Page 49 of A Wrecking of Salt and Fire

“Thank you, Starling, for the dance. You can leave—you can go home.”

He knew it was her. She knew from the second his words grazed her ear. They had pretended. For that song they were not a pirate and a princess, captor and captive, enemy and victim. They were—well, Katrin could not quite describe what it was. Her fingers brushed over her cheek, still tingling from the kiss. She wished it was her lips he grazed.

Katrin looked back up wanting to reply, but Ander disappeared into the crowd.

Thank you. It had not been for the dance. It had been a good-bye. What she asked for this past week. The ability to return home. He was giving it to her, just like that. No explanation, no anything. She had to take the opportunity, even if right now she did not want to leave. Even if she wanted to ask him more. How he knew the people that had taken her. How he had fought against them to set Thalia free. If he would have done the same for her.

Right now none of that could matter. She was going home. To Ember. To Kohl. To her rightful place on the throne. Katrin lifted her skirts and ran. Ran toward the docks, ran toward the sea, ran toward Alentus.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Katrin

When Katrin reached The Nostos she went straight for Ander’s quarters, where she had packed away her small satchel of necessities. She now had enough money to book passage back to Alentus, and in a week’s time she would step on her shores once more. What was waiting for her when she returned, she did not know.

He had let her go. This whole time Ander kept saying over and over how this was what was best for her. To stay here. Then he told her they would travel to Skiatha and see what army was growing to defeat those men in Voreia. The same men who had supposedly been conspiring with King Athanas.

It was not that she did not believe Ander. After everything she had learned, she did. She trusted he thought he was doing the right thing. But if King Athanas had really been plotting against her, Kohl would have known, or her mother would have known. They would have seen right through it. And if Kohl had known and not said anything—well, that was not an option. He loved her. He had always loved her. And she had loved him back.

She needed to be home, to learn what had come of the Acknowledgement. To return to her people and lead. If a war was coming they would need to prepare and she would need the support of Morentius and the other isles behind her.

Katrin opened the door to the quarters. She would need to be swift, before Ander changed his mind. The satchel was lying on the desk where she had left it and on top was Mykonos, sitting up with her yellow eyes peering straight into Katrin’s soul.

“I’m sorry, little one.” Katrin lifted her off the satchel. The cat hissed. She would miss the little white feline. The company she gave Katrin in her worst moments aboard this ship. “Tell her I’m sorry too,” Katrin whispered as she put the small creature on the ground.

She’d needed Thalia’s story. To hear she was not the only one that had suffered silently for acts they could not prevent or control. Needed to hear it would get better. That it never left you, but it also did not need to consume you.

Mykonos knocked her head against Katrin’s leg. She reached down, giving the cat its last pet before taking off into the night.

She’d heard some of the crew mention a merchant ship that sailed between here and Alentus regularly. They offered passage aboard their ship for a small amount of coin and assistance with the cooking. Katrin was a princess, but she had always been fascinated with food when she was young. She had helped the cooks whenever she could sneak away from her lessons.

For a way home, she would do it again.

The docks were empty of people this time of night. Sailors either sleeping or drinking in taverns by the market. That was where she would start her search, the small taverns closest to the water. Every street and alleyway was low lit, the only light coming from the windows of homes that were peppered through the market and the thin crescent moon in the night sky. Katrin wrapped the cloak she had grabbed tighter around her as the night’s chill caressed her skin.

She remembered one particular tavern that many had talked about. One would need to walk up the main street and turn down the small corridor on the fourth right from the dock—or had it been the third?

Katrin could hear voices coming from ahead. That was a good sign, one that meant she was closer to a tavern and to finding that merchant ship.

The princess turned the corner and as she walked toward those voices the light around her began to fade. Only the moon’s whitish glow provided a path, the shadows along the buildings arcing up toward the sky. She spun around to walk back to the main road, clearly having taken a wrong turn, when several men surrounded her.

They were obviously quite intoxicated, well, at least three of them were. The other few looked more aware of their surroundings.

“And what’s a lovely lady like yourself doing wandering around Lesathos alone at night?” one of the more sober ones said.

Katrin smiled. She learned what to do in these situations, she could hold her own, and if it came down to it she knew how to kill. How to pull her dagger and show force. She had never done it before, but this close to finding her way back to Alentus, to home—she would do whatever it took.

“I must have just taken a wrong turn. I was meeting a friend of mine at one of the taverns. He told me how to get there, but I must have miscalculated. If you don’t mind I’ll just be going.” Katrin went to take a step when the man’s hand found her wrist.

“Well, I’m sure I could help get you there.” A disturbing smile spread across his ruddy face.

“I really am quite alright. He will be expecting me any moment.”

The man chuckled. Low and raspy. His companions followed suit. One of the more intoxicated ones slipped behind her. “I don’t think anyone is expecting you, lady. It looks like you were on your way from someone, not to them.” He cocked his head at the satchel. “Take it.” He spoke firmly to one of the other men.

A tall, thin man with long tied-back blonde hair stepped from the shadows and went for Katrin’s satchel. She gripped his wrinkly hand using the other to unsheath her dagger from her hip. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

The men started to laugh again. They always did. One look at her thin body, her young demeanor, and she was quickly underestimated. All it took were three swings, one across his arm to catch him off guard, the other behind his left knee to have him writhing on the ground. The final—across his throat.

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