POV: Beth
Morning in the pirate port is not gentle. There is no smell of warm bread or soft sunlight through silk curtains. Only salt. Rot. Rum. Shouts. Boots smashing through puddles. A gull screams overhead like omen.
Alaric wakes me not with kindness, but with his foot nudging my ribs.
“Up. Training.”
I was half-asleep, curled around a stolen blanket on the warehouse floor. My limbs feel like lead, my cheek still tender from last night’s strike. First thought: Father. Second: pain. Third: hatred for the man standing over me.
“I didn’t sleep enough,” I mutter.
He tosses a wooden practice blade at me. I fumble it, nearly dropping it on my foot.
“Sleep when dead,” he says. “Stand.”
I stand. My muscles burn from yesterday—rowing, fighting, surviving. Alaric circles me like wolf deciding where to bite.
“You hold blade like sewing needle,” he says.
I tighten my grip. “How should I hold it?”
“Like you mean to carve someone open.”
He moves behind me, adjusting my hands sharply. His touch is not gentle—more like a sculptor breaking clay to reshape. I hiss when he twists my wrist.
“That hurts.”
“Pain is the teacher.”
“I didn’t ask for her lessons.”
“She doesn’t care.”
He steps back. “Ready?”
“No—”
He attacks.
Wood cracks against mine. My arms jolt. I stumble. He barely swings—just enough to show how slow I am. I block wrong, stance too narrow, feet tangled. He sweeps my legs.
I hit dirt hard, breath knocked out.
Alaric stands over me, amused. “Again.”
I glare up at him. “You didn’t even warn me!”
“In battle, the enemy won’t either.”
I push up, palms stinging. He attacks again—faster. Sword smacks mine, sends it flying. Before I retrieve it, the wood tip presses lightly to my throat.
“You’re dead,” he says simply.
Heat rises in my face—anger, humiliation, despair tangled. I snatch the sword again and lunge clumsily. He steps aside with insulting ease, taps my back with a blade.
“Dead again.”
I grind my teeth. “Stop saying that.”
“When you stop dying.”
We repeat the cycle—attack, fall, mockery, stand, attack, fall. Wood bruises bloom across arms and ribs. Sweat stings eyes. I gasp for air while Alaric doesn’t even breathe harder.
“Keep your feet apart,” he says.
“They are!”
“You stand like you’re curtsying to the executioner.”
I swing with frustration more than technique. He dodges, bored, and flicks my wrist. Blade flies again. I want to scream. Instead, I pick it up and charge.
He doesn’t move. He waits.
I swing—wild, desperate. He steps inside my reach, grabs my wrist, twists—I drop blade and land face-first in dirt.
Laughter echoes—not Alaric’s. Footsteps approach. Kaine Shark-Tooth stands behind him, arms crossed, shark-teeth braids rattling. His good eye amused, dead one blank like pearl.
“Stormborne trains noble girl?” Kaine chuckles. “Or slowly kills her with boredom?”
“I’m trying,” I snap, spitting dust.
Kaine’s smile widens. “Trying is step one to dying slower.”
“I’m not slow—”
“You attack like a dancing butterfly,” Kaine interrupts. “Pretty. Useless.”
Alaric smirks. “She bleeds before she fights. But she learns.”
Kaine grunts. “Maybe. But she keeps morals too high to reach sea floor.”
I grab the blade again, jaw clenched. “There’s nothing wrong with morals.”
Kaine barks laugh. “Pirates don’t live on morals. They live on loot, rum, and lies. Morals sink ships.”
“I won’t become savage,” I say firmly. “I won’t lose who I am.”
Alaric raises brow. “You lost who you were when the prince threw you in a dungeon.”
Words hit like whip. Breath catches.
Kaine claps Alaric’s shoulder, still grinning. “Stormborne, so you really want the crew back.”
Alaric’s gaze sharpens. “I do.”
“And you want the throne.”
Alaric doesn’t deny. “Silas sits where I should. That ends.”
Kaine nods slowly. “Then I’ll join you. Under one condition.”
Alaric’s voice turns cold, dangerous. “Name it.”
“You give me a ship,” Kaine says. “Not stolen dinghy or borrowed wreck. I want a vessel worthy of a shark—sails red as blood, cannons that roar. You find me ship? I sail under your banner.”
My breath catches. A ship—real one—means power. Movement. Rescue.
Alaric tilts head. “And if I refuse?”
Kaine bares teeth. “Then I drink rum till you crawl back on your knees—or the prince cuts yours off first.”
Silence hums like a blade edge. Seagulls scream. Finally Alaric nods once. “You have deal.”
Fear slithers into me. Deals here are not like court promises sealed with rings and roses. Here deals are forged with consequence sharp as knives.
Alaric wipes sweat from brow, eyes flicking toward me. “Beth, politics of sea are simple. Men follow strength. They follow treasure. They follow blood. Not morals. Not dreams.”
I swallow bitterness. “I don’t want to lead pirates. I want my father.”
“And crown wants his head,” Alaric says. “You’ll need blades before tears.”
I lift sword again though arms tremble. “Then I will keep fighting.”
Kaine laughs softer this time—like he expected me to break. “Princess got bite.”
“I’m not princess,” I mutter.
Alaric circles me again. “Show bite then. Strike like you want to live.”
I inhale shaky breath, feet wide, knees bent. Remember humiliation. Blood. Storm. Father’s fading time.
I swing—more controlled this time.
Alaric blocks it easily, but his eyes narrow—something like faint approval? Before I register it, blade nicks my forearm—wood scrape opening skin.
Blood beads red and bright. My first training wound. Pain stings, but beneath it—strange pride.
“You didn’t fall,” Alaric says quietly.
“I won’t,” I breathe. “Not again.”
Kaine laughs. “She learns slower than a turtle, but she learns.”
I shoot him glare through sweat-soaked hair. “Mock me all you want. I will fight well one day.”
“And pirates will drink to your corpse,” Kaine says.
“No.” I grip the sword harder. “They’ll drink to my victory.”
Silence. Alaric studies me, something in gaze shifting—not soft, never soft—but curious. As if seeing new shape beneath cracks.
“Confidence without skill is just noise,” he says. “Earn it.”
I want to argue, but words die. He’s right. I need skill, not pride. Technique, not temper.
Kaine suddenly grabs my wrist—not cruel, but testing. “This mark,” he says, thumb brushing pirate brand. “You hide it with shame.”
“I am not a pirate-blood,” I hiss.
Both men exchange look—disbelief, amusement, pity all together.
“Blood doesn’t care about belief,” Kaine says. “Sea chooses its own.”
I yank my arm back. “I will not become a monster.”
Alaric chuckles. “Morals are chains. Break enough, they become weapons.”
“I won’t break them.”
“You will,” he says, certainty cold as steel.
Anger burns bright—but through it comes something else: clarity. If pirates respect teeth, I must grow them. If this world eats weakness, I must starve it.
I lift blade again, ignoring pain. “Teach me how to win.”
Alaric nods. “Again.”
We train until my arms scream, until sweat blinds, until blood stains handle from blistered palms. Every time I fall, he tells me why. Every time I miss, he shows flaw. He doesn’t praise once—but he watches. He expects more. Expects fight.
Kaine leans against the post, drinking rum, occasionally calling out, “Too slow!” or “Swing like you mean to kill, not kiss!”
By dusk, I collapse to my knees, vision spotted black, chest on fire. Alaric stands above me, unbothered.
“You’ll be ready when the blade feels like a hand, not a burden,” he says.
“And when will that be?” I pant.
“When you stop asking.”
I force myself up again—shaking but standing. “I’ll be ready.”
Kaine grins. “Stormborne chooses a stubborn little wolf.”
Alaric glances my way, then toward horizon where British sails might one day appear.
“Not a wolf yet,” he says. “Barely a cub.”
I meet his gaze—sweat, dirt, blood streaking skin—and find strength staring back.
“I’ll grow,” I say.
He smirks. “Then don’t die before lesson two.”
As night falls, pirates sing outside, rum-soaked voices rising like storm-tide. I sit by dying embers, wrist aching, heart pounding not from fear—but resolve.
I hate this world. I hate pirates. And I hate him.