82 AC, Wreckstone
By the time they reached Wreckstone, the sun was low behind the clouds, smearing the sky with tarnished gold. Salt stood near the rail of their battered prize ship, the axe still hanging from his belt, his hands sore and sticky. The sea breeze was cooler now, tinged with brine, smoke, and the faintest whisper of earth.
Below them, the cove opened up like a waiting mouth. Nestled in its crooked jaws was a village built from a thousand broken things: driftwood huts, stone chimneys scavenged from shipwrecks, sails turned into walls. Chickens clucked between fishing nets. Smoke coiled from chimneys. Someone was yelling at a pig.
Tide's Rest.
It wasn't much, but to pirates who spent most of their lives on water, it was close enough to a home.
Brune stood at the prow, one hand on the rail, the other resting on the hilt of his sword. His face was unreadable. Tired maybe. Or just thinking.
Salt stayed quiet. He always did.
Their ship creaked as it slid into the dock. Rope hands moved quick. Planks dropped. A woman stepped out from the dockhouse to meet them. She was tall and broad-shouldered, her face mapped with old scars and one eye milky white. The ledger in her hand was worn but clean. Her name was VannaGorse, and no ship docked in Tide's Rest without answering to her. Vanna was a fixture in the cove — hard-eyed, sharp-tongued, and loyal to the village before any flag or fleet. She'd captained a sloop in her younger days, raiding spice lanes out of Volantis until a Triarchy shot shattered her leg. When she limped back to Wreckstone half-dead, she traded the sword for a ledger and made herself indispensable. If pirates were wolves, Vanna was the shepherd who kept the village from getting torn apart.
It was Vanna who'd taken Salt in when Brune first dragged him ashore. Back then he was just a half-starved mutt with a haunted look. She'd given him his first real blanket. His first hot stew. More than that, she taught him the basics — how to read, how to count coin, how to spot a crooked deal.
"You want to be more than a sea rat, you'll need more than a blade," she'd said.
She taught him in the tongue used by traders and sailors across the Narrow Sea — the Trade Tongue, a blunt and flexible mix of Valyrian roots and Free City dialects. It wasn't elegant, but it was everywhere. And it stuck.
Salt still remembered her handwriting, sharp as a blade, scratched into driftwood boards: numerals, prices, weights.
"Two crates short," she said, flipping through the ledger without looking up. "And you're late."
"Blame the Braavosi. Bastards put up a fight," Brune muttered, hopping down onto the dock.
"Evenin', Salt," she said now, glancing up from her ledger as he passed.
"Evenin', Vanna," he answered, voice low.
She gave him a look — half amused, half appraising.
"You didn't die, then. That's worth something."
Salt shrugged. "Still countin' crates."
"Good. Means you still got a head. Keep it that way."
Then she returned to her book, but Salt caught the faintest curl of a grin before she did.
Salt followed, boots hitting the worn planks.
Around them, the dock came alive with movement — barrels rolled, bloodied weapons were stashed away, crates were hauled off toward the storage sheds at the edge of the village. A few dogs barked. Somewhere above the beach, a bell clanged softly, the village's way of marking a returning ship.
A couple of boys loitered near the crates, too young for knives, too old to stay out of trouble. They stared as Salt passed, one nudging the other.
"Thought the reef-rat wasn't meant to come back," one said under his breath.
"He's got the axe," the other murmured.
Salt heard them, but didn't stop walking.
Word had traveled fast. It always did in places like this — where stories spread on the backs of half-truths and drunk tongues. He hadn't even seen a Braavosi face until it was trying to cave his in. Now he was some kind of tale-in-the-making.
He didn't like the sound of it.
---
The Grubpot Inn was crowded that night, its patchwork roof barely holding back the wind, and the hearths inside roaring with smoke and heat. The air reeked of spilled ale, wet wool, and pipe ash. It wasn't just Brune's men crowding the benches and boards—pirates from other crews were scattered through the place, playing dice, swapping lies, eyeing each other over tankards like wolves sniffing at unfamiliar fur.
By nightfall, most of the crew was in the Grubpot Inn. The place was older than the village around it, built on the bones of a ship run aground decades ago. The timbers were blackened from an old fire, and the second floor tilted slightly to the west like it was always on the verge of collapse. No one remembered who named it, but everyone agreed the stew smelled like boiled rats — and tasted about the same.
Still, it was warm, had cheap grog, and Vanna's cousin Jorey kept the fights from getting too bloody.
The Inn was full that night, packed elbow to elbow with men who smelled of seawater and smoke. It wasn't just Brune's lot — pirates from other crews nursed drinks in the corners, cast dice on overturned crates, or argued over trade prices with half-whispered venom. The Grubpot was neutral ground, mostly. Fights broke out, but rarely lasted more than a few swings before Jorey or one of his club-armed boys put a stop to it.
Brune's crew, the Grinners, took up their usual corner, loud and loose-limbed, riding the high of a raid gone well. They weren't many — maybe thirty now after the losses. A motley crew: ex-soldiers from the Disputed Lands, Westerosi deserters, and a few sharp-eyed lads born in the Stepstones with salt in their veins and knives in their boots.
They called themselves the Grinners, after their ship, the Whore's Grin. Not feared like the Skinners or large like Vargo Hullbreaker's fleet, but they had a reputation: dependable, sharp, and just crazy enough to take contracts others wouldn't.
Brune didn't care for territory. He cared for coin.
And coin came from loot.
The night's spoils — bolts of silk, small chests of Braavosi silver, smoked fish — were already being inspected by a handful of men in dark cloaks. Not pirates. Not crew.
Buyers.
Salt had seen them before. They never gave names. Always arrived a day after the raid. Always paid in coin or trade goods — never asked where it came from. Half of Tide's Rest ran on their business.
Black market or not, it worked like clockwork.
Brune sat in the corner of the tavern, tankard in hand, legs stretched under the table. Salt sat nearby, drinking water, listening.
"Could get thirty gold for the silks if you cut the bastard in Tyrosh a deal," one of the buyers said.
"He'll take it for thirty-five or we torch the rest in front of his clerk," Brune replied without blinking.
The buyer chuckled and made a mark in his ledger.
Salt didn't understand everything, but he understood power. Brune didn't shout. He didn't threaten. He just knew what his steel was worth. And right now, that was enough.
---
Later that night, Salt walked the edge of the cove alone.
The stars were out. Bright. Unfamiliar.
Somewhere deep in the cliffs above, gulls called, nesting in the old ruins of what might've once been a watchtower. He could see the faint outline — just jagged stone and shadow.
This place had history. Not the kind they wrote down. The kind that sat heavy in the bones of things.
He liked it here.
For now.
But something inside him stirred. The same thing that whispered when the axe moved before he did. That kept him steady when blood flew.
He didn't have a name for it.
But he knew it wouldn't let him stay still for long.
Not here.
Not anywhere.