Sins of the Sea

by Laila Winters

  Sins of the Sea

  Laila Winters

  Copyright  2019 Laila Winters

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, or distributed in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without the written permission of the author, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  Mariah—don’t ever stop dreaming.

  CHAPTER ONE

  SOL

  The Emerald Sea was calm as the tides rolled in, its murky waters the color for which it was named. White-foamed waves lapped against the crescent shore, and black sand glistened softly in the moonlight. It was cold for this time of year, the land still grasped between the glacial talons of winter. Snow clung to the trees, their branches sullen beneath the weight of hard-packed ice. The tide pools nearby were frozen.

  Sol Rosebone smiled as the water crept close to her toes. She could taste the salt on her tongue, could feel it in the air as she breathed. She stretched out her fingers, a sparkling gold cuff clasped around her wrist encrusted with pearl and moonstone. Though forbidden, she let herself reach for the tide, to answer the song it had sung since the day she was born.

  Her Magic trickled through her veins and warmed her shivering body. Water rose from the sea to greet her, like an old friend saying hello. It curled against her scarred palm and twined up the length of her arm, a caressing touch that Sol had yearned for since her last venture to this beach.

  The direwolf sprawled out beside her nuzzled his nose against her thigh. He huffed into the dark sand, and Sol pulled her fingers through the thick tuft of fur at his neck. “Soon,” she promised her companion. A tendril of saltwater shot skyward because she willed it. “We’ll go home soon.”

  With a gentle flick of her wrist, the tide was receding down the shore. Beautiful shells were left in the ocean’s wake, and a large conch was tossed into the sand at Sol’s feet. A gift for the Princess of Sonamire, the one who did not forget when everyone else had abandoned this place, this beach, these waters.

  Sol grasped the shell between her fingers. She counted the sharpened spokes honed from the ocean’s current, her thumb prodding at each point. It was ancient, a pearl-colored relic from the very bottom of the sea.

  But she could not take it home lest someone discover where she’d been. Sol pressed her lips to the shell and tasted the salt that lingered there, then tossed it back into the water. The current engulfed the conch, sweeping it down into oblivion, and Sol pulled on her boots.

  “Come, Draven,” she said, rising to her feet. Sol stretched her limbs and shook the sand from the wrinkled folds of her dress. The turquoise satin matched the color of her eyes, a reason this dress was her favorite. It blended perfectly with the Emerald’s midnight waters, concealing her against the coast in the dark.

  Draven’s paws sank into the sand as he stood, the grain seeping into the direwolf’s black fur. He shook himself free from the ocean breeze and followed his charge up the shore, his furry head pressed beneath Sol’s palm. She led him into the towering forest that curved against the crescent beach, the sand giving way to a sheet of ice and snow.

  Foliage bent and swayed, the soft, sweet purity of Sol’s Magic singing to the life inside of it. But she did not pay it any mind, ducking beneath a branch whose needles turned and reached for her, desperate for a taste of the water that lingered in her veins. Draven snapped his teeth and snarled, a feral warning for the tree to mind its place.

  The limb withdrew from their path and returned to the canopy above, sagging with defeat.

  Sol tapped the direwolf on the head. “Be nice.”

  A mile into the forest and the greenery began to thin. Gnarled roots curled over smooth grey cobblestone. Snow and ice had been cleared away from a narrow street, pushed to either side in lofty piles of mud and slush to make way for horse-drawn carriages. Sol did not step into the road, knew better than to leave herself exposed, and followed the winding path up into the Tavyrn Mountains. The castle of Sonamire loomed at its highest peak, casting a shadow over the heart of this land and the sea.

  Slate grey walls rose high above the staggering cliff face, like pillared stone fingers reaching for fistfuls of black sky. Thunderous waves crashed into the rocks below, raging beneath the ashen turret that served as the Princess’ quarters.

  Carved into the face of Mount Vale when the lands of Irica were still young, the castle of Sonamire was remarkable. Ealdyr, the Irican God of Creation, had shaped it beneath his own hands long before Sol’s bloodline had ever stepped foot on this continent. Her father had once told her that Ealdyr still resided deep in the heart of this mountain, chipping away at the bedrock with withered hands because the castle was not yet complete, would never be complete.

  Sol knew the guard who patrolled the castle’s back entrance, a wide door used for bringing in supplies from the port. Mathias was his name, and he’d looked the other way when Sol slipped by him three hours ago. He’d been waiting here ever since, and upon her return, Sol pressed a gold coin into his palm.

  Draven’s claws clicked against the marble floor inside. Black and white stones swirled to meet gilded walls that arched overhead and were painted with Sonamire’s history. Sparkling chandeliers of silver and glass dangled from the colorful ceiling, the panes catching firelight from the flames that burned in nearby braziers. There were no Fire-Wielders tending to them tonight, dismissed sometime during her absence, and Sol frowned.

  She climbed the staircase that led to her personal tower, the suffocating corridor wrapping round and spiraling up into the turret. As she hauled herself further up the stairs and closer to the warmth of her hearth, Sol pressed her fingers into the smooth grey walls for leverage.

  Draven barreled ahead of her, leaping up the stairs with an elegant grace honed from years of training. His ears were pressed flat against his skull, and Sol watched him disappear around the bend.

  A hushed whisper and an open door greeted her at the top of the tower.

  Sol was pleased to find the hearth still burning as she’d left it, the crackling firewood nothing more than smoldering embers lit aflame. The warmth of it sank in deep and soothed the ache in her bones. She rubbed her wrist, her fingers gentle against the scarred skin beneath her bracelet. The ruined flesh was brutally warped under the gold, the permanent brand of a desperate embrace.

  A reminder that Magic could be dangerous.

  “Where were you?”

  Such sharp, accusatory words; spoken with the need for an explanation, and softened only from the relief that Sol Rosebone was safe.

  She sighed and slipped out of her boots. “Out,” she told her older brother. Sol twisted the skirts of her dress to rid the ruffled hem of snow. “What are you doing in my quarters so late, Silas?”

  The Crown Prince of the Sonamire Empire crossed his arms. Silas’ red hair shifted beneath the hood of his cloak, spilling over the dark fabric and covering the insignia threaded in gold above his heart. A pair of swords were grasped in the talons of a phoenix, a heavy chain twined around both pommels: the Rosebone family crest, a sigil that Silas wore proudly.

  “Where were you, Sol? I thought they had already come for you.”

  Firelight danced in his eyes. The flames grew higher in the hearth.

  “You thought who had already come for me?” Sol tilted her head. “It’s after midnight.”

  Silas swept back his hood. “I tried to stop it,” he murmured. The Prince smothered his Magic, snuffing out t
he flames igniting like candles at his fingertips. “I wasn’t there when the Treaty of Kinds was written. I didn’t know the terms. If I had…” Silas dragged a hand over the sharp angles of his jaw, the smattering of freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose. “I’m so sorry, Sol. I couldn’t talk him out of it.”

  She quirked her head until her neck ached. Her brother did not often discuss the war with her, nor the treaty that’d been signed to end it.

  Sol reached for Draven, and the direwolf pressed himself beneath her palm. “You aren’t making any sense, Silas. You tried to talk who out of what?”

  Silas breathed deeply through his nose, more distraught than Sol remembered ever seeing him. “Father means to send you to the Kingdom of Dyn.” He took his sister’s hand and squeezed it. His fingers were warm. “He means to sell you to the King’s eldest son, Prince Thane. You’re to be the bridge between our territories.”

  Sol tried to pull away, but Silas did not let her.

  “Your marriage was arranged when they first negotiated the treaty ten years ago. They’ve been waiting for your eighteenth birthday so that you’d be old enough to bare his children.” Silas’ blue eyes flashed with the rage of an oncoming storm. “You’ll be eighteen this spring, but Father wishes to send you away now so that you might get to know your betrothed.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Two. Magic thrummed inside her veins, the sea beginning to churn beyond her bedroom window. “You can’t mean that,” Sol whispered, but she met her brother’s gaze and saw the truth that guttered there. “Thane Grayclaw is a sadist. Father would never—"

  But he would.

  There was nothing that King Avedis would not do to ensure Sonamire’s survival, including sacrifice his only daughter to the enemies north of their border.

  Forged in the center of the snow-capped Niaden Mountains, the Kingdom of Dyn was not known for its hospitality, not unlike Sonamire. They had not shown any during the war, nor in the years following the Treaty of Kinds. They would not show it to Sol now.

  But her father would not spare her from a fate worse than death if it meant keeping the peace between their territories.

  “How long have you known?” Sol demanded.

  “Since this morning, when Father informed me that I was to escort you to Dyn myself. I’ve begged him all day to reconsider, but he insists that he’s a man of his word. Your hand in marriage was promised to Thane a decade ago.”

  Sol shook her head with such fervor that the strip of leather binding her hair slid free. Her braid unraveled, and tendrils of red curls bounced in front of her eyes. “You don’t accept this,” she breathed. Her entire body trembled, from her fingers all the way down to her toes. “You won’t let him send me away. You fought in that war—you nearly died! You know what they’re like in Dyn, what Thane will do to me if I don’t surpass his expectations. Didn’t you fight him on the battlefield?”

  “I fought Caidem’s youngest son,” Silas corrected. “But you will not go to Dyn. You will not marry that tyrant.” He spoke with such conviction that Sol was inclined to believe him. “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Father has planned our departure for the morning, but you are leaving this castle tonight. You will not be here when Father comes to retrieve you.” Silas motioned to the new, heavy-looking traveling bag he’d tossed onto Sol’s bed. “Pack only what’s necessary.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  Sol’s heart beat like the leathery wings of a dragon, like the creatures who had once roamed the skies before her ancestors had permanently grounded them. She felt the brush of those mighty, useless wings fluttering deep inside her chest, in her veins, stirring the Magic that raged there.

  “Quint will escort you to Valestorm.”

  “Valestorm?” Sol sputtered. “You told me never to go there, that it’s no place for royalty.”

  “I know.” Silas nudged her towards the bed. “But right now, this castle is no place for you, and neither is Dyn. I’ll take our chances with the port.”

  The merchant port cradled near the base of Mount Vale would grind her bones to dust. Scatter little bits of her adrift in the wind lest she truly become one with the sea. The Rosebone’s were not welcome there, and Sol had heard stories of the enemy ships that docked in the soiled harbor, the severed heads of palace guards hanging like tokens from the bowsprits. Her father may be the King of this Empire, but he did not rule over Valestorm, nor the waters that lapped at its shores.

  “What business will I have in Valestorm? Why does Quint have to take me?”

  Sol reached for the bag and opened it with trembling fingers.

  “None.” Silas crossed the room in three long, graceful strides. He flung open the armoire in the corner of Sol’s bedroom. “You’re going to find a ship, a Captain who seems decent enough not to trade you for treasure, and you’re going to pay them to take you west. To Nedros.” He rifled through his sister’s clothing and tossed warmer garments onto the bed. “I’ll give you the gold.”

  She sank onto the edge of her mattress. “I can’t,” Sol whimpered, watching as Silas flung a pair of wool gloves onto her bed. Her heart stalled inside her chest; he was truly sending her away. “I can’t go to Valestorm, Silas. I can’t barter with some—some pirate to take me across the sea.” She tugged on the ends of her hair. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  Silas snapped his fingers, and Draven padded across the room, pressing himself against Sol’s knees and laying his head on her thigh. He whined at her, a quiet plea for her to pet him. Sol absently scratched behind his ear.

  “You won’t need to barter. With the amount of gold I’ll give you, there’s not a pirate on the Irican continent who would dare turn you away. Besides,” Silas knelt in front of her and smiled reassuringly. “You’ll take Draven with you. He’ll keep you safe.”

  The Princess looked at her companion; his silver eyes met her gaze in that calm, eerie way they always did when Sol was frightened.

  “Start packing. I sent for Quint an hour ago. He’ll be here soon.” He returned to the armoire. “On the ship, you’ll keep to yourself. Stay invisible, and stay below deck if you can. Do not use your Magic.” Silas looked pointedly out the window, where the Emerald still crashed into the mountain. “Do not let them know what you are. Any sensible Captain will throw you overboard if they think you’re a threat to their crew.”

  “I can’t do this,” Sol repeated. Nausea churned her stomach until she was certain she would vomit. “I’m better off in Dyn.”

  Silas spun around. “No, you’re not. Thane is a monster, Sol. He kills men for sport, makes his warriors race through vineyards while shooting poisoned arrows at their backs. He laughs.” Silas swept a hand through his hair. “You have to leave here, Sol. If there were any other way to keep you safe, I would do it. But there’s not.”

  A knock echoed through her chambers, reverberating off the stone walls like drums beating in a temple. The sound clanged through her, made her teeth rattle.

  Silas cursed. “He’ll wait.”

  The Prince of Sonamire pulled his sister into his arms. Sol buried her face into the warmth of his cloak, her fingers grasping at the fabric as if Silas would wither into ash. “When will I see you again?” She blinked away the tears hanging from the ends of her lashes. “I will see you again, won’t I?”

  “Yes,” Silas promised. “Father is old and unwell, and the day that I am crowned King, you can return to this castle and live out your days as you please. Until then, you’ll send word to Quint when you’re settled somewhere safe. He’ll deliver the message to me and oversee our correspondences.”

  “You trust him?”

  She did not know Quint beyond what he may have meant to her brother. She’d seen the looks they shared, the longing in Quint’s dark eyes whenever the Prince was near. She’d seen Silas’ rumpled clothes when she’d caught them together in the library, hidden amongst the stacks of ancient tomes.
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  “With my life. With your life.”

  Silas pressed a kiss to Sol’s temple. There was not enough time.

  He squeezed her hard and let go. Silas fumbled with the silver chain hidden beneath the collar of his tunic. A small pendent hung from the end of a necklace, and Silas opened the clasp to remove it from around his neck. He pressed it into Sol’s palm and carefully closed her fingers around it.

  “Mother gave this to me,” he said hoarsely.

  The ache of an old wound dug sharply at Sol’s heart. She struggled to keep it at bay, to stop the grief from consuming her entirely. Had the plague not taken her three years ago, their mother could have stopped this from happening. She could have kept Sol safe.

  “I want you to have it.” Silas’ voice cracked. The last piece he had of their mother, and he was offering to Sol. “Keep it close, and know that I will always be with you.”

  “She gave this to you before you left for Dyn,” Sol remembered.

  “Yes. She said it would keep me safe.”

  Saturated with heat from Silas’ Magic, the pedant was warm in Sol’s hand. The smooth obsidian stone wrapped in copper wire fit snugly into her palm, the edges sharp and jagged. It glinted in the firelight, the flames dwindling in the hearth as Silas took a breath.

  “I can’t take this,” Sol said. “Mother gave it to you.”

  “And now I’m giving it to you. She would want you to have it, Sol. To keep you safe. Besides, it’s just a rock. I can find a replacement in the garden. You know how she liked such trivial things.”

  Sol squeezed the stone in her hand, the edges cutting into the bends of her fingers. “I’ll return it the next time I see you,” she swore. “This is not mine to keep.”

  Silas dipped his chin. “Until then,” he agreed, a promise that they would indeed see one another again. “Keep it with you.”

  Quint beat against Sol’s door with an impatient fist.