POV: Beth
For a moment, everything was very quiet.
Not because the street was silent—it was full of noise. People shouting, carts creaking, a dog barking furiously at something it didn’t understand. But inside my head, there was only the thud of my heart and the officer’s voice echoing:
You’re coming with us.
Cass stepped slightly in front of me, knife drawn, teeth bared. “You’ll have to cut through us first.”
The officer chuckled. “Gladly.” He lifted his hand. “Take—”
“Now this,” a lazy voice cut in, “seems unfair.”
The sound slid across the street like oil: smooth, unhurried, wrong for the moment. The navy line shifted as some turned to look.
Silas stood at the mouth of the alley we’d just cleared, hands loosely behind his back, cloak barely disturbed by the wind. His men flanked him, but they hadn’t drawn weapons. They didn’t look worried. They looked bored.
The officer’s jaw tightened. “This is official royal business. Step aside, pirate.”
“Pirate?” Silas echoed mildly. “You wound me, Lieutenant. I’m a respectable businessman these days.”
He walked forward with the kind of confidence only very dangerous men had—the kind who knew the world would bend or break around them before they did. He stopped a few paces away from the officer, close enough to speak softly and still be heard.
“You’ve made a mistake,” Silas said.
The officer scoffed. “I know exactly who she is.”
“Do you?” Silas tilted his head. His eyes flicked over me once—quick, assessing, something like amusement flickering at the edge—and then returned to the officer. “Because the girl you want is in a cell three ports south. Caught trying to bribe the wrong harbor master. I heard the news myself this morning.”
My breath caught. He lied as easily as breathing.
“You think I haven’t seen her face?” the officer snapped, waving the poster. “You think I’d fall for—”
Silas stepped closer, invading his space without any weapon drawn. “I think you’re ambitious enough to want this bounty,” he said softly. “And I think you’re terrified of taking the wrong girl back to a prince who’s already angry.”
That made the officer pause.
Silas’s voice lowered further, intimate and calm. “What will Adrian do when he finds out you dragged in some tavern girl with a smudge of resemblance and paraded her as his prize? Will he laugh and say, ‘Well tried’? Or will he decide you’ve wasted his time?”
A muscle jumped in the officer’s jaw.
Silas continued, gentle as a blade sliding between ribs. “You know what happens to men who embarrass princes. They don’t get promoted. They… vanish.”
The officer’s eyes darted to me, then back. Doubt seeped into his anger.
“If I were you,” Silas said, “I’d verify before you risk your career. Send a rider to confirm the prisoner south. Wait for word. You’ll lose nothing but a day or two. The girl you want isn’t going anywhere. She’s worth too much to die in a gutter, yes?”
The street held its breath.
Cass shot me a quick look that said, Do not move. I didn’t. My legs were threat and jelly combined.
“You have no authority here,” the officer said, but his voice had lost some of its edge.
“On the contrary,” Silas replied. “I have the authority of someone who prefers not to see needless bloodshed in markets where I conduct business. You start hacking up women in the street, the merchants panic. Panicked merchants pay less tax. Princes get angry. See how everything circles back to your future?”
It was almost funny. Almost.
The officer hesitated, then jerked his chin at his men. “Bind her hands. If we’re wrong, we’ll apologize after—”
Silas sighed, almost theatrically. “I was being polite.”
He lifted his hand.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then his men moved.
It wasn’t a brawl. It wasn’t a wild clash like the tavern fights I’d grown used to. It was surgical. Precise.
One snapped a soldier’s wrist before the man could fully draw his sword. Another stepped inside a thrust, elbowed the attacker’s throat, and he went down choking. A third kicked a knee sideways; a crack, a scream, a body on the ground. Two were disarmed before their blades cleared their sheaths.
Cass didn’t need instructions. She darted in to take advantage of the confusion, slashing a forearm, ducking under a swing. I moved on reflex, knife flashing clumsier but still sharp.
“Hold!” the officer barked, stumbling back, trying to rally his men.
Silas never took his hands from behind his back.
He walked through the chaos with the same calm he’d worn in the tavern, dodging the occasional wild swing without bother. When one soldier lunged straight at him, sword high, Silas simply stepped aside, kicked his ankle out, and let the man crash face-first into a barrel.
“You’re outnumbered,” the officer panted. “We’ll call reinforcements—”
“No,” Silas said quietly.
He moved at last. His hand snapped out, catching the officer’s wrist mid-draw. In the same motion, he twisted, sending the sword clattering away, and used his other hand to tap something at the base of the officer’s neck. The man’s eyes rolled back. He crumpled bonelessly.
Silas let him drop like a piece of trash.
The street went very still.
The remaining navy men eyed the bodies around them, their injured comrades, the dark eyes of Silas’s men, the smuggler women, the watching crowd. The bounty might have been large, but no coin was worth dying for a lieutenant who was face-down in the dirt.
“Pick him up,” Silas said, voice cold now. “Walk away. Tell your prince you found nothing here but cowards who hide behind posters.”
One soldier swallowed. “This isn’t over.”
“It never is,” Silas answered. “That’s what makes it fun.”
They dragged their unconscious officer away. Muttering. Limping. Throwing us last glares. The crowd slowly resumed breathing, tension oozing out like pus from a cut.
Silas turned to me.
“You have a talent,” he said conversationally. “Trouble grows wherever you step.”
I sheathed my knife with hands that still trembled. “You followed me.”
“Of course,” he said. “You scream without opening your mouth. Even the sea could hear your panic.”
Cass bristled, stepping closer to me. “We had it under control.”
“No, you didn’t,” Silas said, not unkindly. “You would have fought bravely and died messily.” His gaze slid back to me. “I prefer my investments alive.”
I flinched. “I’m not—”
“Spare me the speech,” he said. “I know you are no one’s property. I am simply honest about the fact that you matter to the board I’m playing on.”
Rhea appeared at the end of the street, having fought from another direction. Blood streaked her sleeve—but not her own. She took in the scene quickly, eyes landing on Silas.
“Grateful,” she said flatly. “Suspicious. Both can be true.”
Silas inclined his head, but his eyes stay on me. “I like you.”
He stepped closer to me, within reach but not touching. The alley suddenly felt smaller; the air, thicker.
“Come with me,” he said. “I have a safe house two streets over. No posters on the walls. No navy dogs sniffing at the door. You can rest, dry off, think about how very short your odds are without allies who can do more than swing knives.”
A younger version of me might have said yes without thinking. The girl who had cried in the dungeon would have grabbed any offered hand. The girl on the church steps had trusted a prince with a smile and empty promises.
I looked at Silas now and saw what he truly was.
Not a savior.
A storm that let you cling to the eye as long as you entertained him.
“Why?” I asked. “So you can lock the door behind me? Dress me in new chains? Trade me later when it suits you?”
He smiled faintly. “You think so little of me.”
“I think you see people as pieces,” I said. “And I’m tired of being moved.”
His eyes flickered with something that might have been respect. “You’re learning.”
“I’m not going with you,” I said.
Cass hissed softly. “Beth—”
Silas did not flinch. Did not scowl. Did not threaten.
He just nodded once. “Very well.”
“That’s it?” I asked, thrown by how easy he took it.
“You bleed, you fight, you refuse me,” he said lightly. “If I forced you, you’d lose the very thing that makes you valuable.” He shrugged. “Besides, I enjoy watching you try to survive without me. It’s… entertaining.”
I wanted to be angry. Instead, I felt… exposed.
“What happens next?” I asked quietly.
“You keep running,” he said. “You keep stealing, stabbing, growing teeth.” His eyes hardened. “And the prince tightens his net around your father’s throat.”
My chest ached.
“He will move the execution date sooner now,” Silas added. “You embarrassed his men today. He’ll answer with haste.”
“How do you know?” I whispered.
“I listen,” he said simply. “To the sea. To gossip. To terrified lieutenants who talk when drunk.” His gaze didn’t soften, but his voice did. “You are running out of time, Beth.”
“I know,” I said.
He studied me for a long moment. “When you are done testing how far courage goes without power, come find me.” He stepped back. “I’ll still be here. The sea isn’t going anywhere.”
“Neither is Alaric,” I said before I could stop myself.
Something flickered in his eyes at the name—the faint, electric tension of rivalry. “No,” Silas agreed. “And he will not find you before I do, if you keep hiding on land.”
Rhea stepped forward, putting herself slightly between us. “She’s with us for now.”
“For now,” Silas echoed.
He turned and walked away, cloak trailing like a shadow. His men followed without a word. Within heartbeats, he was just another shape sliding into the crowd, as if he hadn’t just turned a royal ambush into a lesson.
“You could have gone,” Cass said quietly.
“I know,” I answered.
“Do you feel safer?” Rhea asked.
I thought of Silas’s hand on my wrist. Of Alaric’s bloody grin in the dungeon. Of Adrian’s cold eyes.
“No,” I said. “But I feel like I still belong to myself.”
Rhea’s lips twitched. “That’s worth more than gold, some days.”
We walked away from the scene, navy blood and pride staining the cobblestones behind us, wanted posters with my face fluttering in the damp wind.
Silas had saved my life.
And somehow, that terrified me almost as much as if he hadn’t.