Salt and Starlight

Prologue — The Fire and the Betrayal

The night smelled of lavender and smoke.

It wasn’t supposed to.

The house on the hill had always smelled of salt and herbs—like the sea trying to remember the land. But that night, the air turned heavy, bitter, metallic.

Inside, candles guttered. The wind shifted. And something old enough to recognize danger stirred in its sleep.

Evelyn Blackwell stood at the kitchen counter, humming softly as she poured tea. Her husband smiled drowsily from the table, half-asleep already. The herbs had worked.

She hadn’t noticed the wrong ones floating in his cup.

On the stairs, a floorboard creaked.

Evelyn looked up, frowning. “Sister?”

A shape appeared in the doorway—her sister, eyes wide and wet, holding a candle that dripped wax onto her wrist. “You said you’d help me.”

Her voice trembled.

“You promised.”

Evelyn’s stomach went cold. “You’ve done something.”

“I had to!” her sister cried. “You were given everything—Mother’s power, the Goddess’s blessing—and I was given nothing. I asked for one thing, just one—”

“You asked me to create a child out of envy!”

“I asked you to make me whole!”

The candle shook in her hand. A drop of wax hissed to the floor—and with it, a single spark.

The curtains caught.

The smell of lavender turned to fire.

Evelyn lunged for the stairs, coughing as smoke rose thick and fast. The air warped with heat. She made it halfway before her knees gave out. Her head swam.

The tea—

Realization hit too late.

“Why?” she gasped.

Her sister’s shadow wavered in the smoke. “Because you left nothing for me.”

The words were almost tender. Then she was gone—running upward toward the child’s cries.

In the nursery, the baby wailed. The aunt hesitated only a moment before gathering the tiny body, wrapping her in a quilt that smelled of rosemary and milk.

“I’ll keep you safe,” she whispered, not sure if she was telling the truth. “You’ll be my proof. My payment.”

Downstairs, Evelyn called her name again, voice breaking against the roar of fire.

The roof groaned.

The aunt stumbled through the back door into the cold night, clutching the baby.

Behind her, flames poured from the windows, painting the sky the color of blood.

She turned once—just once—and saw Evelyn collapse against the stair railing, eyes half-open, mouth forming her daughter’s name.

The aunt fled.

By dawn, the house was ash and silence.

The tide crept close enough to taste the ruins and retreated again.

The aunt stood at the edge of the cliff, shaking, the child in her arms. Below, the sea boiled faintly where the fire’s ash met water.

She stared down at the waves, then up at the fading moon. “What do I do now?” she whispered.

No voice answered—only the whisper of wind, and the sound of waves pulling secrets back to the deep.

But high above, the Moon Goddess watched.

Her silver gaze lingered on the baby.

And where the fire’s smoke scarred the sky, Selunara drew a mark of light and whisper:

“When the tide turns red, the child will awaken.”