POV: Beth
The south port wakes slower than the rest of the pirate haven. While the northern docks thunder with drunken singing, brawling and crashing crates, here the world is quieter—fog pooled thick along the planks, lanterns dim, boats rocking like beasts asleep. It should feel peaceful.
It feels like stepping toward execution.
My boots, still too big and stolen from someone’s doorstep, slap against wet wood as I follow Alaric through shadowed alleys. He walks like he commands fog itself. I walk like it might swallow me.
“Keep your head down,” he murmurs without turning. “You look like a noble on holiday.”
“I’m making sure we aren’t being watched,” I whisper.
“You’re making sure everyone sees you are nervous,” he corrects. “There’s a difference, princess.”
Heat spikes across my cheeks. The port smells of tar, fish rot, salt, and smoke. Somewhere, a bell tolls. A drunk man snores on a coil of rope. Fingers of mist drift across my ankles like something alive.
Ahead waits a two-masted brig—patched sails, chipped paint, hull narrow but strong. Not grand like royal navy ships. But real. Functional. Faster than anything I’ve ever stood on.
To me it looks enormous. To Alaric, it’s a stolen toy.
“This is stealing,” I whisper.
“This is liberating unused property,” he answers.
“That is literally stealing.”
He throws me a smirk over his shoulder—arrogant, lazy, unfairly confident. “Welcome to piracy.”
My stomach twists as he strides up the gangplank without pause. I follow with both hands gripping the rope, terrified of slipping. Waves slap wood below—dark and merciless.
“Can you swim?” he calls.
“Yes,” I reply quickly. Then pause. “Well… in lakes. Not oceans.”
“Then don’t fall,” he says, amused. “I’m not diving after you.”
On deck, everything smells of pitch and salt. Ropes snake in coils. Sails hang tied. A lantern sways overhead like a slow heartbeat. Alaric checks rigging, wheel, and anchor with fluid knowing movements. He was born here, I think. Born to sea, chaos, and things that kill without warning.
My throat tightens.
He throws me a rope. I barely catch it. “Tie the stern line,” he orders.
“I don’t know how.”
“That’s precious.” He steps behind me, guiding my fingers briefly. “Loop, pull, knot. Do it wrong, we drift into rocks and die.”
“You’re terrible at comfort,” I mutter, but mimic his motions. Rope bites my skin. The knot is crooked.
“It’ll hold until I fix it,” he says.
“I hate you.”
“Hate builds character.”
We work in brittle silence. By sunrise, fog burns to pale gold. We prepare to cut loose when footsteps thud up the dock.
Kaine emerges—broad shoulders, shark-tooth charm hanging from ear. Three others follow: Bram the bearded giant, Niall with pistols slung cross-chest, and Riva—slim, dangerous, smiling like bloodshed is a joke.
Savages. All of them.
Kaine stops at helm. “You steal my port’s prettiest brig without asking?”
“You were late,” Alaric shrugs.
Behind him, the three crew stare at me like a deer that somehow wandered into a wolves’ camp.
Kaine snorts. “Bringing governor’s little dove to sea? She’ll snap like a mast in a storm.”
“I’m right here,” I protest.
Riva winks. “Don’t worry. If you fall, we’ll fish you out. Maybe.”
“Only if the shark isn’t quicker,” Bram grumbles.
My stomach flips. Alaric rests one hand lazily on a wheel, eyes drifting to horizon like something calls him from beyond sight. “We sail now. The tide's turning. Crown patrols will wake soon.”
“Destination?” Kaine asks.
“Anywhere that’s not under a gallows shadow,” Alaric says. “Then we hunt whispers about palace fortress… and Silas.”
At that name, air shifts. Even pirates flinch.
I file that away. Silas is dangerous. Future. War.
Kaine jerks his chin toward the gangplank. “Last chance to stay on land, girl. The sea doesn’t mother her weak.”
Rowan’s face burns behind my eyes—gentle hands teaching me letters, warm voice telling bedtime stories. Those same hands now chained underground. Time leaking away like sand between fingers.
If I stay—he dies alone. If I go—I face ocean, pirates, storms, and death. But death waits in both directions. I step fully onto the deck.
Kaine grins, brutal approval. “Bold.”
“Desperate,” I correct.
“Same thing at sea.”
Gangplank lifts. Riva climbs rigging, Bram unties ropes, Niall checks powder stores. Alaric takes the helm like there’s no universe where he belongs anywhere else.
“Cast off,” he commands.
Wind fills sails. Ship groans, shivers, then glides—smooth first, then surging forward, cutting waves like blade through silk. The shore slips away.
And suddenly—there is nothing but ocean. Endless. Immense. Terrifying.
Waves rise, drop, twist. My stomach rebels. I grip the railing until my knuckles crack.
“Don’t lock knees,” Kaine says, passing. “You’ll faint and smash teeth.”
“Comforting advice,” I manage.
He grins. “Sea kills slower than the palace. Sometimes.”
Riva shouts from above, hair whipping like a wild banner. “Breathe, land-kitten! Stare at deck, not horizon!”
“I’m not a kitten,” I mutter—then choke as the swell lifts the deck beneath me.
Alaric watches me with infuriating amusement. “How’s the noble stomach?”
“I still hate you!”
He laughs like waves obey him. “Good! Hate keeps you alive.”
Wind lashes salt across my lips. Horizon yawns infinite—no church bells, no silk gowns, no safety. Just wind, water, and a man I should never trust.
Fear claws at me, but pride claws harder. I stand straighter.
“If you want to help your father,” Alaric calls, voice sharp as rigging line, “learn to move with the sea, not against it.”
“How?”
“Let her carry you. Fight her and you break. Bend—and you survive.”
So I try. I let my knees soften. I breathe with waves. It feels wrong. Terrifying. But something tiny eases.
Riva drops down beside me. “First lesson: if you vomit, aim away from ropes. Second lesson: if the captain falls overboard, you either save him or claim his ship. Depends how you feel that day.”
“You’d claim the ship,” I say.
She grins. “You learn fast.”
I glance at Alaric—hair pulled back, wind carving his arrogant profile into something unfairly striking. His hands rest easy on the wheel like the sea answers to him. My pulse jumps—not affection, not attraction. More like a collision. Two storms meeting.
He isn’t good. But he is alive, burning and reckless. And I must survive him to survive everything.
The ocean stretches infinite. A bruise-colored cloudbank builds ahead like a warning. My stomach flips, nausea and awe mixing.
“What if a storm comes?” I ask.
“It will,” Alaric replies simply. “Storms always come.”
My throat tightens. “And what do we do then?”
He smiles like a dare. “We sail through it.”
The brig pitches. I don’t fall. Barely. My heart is bruised fruit inside ribs, but beating still.
Rowan waits. Execution draws closer. The Prince smiles somewhere, thinking me dead, forgotten. But storms forge steel and I will become steel.
The wind roars louder. The sea rises higher. Kaine shouts orders, and the crew moves like one organism. Riva ties sails, Niall loads pistols, Bram braces mast. Alaric looks at me—truly looks, assessing if I break or burn.
“Welcome to the open ocean, Beth,” he says, voice low, steady. “From here on, land cannot save you. Only teeth. Only will.”
The crew laughs—surprised, approving, cruelly entertained.
Salt spray stings my face. The ship surges forward. For the first time since the wedding, I feel the faintest sliver of freedom. Terrifying. Vast. Real.