The Inheritance of Salt

The salt wind hit you like a slap the moment you stepped off the gangplank, carrying the stink of rot and brine. The lighthouse loomed above the jetty—a black tooth against the bruised sky, its lantern room dark as a dead eye. You'd expected dust and silence, an old woman's quiet death and a quick signing of papers. Instead, three strangers waited at the base of the tower, and the shortest of them—a wiry man with a scarred lip—planted himself in your path.

"You're late, keeper's blood."

"I'm not a keeper." You swung your duffel onto your shoulder. "I'm here to sell the place."

The woman beside him—young, sun-bleached hair, wetsuit peeled to her waist—stepped forward with a grin that didn't reach her eyes. "Isla. You'll want to hear what we found before you start talking about sales."

Thunder rolled offshore. The sea behind them seemed to breathe, a slow heave that slapped the jetty's pilings. At the tower's base, the door stood ajar, and from inside came the smell of old lamp oil and something else—something sweet and wrong, like flowers left too long in water.

"Isla's right." The old man in the doorway, gray-bearded, leaning on a brass telescope, spoke without looking at you. "Your aunt left you more than a lighthouse, girl. She left you a map to the drowned city. And the light's been out for three nights. The reef is waking."