POV: Beth
The women found me first.
Not in some dramatic alleyway ambush or knife-to-throat introduction. They found me because I carried too many crates for one person and refused to drop any.
“Stubborn thing, aren’t you?” a voice called from behind.
I turned, panting, arms full of salted fish crates nearly taller than me. Three women leaned against the side of a nearby warehouse, half in shadow, half in fading sunlight. Their clothes were practical, worn, not meant to impress. Knives at hips. Smugness in posture.
The tallest had dark brown hair braided tight, a scar splitting one eyebrow. The second was short and freckled, with sleeves rolled to show muscled forearms. The third lounged like a cat, red scarf around her throat, eyes amused and sharp.
“Depends who’s asking,” I managed.
“Rhea,” the tall one said. She nodded toward her companions. “Cass. Lotti.”
“Mae,” I replied automatically.
“Mae,” Rhea repeated slowly, as if tasting the lie and finding it acceptable. “We’ve watched you. You carry more than some men in this port. You don’t cry when they shout. You bit that gang’s nose off last week without lifting a blade.”
“I didn’t bite his nose,” I muttered. “I just… made him hit his friend.”
Lotti grinned. “You made four men hit each other with one bag of coins. That takes skill.”
Rhea tilted her head. “We run product. Things that need to move without paying taxes to captains or kings. We could use another pair of hands. And another knife.”
“I don’t…” I started.
Cass cut in. “You carry yourself like you want to stop wiping tables and start making coin that actually matters.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“What kind of product?” I asked slowly.
“Spice. Powder. Trinkets that fell off other people’s ships. Sometimes people, if we can get them out of chains instead of into them.” Rhea shrugged. “We’re not saints. But we’re not slavers either. You want honest work, go marry a baker. You want dangerous work that pays…” Her eyes flicked to my wrists, where my sleeves had ridden up a little. “…and lets you use what you are, you come with us tonight.”
I thought of Silas’ quiet offers. Of Alaric chasing bones. Of Rowan in a cell, time ticking away. Of my own hands, always scrubbing, always serving.
“What do you need me to do?” I asked.
Lotti’s smile widened. “That’s the spirit.”
***
By midnight, the port shifted into something else entirely.
Men who swaggered in daylight slunk with knives at night. Shadows stretched longer, sounds grew sharper. We moved like smoke—Rhea in front, Cass hauling a small chest, Lotti humming under her breath, and me, heart pounding, fingers tracing the knife tucked into my belt. Not Alaric’s training blades. This one was mine, bought with my own coin from a smith with more scars than teeth.
“We talk only when needed,” Rhea murmured. “We smile only when money’s on the table. If anything feels wrong, you listen to your gut and mine. Understood?”
“Yes,” I said.
We reached a narrow dock between two cargo ships. A lantern burned low at the end, where three men waited. Not the same as before. These ones looked more dangerous. Calculated. No drunk sway, no loud boasts. Their weapons were in easy reach, and their eyes were too clear.
“Rhea,” one greeted. “You’re late.”
“The tide doesn’t care for your clock, Jarvis,” she said mildly. “You have our coin?”
He lifted a pouch that jingled heavy. “You have our goods?”
Cass thumped the small chest lightly. “We do.”
Lotti stayed a half-step behind me, watching everything. I tried to mirror her stillness, though my insides felt like a shaken bottle.
The exchange seemed straightforward. Too straightforward.
Then Jarvis’ gaze slid to me. His eyes narrowed.
“New girl,” he said. “You keeping pets now?”
“If you’re worried she might bite,” Rhea said, “step closer and find out.”
His men laughed. Jarvis didn’t.
Instead, he nodded at me, eyes never leaving my face. “Come here, girl.”
Every instinct screamed no. But we’d agreed: listen to Rhea, follow her lead. She gave the slightest nod. I stepped forward.
Jarvis’ gaze dropped, not to my chest or hips, but to my wrists.
“Turn your hands,” he ordered.
I kept them at my sides. “Why?”
“Do it,” he snapped.
My heart pounded. Slowly, I turned my hands, palms out, sleeves shifting.
The mark flashed.
This time, there was no mocking laugh. Jarvis’ eyes sharpened like blades. He grabbed my wrist before I could snatch it away and yanked the sleeve up.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he breathed. “Prince Adrian’s little scandal girl. The pirate bride who ran.” His grin spread, feral. “They’re offering a fortune for you, girl. Half the port knows your description.”
My blood went cold. “Let go.”
He twisted my arm, forcing me to my knees. Pain shot up to my shoulder. “Forget the shipment,” he called to his men. “We’ve just struck gold.”
Cass swore under her breath, reaching for her knife. One of Jarvis’ men drew his faster, pressing it to her throat.
“Easy,” he warned.
Rhea’s voice was quiet, deadly calm. “You make a mistake tonight, Jarvis, you won’t live to spend a single coin.”
He laughed. “I won’t have to. I’ll be living in silk for the rest of my life. Governor’s bastard pirate daughter and the prince’s embarrassment? They’ll pay enough to buy three ships for her.”
My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I’d known, somewhere in the back of my skull, that bounties existed. That someone, somewhere, had drawn my face and pinned it to a board. Hearing it out loud made it real.
“And what do you think she’ll do?” Rhea asked. “Smile and go quietly?”
Jarvis sneered down at me. “She doesn’t have a choice.”
He was wrong.
Fear washed through me, hot and sharp. But behind it—under it—was something else. Something that had been growing since the church, since the dungeon, since the first time I held a blade. A seed planted by Alaric’s cruelty, watered by Silas’ promises, fed by every humiliation and every stolen breath.
I looked up at Jarvis. His fingers dug into my wrist. I could feel the mark burning, like it was reminding me what I was.
Saltblood.
“Let me go,” I said quietly.
“Or what?” he mocked. “You’ll cry?”
I smiled.
Then I moved.
I twisted my body the way Kaine had drilled into me a hundred times, ignoring my screams back then. Pain lanced my shoulder, but his grip slipped just enough. I brought my knee up, hard, between his legs.
He gasped, folding. His hand loosened.
I ripped my wrist free and lunged for my knife.
Time slowed—Jarvis stumbling back, his men jerking toward me, Rhea’s shout, Cass slamming her elbow back into the man holding her.
I didn’t think. Thinking was for girls who had guards.
I drove my knife upward.
It sank into Jarvis’ chest, just below his ribs. For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then his breath gusted out in a wet, shocked sound.
His eyes met mine, stunned, disbelieving. Blood blossomed around the blade, hot and sticky against my hand. He grabbed at my wrists, fingers clawing, then slipped. His weight sagged. I let go of the knife and he dropped to his knees, then to the dock, eyes already fading.
The world slammed back into motion.
Cass head-butted the man beside her, sending him staggering. Lotti’s knife flashed, quick and precise, leaving a red smile across another throat. He fell, clutching it, gurgling. The third man bolted, feet pounding into the dark.
Rhea didn’t chase. She stood still, chest rising and falling, gaze on me.
I stared at my hands.
They were slick with blood.
Not accident. Not panic swing. Not a desperate flail in a tavern brawl.
I had aimed. I had chosen. I had driven the blade in exactly where I meant to.
My stomach heaved. I swallowed hard against the urge to vomit.
“He was going to sell you,” Rhea said matter-of-factly. “You saved yourself. And us.”
I couldn’t answer. My throat had closed around something that tasted like iron and grief and… relief.
Because under the horror, beneath the nausea and the trembling, another feeling unfurled—
Triumph.
I had been the knife.
For once, I wasn’t the one on my knees.
Cass knelt by the body, tugged my knife free, wiped it on Jarvis’ coat, and pressed it back into my shaking hand. “You did well,” she said softly. “First kills are never clean.”
“I…” I swallowed. “I killed him.”
“Yes.” Lotti’s eyes were sharp, not unkind. “Welcome to the side that writes stories instead of just suffering them.”
Rain began again, fine and cold. I stared at the dark stain spreading beneath Jarvis, felt the dock tremble under my boots, heard the waves slapping against wood.
He had called me governor’s bastard. Prince’s scandal. Prize.
I had answered with steel.
I looked at my hands again and flexed my fingers slowly. They shook, then steadied.
“I won’t be sold,” I whispered.
Rhea’s mouth curled in a grim smile. “Not now. Not ever. Stay with us, Beth.”
My head snapped up.
She’d used my name. My real name.
“You knew?” I rasped.
“From the moment I saw you break that man’s nose with a bucket,” she said. “I’ve seen the prince’s posters. I don’t care who your father is. I care what you do when the blade’s in your hand.”
I exhaled, breath shuddering out of me.
The girl I’d been at the church would have fainted. The girl who’d cried in the dungeon would have begged. The girl who had called pirates demons now stood on a blood slick dock, heart pounding with something ugly and powerful.
A knife in bloom.