POV: Beth
Cold rain turns stone docks into slick mirrors reflecting chaos. Shouts echo from the fortress behind us, boots slamming wood, hounds barking with hunger for blood. My lungs burn. Every breath tastes like smoke and salt. I run because Alaric drags me forward, not because courage lives in me. If he let go, I think I would collapse where I stand.
“Keep up, princess,” he snaps, barely glancing back.
“I am trying—” My voice breaks, half swallowed by thunder.
“Try quieter,” he mutters, amused and irritated at once. “Guards are slow, but you scream like beacon.”
Anger sparks through fear. “Maybe if you didn’t kill half of them—”
“That was me being merciful.”
He says it like weather, unemotional. My stomach twists. Behind us, soldiers flood the docks with torches, shadows stretching long across rain-washed planks. The nearest sentry spots us, horns blare. Crossbows rise.
Arrows whistle.
Alaric jerks me sideways. A bolt embeds where my head was a breath ago. Wood splinters. Rain dances around sharp steel tip.
He yanks me again. “Boat. Now.”
We sprint through stacked barrels and tangled nets. My slippers are gone, torn off somewhere in the dungeon tunnel. Bare feet slap wet wood until skin splits. The world is pain, noise, darkness.
A soldier leaps from shadows, blade raised. Alaric doesn’t slow. He slams into him like tidal wave, elbow cracking jaw. Another swings sword. Alaric catches wrist mid-arc and twists; bone snaps loud enough to echo. The man screams. Alaric kicks him over the dock edge.
He fights without hesitation, like violence is art he mastered long ago. One soldier thrusts spear toward me. I freeze. Terror chains me. I can’t think, I can’t breathe.
Alaric intercepts the spear, stabbing its own wielder with cruel ease.
“You’re useless in fight,” he mutters.
“I have never— I’m not—”
“Well, learn fast. World won’t wait for noble manners.”
Heat floods cheeks, shame and fury tangled. But no time to reply—more guards appear, flooding docks. Alaric grabs a rope and drags me toward a tiny fishing boat tied loosely to pier.
“That?” I stare. “It’ll break in this storm.”
“So will you if you stay.”
He shoves me onto the rocking deck. The boat bucks wildly, waves slapping hull like open palms. I grip side, knuckles bone-white.
Arrows rain from pier. One grazes my arm. Pain flares hot. I gasp. Alaric jumps in, slicing rope with stolen dagger. Rain lashes his face. He grabs oars but thrusts them into my hands.
“Row.”
“I—I’ve never—”
“You wanted your father saved. Row.”
Wind roars like beast. My arms shake. I plunge oars and push, water heavy as stone, world spinning. The boat jerks forward inch by inch. Alaric crouches at bow like dark statue, watching shadows across water.
Guards reach edge of dock, shouting. Torches hurl fire reflections onto waves. Crossbows take aim again.
Alaric throws me onto bottom of boat mid-row, covering my body with his as bolts rain overhead. Wood thunks. One arrow pierces the gunwale inches from my hair. His breath warms my ear.
“Move only when I say,” he murmurs.
I hate that my trembling eases just because he sounds certain.
When silence briefly follows arrow hail, he rises and pushes me back to oars. “Row west. Toward the storm.”
“You’re insane.”
“Likely. Faster.”
Lightning claws sky. The sea swells enormous, alive like something breathing beneath surface. Waves lift boat high, then drop it with bone-rattling force. Salt spray blinds. Hair whips across the face.
I row. Arms burn. Hands blister. Tears mix with rain so no one sees them but me.
“Why did you save me?” I shout over thunder. “You could’ve escaped alone.”
“I need a bargaining chip. Governor’s daughter buys favors.” He shrugs as if I’m cargo, not person.
“I trusted you!”
“You trusted a stranger in chains. Poor decision-making, princess.”
Rage surges. “Stop calling me princess. I am nothing now.”
He studies me for long moment—no pity, just recognition of ruined dreams like fresh wounds.
“You still believe life is fair,” he says. “It will eat you.”
Lightning splits sky, white tearing darkness apart. Clouds churn green-black. Storm swallows moon. Waves tower. I row harder because if I stop, storm will take us.
Wind howls like a grieving choir. Water slams the boat sideways; we nearly capsize. I scream. Alaric grips railing, balancing like a storm on the dance floor.
“You cry too much.”
“My father is in dungeon waiting to die!” My voice cracks. “My wedding ruined! I was humiliated in front of the kingdom! I don’t even understand why! And now I’m in storm with a pirate who acts like he owns the sea!”
“I don’t act,” he replies quietly. “I do.”
Thunder swallows ocean. For a beat, only sound is oars scraping water and my ragged breathing.
Wind shifts cold as grave and sea shivers. Something ancient moves beneath dark waves—massive shadow gliding under the boat, slow, curious. I freeze. Alaric’s eyes flick to water, jaw tensing briefly. Not fear. Respect.
“The sea is watching,” he murmurs, voice lowered like prayer or warning.
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll learn. If you live.”
I bite back sob. “I want to go home.”
“There is no home for pirate-marked,” he says without softness.
The word stings. Pirate-spawn, tainted. The memory of gasps in the cathedral cuts deeper than storm winds.
“I am not pirate-blood,” I whisper. “It must be mistake.”
He raises brow. “You really don’t know?”
“Know what?”
He studies my face, expression unreadable for once. Then quietly: “Rowan is not your real father.”
Everything inside me stops.
“That’s a lie.” My voice trembles.
“He raised you. Doesn’t make you his blood.”
“No—no. He would’ve told me.”
“Would he? Or did he hide the mark instead?” His gaze drops to my wrist beneath a soaked sleeve.
The pirate mark burns like shame. My breath thins, chest tight. The storm sounds distant, muffled like underwater.
“You’re cruel,” I choke.
“I’m honest. You asked.”
Tears spill—hot, humiliating. I curl forward, bury my face in my arms. Waves rock the boat, oars slip from grasp. I cry not gently but broken—ruined princess sobbing into storm.
Alaric watches, unmoved. “Crying wastes breath. Storm doesn’t care.”
His indifference hurts more than truth. I clutch boat’s edge like it's the only thing stopping me from sinking in grief.
He turns away, scanning the horizon for pursuit. “Row when done.”
“I hate you,” I whisper.
“Good,” he replies. “Hate breeds survival.”
Lightning flashes again—not white but strange blue, illuminating sea like living pulse. For heartbeat, water glows as if veins of magic run through deep. A vast shadow turns just beneath surface—enormous, ancient.
My breath catches. The ocean is not just water—it watches. I begin wondering if I ever knew anything about this world in the first place.