villainous. “Your nightmare.” But her skin cooled just as quickly, and another man took his place. Her power was not truly formed yet. It had come in bursts when her emotions were heightened, but she was tired, and beaten, and, quite truthfully, drunk.

The ruddy man came at her again, and this time his fist hit her eye. Again and again he punched and kicked, until she lay on the ground panting.

“And to think, if you had just given us your bag we would have left you alone.” He kicked her in the stomach, sending bile straight to her mouth.

Through her coughs and pants Katrin managed to rasp out, “Men…like…you…never…do.” She wished it would end. That her vision would blur and her mind go black. It was not that she couldn’t take the punches and kicks. No—she had endured much worse on that boat five years ago. The physical pain had never been what hurt her most. It was the mental pain that lingered long after the cuts healed and the bruises faded that she could not let go of. The constant reminder that she was too weak, too fragile, not good enough. That if she could not protect herself against evil, she could never protect her people.

Fog began to linger down the alley, swirling around the four remaining men.

“Is this one of your remaining tricks, witch?” She could see the ruddy man’s eyes narrow through her swollen lids, his lip twitch up in a snarl.

“A witch?” a voice trailed down the alley with that fog. In the distance Katrin could hear thunder crackle. “Well that’s new.”

Katrin was in and out of consciousness, but she could see his outline. The dark leathers he still wore. His jet-black hair slicked back, still in that scaled mask. “Now what do we have here?”

She could have sworn that the leader of the men shuddered at the approaching figure. “Just a whore—she tried to steal our money after we sent her away. Killed one of my men in the chase.”

“Is that so?” Ander hissed, cocking his head to the side.

The man clawed at his throat like an invisible hand was wrapped around it. He coughed and coughed, eyes widening, before he dropped to the ground. The other men tried to run, but they did not make it far, falling to their knees, hacking breath after breath as their lungs gave out. It was as if life was sucked right out of their souls as the fog swirled around them. Their bodies lifeless on that dirt alley.

Katrin could not tell if she was hallucinating it all. If she had taken one too many blows to her head. Warm, steady arms wrapped around her as her body still shook. Calloused hands cupped her cheek, thumb grazing beneath her swollen eyes, wiping away the tears. Despite the blood, despite the dirt, he held her. Silver storms swept through his eyes. “You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re safe.” Not a reassurance, but a promise. A vow even the gods could not break.

Ander carried her all the way back to The Nostos, past the crew who still drunkenly trickled onto the boat. Past Leighton whose worry was plastered on his face, and Thalia, whose terror and guilt shown on hers. Down and down until they reached his quarters.

He lay her on the bed, hurrying off toward the bathing chamber. Katrin was still in shock, her eyes swollen shut, lip split and bloody, bruises and cuts covering her from the attack. When he returned he carried a damp cloth and a small vial, the latter poured into her mouth.

“Drink, it will help with the pain.” Katrin nodded, wincing as she tried to swallow the burning liquid. It lit a fire within her, coursing through her blood as she felt like she might truly explode.

“Why did you let me go?” Her voice was hoarse and raspy, but she did not care. The bruises along her arms and legs sent sharp pains down to her bones. It only took a moment before the tonic Ander had given her started to help. Before the burning flame in her veins turned to a numbing icy chill.

Sleep was approaching quickly, but she needed to know. He had come for her. He had saved her. Not once, but twice now. He had saved her, he had taken her, he had let her go.

“You really don’t see it, do you?” Ander sighed, sitting down on the bed next to her. He took a cool cloth to her face, wiping away the sweat and dirt and blood from the alley. Continuing down her neck and her chest and her arms. All while his face slowly blurred in her vision. “All I want is for you to be safe and to be happy. I saw how you were these past few days. It’s why I kept my distance. I thought maybe after you had time to process why you were here things would change, but you still longed for home, for your sister, for Kohl. So I let you go. Go back to them. I didn’t want you to hate me anymore than you already did.” Ander looked away from her, gazing out through the window into the starry night sky.

“I never hated you,” Katrin whispered.

“I shouldn’t have let you go. I should have begged you to stay, to understand. If I had—those men—those men would have never laid a hand on you. You asked me once why I spent my days on the sea. It was because I had to find you.” She could have sworn a tear began to form in his eyes. But she was fading fast and her imagination began to warp reality.

Katrin was back in that cabin, the tattered sheets below her. The man had left hours before, but she still lay clutching her feeble arms around her. Her hair had turned stringy, plastered to her face by sweat. All that covered the princess was the itchy woolen blanket, but it was the only thing that stood between her skin and the chilled autumn air. The only thing that stopped the chattering of her teeth.

Pain stung low in her gut and Katrin could not tell if it was from hunger or the fist that had landed there before the man buried himself inside her. The blood stained sheets still lay below her, scratching at her skin from where they had crusted over.

A hand grazed down her cheek and her whole body stiffened. He was back. He had never come back, not on the same day. “Shhh, asteráki mou, I’m here.” A gentle voice caressed her ear. Katrin dared to lift her gaze toward the speaker, but the face did not match that of the man. The speaker had piercing blue eyes, and hair dark as night, a tear coursing down his cheek. “I will get you out of here. I promise you that.”

Katrin noticed the chains around his wrists, on his ankles. He was a prisoner too. The voice was deeper, but that face—she remembered it from somewhere. The light smile, even in the darkest of times. The twinkle in his eyes as he tried to calm her. “I know you might not remember me, but this is not the end. For you. For us.”

Then the voice disappeared, there was no longer a man by her side. A hallucination, a way to imagine her pain was not near to breaking her. Her eyes fluttered, stinging with tears that would never come.

In and out the princess went. Dream. Reality. Dream. In her daze, words floated through her mind, a soft whisper against her mental walls.

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