Chapter Text
Prologue: Salt
The water was cold and harsh, but the fishermen didn’t care. There had been a storm off the coast before, and if the whispers were to believed, the king and his men had spotted a foreign ship amongst the breakage. So he’d decreed all able boats to search the waters.
Their hands were calloused from the oars, numb from the cold. But they rowed on, clever eyes searching the water. The mist hung thick around them, causing the occasional grumble. With a start, one of them realised he couldn’t see the lights of the other boats.
“Revven?” He asked the other man, who startled out of his harsh focus on the water. He looked around in a panic, swearing softly under his breath. As he fumbled for the whistle he had been given, his companion looked around.
“Wait,” he said, picking up his rowing and directing the small boat to the left. He had seen something, he told his companion as they entered a thick belt of fog. He could barely see Revven, some two feet in front of him.
But suddenly, the fog broke around them, and he found himself in a scene of only destruction. Wood floated around them, along with glass, and the remains of a sail. The waves were eerily quiet and calm, but he froze as he saw a dark blur floating in the water.
“Saleh?” Revven asked, turning his neck to catch a glimpse of what his companion’s eyes were so intently focused on. “Saleh, what is it?”
“There’s a body. A body in the water.”
“Where?”
“Keep the boat here,” he said, rising and stripping off his jacket.
“Saleh?” Rev asked, dark hands tightening on his oars.
He dove into the freezing water.
“SALEH!”
He had no concept of up vs down, only forwards. He surfaced only to make sure he was still headed to the body, dodging the floating and burning wreck of what once must have been a great ship. Perhaps the flagship of a fleet, he thought distantly.
Or perhaps just a ship.
He had reached the body now, and without even looking at it, grabbed it, and swam as fast as he could back to the boat. He cried out for Revven to help, and he did, hoisting both the body and him up into the now very crowded fishing boat.
“Row!” Saleh barked, shaking fingers coming up to the body’s neck, looking for a pulse. It took many long, arduous, seconds before his cold fingers sensed the weak beating underneath. He breathed a sigh of relief, fishing his own whistle from under his wet shirt and blowing desperately as Revven broke into the thick fog bank once more.
He didn’t stop blowing, feeling that hesitant pulse until he spotted the headship of the operation. Those onboard lifted the body up, her long hair stuck to her brown face. Saleh was lead off to warm food and dry clothes, while Revven recounted the story of how they found her.
The body was placed on a table for the healer.
Her breath chest fell in shallow waves, her mouth was parted ever so slightly. She dreamed of her life, in smudges and flashes. They ended when she hit the black water. She knew little, her mind a blur. But she knew.
Inej Ghafa had been attacked.