POV: Beth
Cold eats through silk far faster than heartbreak.
The guards drag me through a tunnel beneath the palace, my shoes slipping on the wet stone. The corridor slopes downward, deeper and darker, each step echoing like the toll of a bell. The last warmth of the world clings to my shoulders and then falls away.
I hear doors slam above us—faint, final—sealing sunlight behind me.
My wedding gown, once white as a hopeful morning, trails behind in gray streaks through the filth. The roses sewn along the train collect mud and rat droppings. A moment ago I stood before nobles with eyes full of future.
Now my veil snags on an iron grate, jerking my head back. One guard swears, tears it off, and tosses the delicate mesh into the gutter like trash.
We descend another set of stairs. A damp wind rises from below, heavy with rot and rusted metal. Somewhere distant, someone screams—raw, hoarse, unending—until the sound breaks into sobbing, then silence.
I swallow bile.
The guards do not slow.
The steps shift from carved stone to rough, uneven rock. Moss smears beneath my shoes. When one slipper slips off, no one pauses to retrieve it. My bare foot lands in freezing water and I gasp. The other shoe flies moments later as they yank me forward again. My toes go numb instantly.
Three more turns. A final iron door yawns open on its ancient hinges. The dungeon.
The smell hits first—mold, urine, sweat, and something metallic beneath it all. Blood. The torches here are fewer, their flames struggling against the damp. Light reaches only enough to show what the darkness wants me to see—dripping walls, rust-eaten bars, straw matted with old stains.
They drag me to an empty cell near the front row.
“No—please—please wait—” My voice is a shred of itself. “I need to see my father—he hasn’t done anything—”
One guard answers with a shove so hard I crash into the wall. My cheek scrapes stone. I stagger, legs sinking into the hem of my gown like I’m drowning in it. Before I find balance, they seize the laces. A short blade flashes.
Silk splits open like a wound.
Cold air devours my skin as they cut the wedding dress clean from my body. Lace falls in limp pieces to the floor. The bodice tears away, exposing my shift—thin linen, nearly transparent under dungeon damp. I cling to the scraps instinctively.
“Royal orders,” the taller guard says, voice bored. “No silk for pirate spawn.”
Pirate. The word slams into me again. As if spoken from a nightmare I haven’t woken from.
“I’m not—” My voice fractures. “I’m not one of them. I swear I’m not.”
He only laughs, low and unimpressed. They take the last of my gown, even the gloves Father begged me to keep on—those they rip from my trembling hands like they carry plague. My scar gleams naked under torchlight.
Before I can cover it, they shove me through the bars. The cell door slams shut with a clang that rings through bone.
My legs collapse. I hit cold stone. Water seeps through fabric instantly. My fingers curl into the grime and come away muddy.
The guards turn to leave.
“Wait!” I cry, stumbling to my knees, fingers gripping the bars. “Father—where is he? You can’t throw him down here—please, he’s ill, he—”
The second guard smirks. “He’s not in here, sweetling. He’s going below.”
Below.
Everyone knows what below means. The lower dungeons are spoken of like a curse—a place for traitors and murderers, where screams echo for weeks.
“No—no—please—” The bars bruise my hands as I shake them. “He didn’t lie! He saved me from the mark—he—”
The guard shrugs. “Maybe he should have drowned you instead. Would’ve saved us all trouble.”
He walks away. Their boots vanish up the stairwell, growing softer until only the dripping water remains.
Silence settles over me like a shroud. I sink back onto the wet floor, shaking so hard my teeth clack. I pull my knees to my chest, trying to keep my shift from clinging, but everything is damp—hair, skin, hope.
I stare at my bare wrist. At the scar. At the thing that ruined everything in less than a breath.
Pirate-spawn.
I press my palm over it as if I can hide it from the world, as if hiding it now matters.
“Why?” I whisper into the cold. My breath fogs. “Saints, why?”
No answer.
My body shakes harder. I think of the chapel, the roses, the prince’s eyes when he looked at me like filth. The way Father fell when they struck him. The sound his breath made when it left him.
I pull in a breath that scrapes my lungs raw. The sob breaks before I can stop it. Then another. Soon I am folded in half on the straw and stone, shoulders shaking, crying until my throat burns. I cover my ears with my hands so no one hears, but the dungeon does not care. It eats sound. It swallows comfort.
Time moves strangely in the dark. Minutes or hours—I cannot tell. My crying quiets to hiccups and then to numbness. My fingers sting with cold. My toes feel like they belong to someone else. Rats scratch somewhere in the black beyond my cell.
I force myself to lift my head.
Across from me—not far—iron bars reflect faint orange light. I sense, rather than see, another cell. Deeper inside, chains clink, slow and deliberate. Someone laughs—low, amused, unhurried—from somewhere far down the row.
Not near me. Not yet.
I clutch my arms tighter. I picture Father in a darker cell with no straw, no torch. I imagine them questioning him—demanding why he kept me, why he lied for me, why he protected me from something I didn’t even know was mine.
“I’m not pirate blood,” I whisper. “I’m not. I’m not.”
But doubt curls like smoke in my lungs. If it is only a scar, why the gloves? Why Father’s voice shook when he asked me to keep them on? Why nobles recognized it instantly, while I stood stupid and blind?
Something beneath the truth shifts. I push the thought away.
I try praying.
Words I learned as a child stutter from my lips. “God protect us… shield my father… bring justice… please…”
Drips answer. Water tapping stone, slow as the tick of a dying heartbeat. No miracle. No warm hand on my shoulder. Only the cold.
A distant door groans open. Chains drag. Heavy footsteps echo. A tortured cry cuts off to a gurgle.
I press my back to the far wall, shaking uncontrollably now. Tears blur torchlight into smears.
The dungeon is alive—it breathes misery. Something moves in the cell opposite mine. A subtle scrape. Straw shifting.
I freeze.nFor a long time, nothing. Just the hum of darkness. Then—
A voice.
Male. Low. Smooth like warm rum at a tavern, but edged with indolent amusement—the kind of tone used by someone who does not fear the dark but owns it.
“Well now,” it drawls from the shadows, rich with lazy curiosity, “what do we have here? A bride in the gutter.”
My breath stops. And I am suddenly very, very awake.