POV: Beth
The sky was burned gold when we reached port—a battered harbor city where gulls shrieked overhead and the stench of fish guts mixed with spilled rum. It should have been like every other port we visited, but today the air felt electric, biting, like storm clouds gathering inside my lungs instead of above the sea.
The crew tied ropes and lowered the gangplank. Kaine barked orders, others rolled barrels, joked, gambled—but no one laughed near me. Not after the sailor. Not after the blood on the deck. Not after I slapped their captain.
They watched me with new eyes. Not mocking, not even hostile.
Expectant.
Waiting—like something was about to snap.
And something was.
I felt it under my ribs, tight and volcanic. Every time I looked at Alaric—the memory of his sword flashing, blood dripping—rage rose up my throat like bile. He stood at the helm now, one hand on the wheel, wind slashing through his hair like he was carved from storm and arrogance. He didn’t look bothered. Didn’t look guilty. He looked like a king who never questioned his right to rule.
Maybe that was what enraged me most.
I hadn’t slept. My eyes felt raw, but fire burned behind them.
Alaric finally turned, gaze sweeping over me like I was another piece of inventory on his ship. “Port stay. Two days,” he announced to everyone. “No arrests. No gambling the ship. Anyone starts a tavern war—”
Kaine coughed.
Alaric cast him a glare. “—without me present will get keelhauled.”
Laughter scattered. But he kept staring at me.
“Beth stays on board.”
The deck froze. Pirates exchanged glances, curious, hungry for drama.
“No,” I said.
One word. Quiet. Hard as a drawn blade.
Alaric stepped forward, boots heavy on the planks. “Not a debate.”
“It wasn’t a question.” My voice was steel I barely recognized. “I am leaving.”
Kaine blinked. Someone muttered, “Damn.”
Alaric’s expression didn’t change—but something under his skin tightened, like a rope pulled too hard. “Where will you go? You know nothing of land or sea. They’ll hunt you. Hang you.”
“Better that,” I said, lifting my chin, “than being owned by you.”
A murmur rippled across deck like wind across sails.
Alaric descended the steps toward me, each movement slow, controlled—danger in restraint. His voice dropped low enough for only nearby crew to catch.
“I don’t own you.”
“You act like you do.”
He stopped directly in front of me. Too close. Always too close. “I saved your life, princess.”
“I never asked you to!”
“You’d be rotting in a cell without me.”
“And my father still is because of you,” I fired back. “Because you brought me into this world, kept me here, trapped between pirates and nightmares. You killed a man begging for mercy, and you think I should stay?”
His jaw locked. “You’re not ready to survive alone. Without me, you die.”
“Then better dead than under your command.”
Silence snapped the air.
His eyes darkened—not with anger alone, but something raw. Something that looked dangerously close to fear. But Alaric hid feelings the way he hid scars—behind teeth and pride.
“You’re running away because you can’t stomach what power costs,” he said quietly. “You want vengeance, but you refuse the blood it demands.”
“And you refuse to see that power doesn’t have to be cruelty.”
We were chest-to-chest now, breath colliding like sparks in gunpowder. Crew gathered in a circle without being told, eager audience to a war neither of us planned to lose.
Alaric leaned down until his forehead almost touched mine. His voice was soft like falling ash.
“You will crawl back to my ship within a week.”
I laughed—but it was a broken, wild sound. “No. You just think the world is your ocean and everyone should drown for you.”
“Everyone does drown for me,” he answered calmly. “That’s why I win.”
“No,” I whispered. “That’s why you end up alone.”
That one hit deeper than my slap ever could.
His mask cracked just slightly—like water hitting hot iron. Then it reformed, colder, crueler.
“If you walk off this deck, Beth,” he said, voice like a closing door, “don’t expect me to fetch you.”
My heart hammered so hard it hurt. “Who said I want you to?”
I reached for the coat he once threw over my shoulders during the cold night—black, heavy, lined with silver-threaded waves. A coat I never admitted gave me comfort. That stupid night I almost kissed him still burned between us like embers refusing to die.
The coat smelled like salt and rum and storms.
I threw it at his chest. Gasps from the crew. A few stepped back instinctively. Alaric caught it without blinking.
“My debt to you ends here,” I said.
“You have no idea what you’re walking into,” he murmured.
“I’ll find out.”
My voice broke—not with fear, but with terrible, reckless certainty.
I turned without permission. Without looking back. Each step down the gangplank felt like ripping threads from my own skin. The port roared around me—vendors yelling, whores calling sailors, dogs barking—chaos and life and freedom and danger.
Behind me:
“Let her go,” Alaric ordered. Not shouted. Not pleaded.
Cold.
Kaine’s voice followed, softer, almost regretful. “You sure, captain?”
Alaric didn’t answer.
I felt dozens of eyes burning into my back—crew wondering if I’d survive, if I’d crawl back begging, if I’d prove him right. If this was my death sentence.
Maybe it was.
But I kept walking.
Boots hitting dock wood. Heart hitting ribs. Every breath is a knife. I didn’t look back. Because if I did, I wasn’t sure I could keep going.
The sea wind whipped hair into my face. Tears pressed hot behind lids—but I didn’t let them fall. Not here. Not where pirates could feed on weakness like sharks.
I reached the busy street—and only then let out a breath that felt like chains breaking.
For the first time since the wedding, I walked a path that was mine.
No captain. No ship. No Alaric. Just me—a girl with blood on her hands, fire in her chest, and three months to save her father before the blade fell.
I squared my shoulders at the roaring city.
Let the world come for me.
I would not kneel.