Page 42 of A Wrecking of Salt and Fire

Katrin pushed her chair back, almost spitting out her food. “We’re going to a fake isle?” She coughed. “Skiatha is just a myth, everyone knows that.”

“Skiatha is as real as you and I. And it is indeed our waypoint. We must pass through Lesathos first for supplies, but then we continue on to the east.”

“I don’t understand. That place is just a story parents tell their children to frighten them. It’s not in our books or on any maps of Odessia. How do you even know it exists?”

Ander’s eyes sparkled a crystal blue, like the sea on the clearest of days. His lip twitched up into a grin, showing off one of his canines. “Because, Starling, that is where The Nostos takes port.”

Her mind flashed back to when she first met Leighton. He called Ander the Prince of the Lost Isles. She thought it was something made up. A joke amongst merchants and washed-up soldiers. A way for the pirate to feel more powerful than he was.

But if they were real, if they were truly just lost and forgotten, not one of imagination, then that meant Ander led the army of the dead. Not only that, but he was one of the most vicious and corrupt leaders. One that helped lay waste to an entire civilization of people. Her eyes widened, white starting to flicker through.

“I know what is going through your head right now, but although the isle is real, those stories are not. We are a place for warriors—warriors who seek refuge from abuse of other lands. The isle is prosperous and certainly is not surrounded by a ring of flame on the coast.”

Katrin’s eyes dimmed back to their brown and amber tone. Her breathing evened. She was not sure why she was so quick to believe him, but she was.

No army of the dead. The idea gave her the creeps, even if her father did rule most of the dead, these warriors were supposed to be a different kind of undead.

“Well, nice to know you didn’t slaughter thousands of people…” She gave a small, half-hearted smile. “Why are we going there? Why is it important that I go there?”

Ander tapped his fingers on the table. Breaking their eye contact for a moment. “Because there is a war coming, and if we don’t act soon we could lose everything.” His voice was grave, jaw tight.

“A war? With Nexos? I know they are a threat, but do you really think King Nikolaos would go that far?”

“Oh, Starling, King Nikolaos is the least of your worries.”

Katrin’s breath hitched. King Nikolaos was the only threat she had been informed of, by both Ajax and King Athanas’ spies. “Then who?”

“You might want to look a little closer to home to answer that question. Don’t you find it strange that King Athanas never sought retribution on the people who took you? That he even pushed Kohl to marry you in the first place, when he is neither god-born nor blessed, knowing your duty to the lands? You don’t think it is strange that Kohl just happened upon your drifting body off the coast of Lesathos? They are the enemy.”

“Don’t you dare drag Kohl into this,” Katrin seethed. “He rescued me when I was flung about in the sea five years ago. If it weren’t for him I would be dead! We are Fated!”

Ander’s features darkened as he strained his neck to the side. Gripping the edge of the table. “And maybe he knows nothing, or maybe he is just a better liar than you know.”

“He loves me!” A faint glow lingered around her skin.

At least, Katrin thought he did. Their last night together was complicated, but he had always been there for her up until then. His actions had to be pressured from his father. They had been approaching the wedding and King Athanas always had a certain way he liked things to go. But he would never really hurt her. It was impossible.

“Maybe so, but I have it on good authority that King Athanas has been working with a king from Voreia for years to shake up leadership in the isles.”

“You’re lying.” Katrin stood up to walk out, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “He may be known as the Viper, but all that man has wanted is peace. You seem to be confusing them for Nexos.”

He shot up from his chair, hands still clawed into the wooden table. “They would have killed you, Aikaterine, if I had not taken you, they would have murdered you,” Ander growled.

“No, that’s a lie and you know it!”

He had only called her by her full name when he spoke that first morning. It rolled off his tongue with a taste of despair, and for once she did not hate hearing it. When she looked at him, at his posture and pleading in his eyes that turned a dimming gray and deep green, she could not help but wonder if it was true. Or if he at least thought it was.

“It was the only thing I could do,” his voice finally shattered. “I had to protect you.”

“Why? Why am I so important to you?” Katrin stared at him, trying to understand, trying to see some wild point of view where the ones who meant the most to her had been lying for years, not this man she just met.

Ander’s face had softened, his eyes tracing the outline of her lips, her jaw, her neck for several moments. He finally spoke. “Because you just are.”

It was not enough of a response for her. She needed an unequivocal reason why. But instead she asked, “Who is Chloe?” Her final question for the Captain. She didn't even know why it slipped out in the first place. Maybe because of the whirling emotions that traveled from her head to her gut. Maybe it was because she knew he would not answer any of her other questions.

“Do I detect a hint of jealousy in those words, Starling?” Ander’s eyes lit up, dancing with crystal blue and turquoise green, reminding her of the waters back home. No longer the darkening color of a storm.

“Why would you think I would be jealous of anyone who thinks a brute like you is darling.”

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