Page 19 of A Wrecking of Salt and Fire

Ember looked at her sister. Katrin’s face was stoic, unmoving, but the tone of her voice, the way she clenched her fists, trying to settle them—that was pure terror.

“His father told us. I assume he heard it from Kohl. He was probably just trying to protect you. If the King knew you were the one to injure his son, accident or not, there would be trouble.”

“Yes.” Katrin’s voice was distant. “Protecting me.” That look on her sister had not been present for nearly five years—a look of defeat, a look of regret—as she walked away without another word.

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Chapter Twelve

Katrin

Labored breathing came from the crack in Kohl’s door. Katrin stood in front of it, unable to push it open just yet. Could she explain what happened in the olive groves? Explain everything like she just did with Ander?

There were no other noises or voices coming from inside. Kohl was alone. That was good. No peering eyes or lingering ears trying to figure out why the future consort was bloodied and healing after a routine run across the isle. At least no more people than Ember already mentioned knew.

She knocked, realizing that probably made things more awkward, more formal, then they needed to be. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to waltz in, not with the fear that he wouldn’t understand. At least not fully. The fear that he would see her as damaged and unlovable. Even after the gods take us, she needed to breathe, remember those words, the pact they made and the love he always showered upon her. Not the strange darkness in his eyes as he pinned her against that tree earlier, refusing to stop even when she begged him.

Katrin opened the door peering in. Kohl was lying on his chaise in just the worn running shorts he wore earlier, a cold compress held to the wound that was stitched up by the healers. His eyes drifted toward her, worn and defeated, glazed over slightly from the tonic that numbed his pain, numbed his mind.

“Katrin…” his voice was raw, rough.

“Kohl, I am so sorry!” She rushed to his side, grabbing his other hand in hers. “I…I…I can’t explain what happened. Are you alright? Ember said the wound would heal fine. Oh gods, Kohl,” her eyes welled with tears, “I am just so sorry.”

He scanned her up and down. “What are you wearing?” His eyes narrowed on the navy tunic, the embroidery stitched on the cuff. “That is the marking of a pirate!” His voice rose sharply, gripping her wrist with his uninjured hand and pointing at the marking on her cuff.

“What are you talking about, Kohl? It’s the tonic, you must still be weary. Why would I be in a pirate’s shirt?” Her brows furrowed in, breath picking up pace ever so slightly. A pirate? Ander was a farmer, not some notorious seafarer.

“That marking, that shirt, where did you get it?” He began to sit up. Katrin backed up two paces away from the chaise.

“I got this from a farmer’s cabin. I was caught in the storm and my clothes were soaked through. I came across an empty cabin and took shelter while the storm passed. There were some old clothes lying about so I changed out of mine to stay warm.” At this point he was pushing off the chaise stumbling a bit as he rose.

Katrin’s hands begin to tremble, inching toward her dagger. The dagger that was already soaked in Kohl’s blood. It was a hallucination, she was hallucinating that gleam in his eyes, the fury in the way his lips rose showing off his teeth.

“You’re lying,” Kohl seethed.

“I am not lying!” But she was. She had the full intention of explaining everything to him when she arrived back. Well as much as she could stomach. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to tell him about the scars on her back. How for weeks that man beat her bloody, leaving her to fester in her own filth. How it turned him on to see her scream in pain. But parts of it, parts of the torment she realized she wanted to share. It was freeing to speak the words out loud rather than keep bottling them down, allowing them to eat at her from the inside out. But this anger, how could she begin to explain?

He understood the markings on her wrists, understood the fear of being shoved into a small cabin, the fear of drowning on the seas when she escaped. But this? This was the one thing he wanted from her, the one thing she wanted to give to him first, but sadly she could not.

“There was a storm, I took shelter, I stole dry clothes. We shouldn’t be talking about me right now, you’re the one injured. You’re the one I injured. Kohl, I am so sorry.” Trying to change the subject back didn’t seem to help as Kohl appeared to enter some sort of fugue state.

“Why are you lying, Katrin?” Kohl stalked toward her grabbing her wrist with a stiff grip.

“Like I said before, I am not lying!” Katrin’s eyes began to swirl with the blinding fire of a newly born star. She needed to keep calm before one of them got hurt. Again.

“You are! You didn’t tell me about your nightmares, you won’t tell me where you went after you ran off today and why you returned in another man’s clothes. You even refuse to tell me why you stuck a dagger in my arm! A dagger, Katrin! My dagger.”

“I told you I don’t know why I did it. It was like…it was like I entered some sort of trance and I thought you were attacking me.” Her voice began to tremble. She could not admit why she really stabbed him. The triggering words he spoke to her.

“Attacking you, Katrin! That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. Name one time when you have ever thought I would harm you.” Now, she wanted to say. There was never such darkness in his eyes. Venom in his words.

“I didn’t…I didn’t know…” Katrin took a long breath in, trying to prevent the tears welling in her eyes from spilling down her face. “I didn’t think it was you. In the moment you were someone else.”

“You thought I was someone else? We were being intimate and you thought I was someone else! Explain that to me, Katrin. Did you think it was that man, the owner of the navy tunic.” She was dumbfounded by the accusation. That he could really believe after everything that she attacked him on purpose to go have an affair with another secret man was beyond her imagination.

“I can’t explain!” Now the tears started flowing openly. “I can’t, Kohl. I don’t know what else I can say. You have to believe me,” her voice cracked as it left her trembling lips. She never lied to him before. Omitted things from the past, yes, but never truly lied. Yet now that was all she could do. To protect him. To protect herself.

“Maybe there isn’t anything you can say, but maybe there’s something you could do.” Katrin tried to take a step back from Kohl but the only place back was the bed.

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