THE BLACK SALT CHRONICLES
CHAPTER I — ASH BEFORE OATHS
The gallows were built crooked.
That was the first thing Luciel Veyne noticed as the wind came off the Blackmere. The rope leaned left, the beam sagged under old weight, and the wood had split where sap once bled like a wound that never healed. Whoever raised it hadn't cared if it stood straight—only that it stood long enough to kill.
Luciel appreciated that honesty.
A crowd had gathered in the mud below: fishermen with cracked knuckles, salt-wives wrapped in mourning shawls, boys with knives they pretended were tools. No one spoke. Silence had a price here, and everyone had learned to pay it early.
The condemned man knelt with his wrists bound, his mouth stuffed with cloth. He smelled of piss and iron. His eyes, wide and furious, locked on Luciel with a pleading that was almost insulting.
Luciel dismounted slowly.
He wore black—not the polished black of court or ceremony, but road-black: scuffed boots, a long coat stitched too many times to count, leather darkened by rain and blood both. His hair was pale as old ash, tied back with a strip of cloth. His face bore no sigil, no banner, no oath written in metal. Only a thin scar ran from his left cheek to the corner of his mouth, pulling his expression into something that always looked like a half-smile.
A lie people often mistook for mercy.
"Name," Luciel said.
The man shook his head violently, muffled sounds breaking against the gag.
Luciel sighed and nodded to the guard.
The guard—too young, knuckles white on his spear—ripped the cloth free.
"Berrin Holt," the man gasped. "Please. I got a wife. Two girls. I didn't—"
Luciel raised a hand. The man fell silent, tears streaking through grime.
"You killed a tax collector," Luciel said calmly.
"He was taking grain we didn't have!"
"He was doing his job."
"He was starving us!"
Luciel stepped closer, boots sinking into mud. He crouched until they were eye to eye.
"Listen carefully, Berrin Holt," Luciel said, voice low enough that only the man could hear. "If you had stabbed him in the dark and fled, I would not be here. If you had poisoned him, or drowned him, or left him for crows, I would not be here."
Luciel leaned closer.
"But you nailed his hands to a door and wrote THIEVES BLEED in his blood."
Berrin sobbed.
"That," Luciel continued, "was a message. And messages invite answers."
He stood.
"Hang him."
The crowd shifted. A woman screamed. The guard hesitated.
Luciel turned his head slightly.
"Now."
The lever fell.
The rope snapped tight. Berrin Holt kicked and twisted, legs flailing uselessly. The beam creaked but held. The sound that came from the man's throat was thin, wet, and brief.
Luciel watched until it ended.
Justice, he knew, was not about fairness. It was about repetition. About teaching the world what happened when lines were crossed.
A horse snorted behind him.
"Could've taken his hand," came a rough voice. "Might've been enough."
Luciel turned.
Jayden Korr leaned against the saddle of his horse, thick arms folded, scarred knuckles bare to the cold. He was built like a siege tower—broad, immovable, and used to breaking things. His beard was dark and untrimmed, his eyes sharp with a humor that never quite reached kindness.
"And then what?" Luciel asked. "He kills the next man with the other hand?"
Jayden shrugged. "People kill when they're hungry."
"They kill more when they think they're untouchable."
Jayden grinned faintly. "You always say things like that."
"And you always pretend you don't understand them."
They shared a look that carried years of blood between it.
A third man approached, boots clean enough to mark him as dangerous.
Logan Vale wore grey wool and a silver clasp shaped like a broken crown. His hair was dark, his posture straight, his face handsome in a way that had survived too many compromises to still believe in honor. He carried parchment instead of steel, but men like Logan killed just as efficiently.
"The Blackmere is quiet," Logan said. "For now."
Luciel nodded. "For now is all we ever get."
Logan glanced at the swinging corpse. "The southern lords won't like this."
"The southern lords don't like anything that doesn't feed them," Jayden muttered.
Logan ignored him. "Word is spreading. About you. About what you're doing out here."
Luciel mounted his horse. "Good."
"Some call you a butcher."
Luciel smiled that scarred half-smile. "Some call me worse."
Logan hesitated. "And what do you call yourself?"
Luciel looked past the gallows, past the mud and the broken people and the cold water beyond.
"A necessity."
That night, they drank in a low-roofed hall where the fire smoked and the ale tasted faintly of rot. Prostitutes lingered near the walls—women and men both—eyes calculating, dresses half-open not from invitation but exhaustion. Jayden slapped one on the hip as she passed.
"Careful," she said. "I bite."
Jayden laughed. "Good."
Luciel watched without judgment. Desire was another currency. Often more dangerous than gold.
Logan unrolled a map on the table, pinning the corners with cups.
"The northern roads are closing," he said. "Bandits wearing lordly colors. Someone's funding them."
Luciel leaned over the map. "Names."
Logan hesitated.
"Say it," Luciel said.
"The Ashen Court."
The fire cracked loudly.
Jayden spat. "Thought they were dead."
"So did everyone else," Logan said. "Seems they learned the trick of dying loudly and living quietly."
Luciel straightened.
The Ashen Court had burned cities, broken kings, and vanished thirty years ago. Men whispered of them the way sailors whispered of reefs—only after the wreck.
"Then this isn't about grain," Luciel said.
"No," Logan replied. "It's about power."
Luciel smiled again.
"Good," he said. "I was getting bored."
Outside, the wind howled across the Blackmere, carrying the smell of salt, smoke, and something older—something that remembered every oath ever broken.
And somewhere beyond the dark, crowns were already tilting.