“The salt smuggler and the captain sent to arrest her survive an avalanche that was no accident.”
In the Gorge of Souls, where the free clans pay no toll to the viceroy, Nerea guides salt caravans along the route her mother opened. One blizzard-bound afternoon her path is blocked by Lope de Aldana, a tercio captain who claims he has come to warn her: two hundred Walloon mercenaries are climbing to burn the mountain storehouses. Before she can decide whether to believe him, the cornice is blown sky-high and buries them together in a cave of black ice that Nerea knows all too well. Down there, with the air running out, they discover that the order was never to arrest her, but to leave no witness alive.
“The ground vanished under her boots and the abyss took her in, wrapped around a captain of the king.”
“She broke the wax seal on her mother's jar. There was no salt inside.”
“The Walloons were still digging, patiently, for two bodies they would never find.”
Short Story·Romantasy
Yara Rajná
He entered the imperial chancery under a dead man's name to purge his family's debts; the chancellor's daughter was the only one who recognized his hand.
Short Story·Romantasy
Irene Sabater
Her sourdough yeast harbors an outlawed enchantment; the council's newest inspector takes the corner table to scrutinize every bake.
Novella·Romantasy
Yara Rajná
She weaves light, he weaves shadow, and their houses hate each other. Now a blood pact won't let them stray more than a hundred paces apart.
An Inkora Stories original, written with AI assistance under human editorial direction and review. Yara Rajná is an editorial pen name. Learn more