POV: Beth
Silas didn’t speak loudly. He didn’t need to.
He stood at the edge of his deck like the sea itself bent around him, hair whipping black in the wind, coat dripping from the Kraken’s spray. Behind him, the beast lurked below—massive shadow, unseen fully, but its presence pressed on my lungs like the deep ocean itself. Every pirate eye watched us. Every breath was held.
Silas’s gaze locked onto mine, and everything else felt smaller.
“You know why I’m here,” he said, voice a low blade sliding across silk.
I felt it in my bones—in the pulse of the water beneath us. The sea listened to him. Not obeying—listening, like a predator humoring a familiar rival.
Beside me, Alaric stepped forward. Not shaking. Not bowing. Just radiating furious pride.
“You’ll get nothing from me,” he spat. “And certainly not her.”
Silas looked at Alaric the way kings look at peasants who don’t know they’re already dead. A soft, pitying smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“I don’t want anything from you, Alaric.” His eyes returned to me. “I want her.”
My heart slammed painfully. The crew tensed—hands drifting to hilts. Even the waves stopped slamming the hull, as if waiting for one of us to breathe wrong.
Silas extended one gloved hand toward me, palm upward—gentle, almost reverent.
“Beth,” he murmured. “Come with me. I will show you the truth of your blood. Your father’s legacy. Your power. I can give you answers—not struggle. Honor—not shame. A throne, not a rope.”
A shiver crawled down my spine. His voice wasn’t threatening—just too soft, too sure. Like a promise wrapped in silk that could become noose without warning.
Alaric snarled before I could speak. “She owes you nothing.”
Silas didn’t look at him. Not once.
“Your blood calls the sea. I felt it the moment you surfaced.” His eyes were dark and endless. “We are not enemies, Beth. Fate made us two halves of a storm.”
I forced breath into my lungs. “I’m not yours to claim.”
His eyes warmed—heartbreakingly gentle—but wrong. Wrong because I could feel obsession under it like undertow beneath calm water.
“You could be,” he whispered. “Willingly or by force of war. I prefer choice.”
My stomach twisted.
“Give her to me,” Silas said softly, “and the sea will spare you.”
Alaric stepped in front of me, blade half-drawn.
“Over my rotting corpse.”
Silas finally looked at him. Slowly. He didn’t blink.
“So be it.”
The Kraken’s shadow shifted, deeper, darker. A tentacle surfaced just enough for us to see the barnacles and scars before sinking again.
A warning.
Not an attack. Not yet. Silas lowered his hand, disappointment flickering like dying candlelight.
“Then the next time we meet,” he said, voice still soft, unbearably composed, “I will not arrive for words.”
He paused—gaze lingering on me with something like longing and ruin knotted together.
“I hope you survive long enough to regret this.”
And with a subtle motion, the Kraken dove, dragging an impossible wave behind it. Silas’s black sails turned elegantly—like a funeral procession—and swallowed into fog.
No cannon fired. No battle began.
But it felt like the world tilted.
Like war sealed itself into the tide.
***
We anchored near Port Serpentis for two days after Silas vanished. No one dared push into open water knowing the Kraken waited beyond the horizon. Strange calm settled—the kind that makes sailors sharpen blades just to feel busy.
Rumors spread like disease.
“He controls sea beasts—” “He summons storms—” “He took three pirate fleets already—” “He wants the Saltborn girl—” “He’ll drown every port to get her—”
Some stories said he fed captains to the Kraken one limb at a time. Others claimed he wore a necklace of sailors’ teeth. Whether truth or myth, every version ended with the same line spoken in frightened whispers:
Silas wants the girl.
I became specter. Symbol. Curse.
Sailors stepped aside when I walked through the dock. Mothers tugged children away. Old men crossed themselves. Some bowed like I was omen of flood.
Saltborn.
Storm bride.
Cursed gift.
Each night I lay awake in my hammock on the ship, listening to the water beneath the hull. It didn’t sound like it used to. It breathed. It pulsed. Sometimes, late enough that exhaustion blurred thought, it felt like a heartbeat—slow, ancient, patient.
Not mine. Not human. Kraken. Or something older than Kraken.
Sometimes I swore I felt eyes under the waves. Watching. Waiting. Recognizing me.
On the third night, I jolted awake, hair sticking to sweat-damp skin. I could hear it—faint but undeniable.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Like a heartbeat swirling inside the tide.
I stumbled above the deck. Moonlight silvered everything. The sea was black glass. No waves. No wind. Horrifying still.
Alaric leaned against the mainmast, drinking alone. His crew slept scattered around barrels and coils, twisting in nightmares. Only he remained awake—face hard, eyes shadowed.
He looked at me, bottle lowering.
“You heard it too,” he said. Not a question.
I nodded, swallowing.
His jaw tightened. “He’s calling you.”
“Kraken?”
“No.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice near my ear. Warm breath on cold skin. “Silas.”
My pulse stuttered.
“He’s inside the water. Or the water is inside him,” Alaric muttered. “Either way, he marked you. He won’t stop.”
I wanted to deny the tremor in my ribs, but truth sat heavy like anchor.
Silas didn’t just want me.
He believed I was meant for him.
And somewhere deep where I hated admitting it—a sliver of me wanted to understand why.
“We’ll prepare for war,” Alaric said suddenly, back straightening, voice armor-hard now. “He thinks you’ll choose him. He thinks Kraken makes him untouchable.”
He looked straight into my eyes.
“We’ll prove him wrong.”
I exhaled shakily. “And if we can’t?”
He smirked—cruel, bright, terrified.
“Then we go down screaming.”
Despite horror, I laughed. Just once. Just breath. And he looked at me like he wanted to catch the sound in his hand and keep it.
The sea stirred—the heartbeat fading.
Storm before storm.
War was coming. Not today. But soon enough that even wind tasted like dread.