POV: Beth
The sea rocks us to sleep, but when midnight sinks deep enough to drown every sound except the slow breathing of men who trust the dark too much, I fall into a dream that feels like drowning.
Not a normal dream.
A memory twisted by prophecy.
Rain lashes like whips across the deck of some old ship built of bones and shadow. Lightning cracks open the sky, silver like a blade. And there she stands—my mother—hair soaked, dress torn, eyes wild with love and terror. She screams into the storm, “Come back!” Her voice is raw, desperate, breaking.
A man stands on the mast above her. No. Not just a man. A pirate. Tall, broad-shouldered, coat whipping like wings. Thunder lights his face—and I choke.
His eyes. My eyes. Sea-green with a ring of gold around the pupil. A mirror.
He grins into death like it’s an old joke only he gets. “For love, I’d burn kingdoms!” he shouts back, voice like wind and thunder combined. He leaps into the storm. Into the sea.
My mother collapses, sobbing. Her hand reaches toward me through the dream, through time, through the impossible.
“Find him at the end of the world,” a voice whispers—not hers. Something older. Tidal. Morwenna, ghost queen. “Daughter of the drowned king…”
I’m yanked awake with a scream so sharp it could cut the mast in half.
My chest is wet with sweat—or seawater? I can’t tell. My fingers shake so violently I clutch the sheets just to keep from falling apart. I gasp like someone held me underwater. My throat burns. I hear footsteps—heavy, controlled, someone who doesn't run unless the world is ending.
My door swings open without permission.
Alaric stands there, hair messy, chest bare, sword in hand. For a second he looks like the nightmare’s pirate. Storm in flesh. Madness in bone.
His eyes lock on me—fear flickers, quickly buried. “What happened?” he demands.
“I—” My voice breaks. Not strong enough. I hate that. I swallow hard. “A dream. A vision. She—he—”
I don’t know how to form words. My lungs are full of saltwater that isn't there.
Alaric steps inside slowly, as if approaching something wounded that might bite. “You screamed like you were dying,” he mutters, sheathing his blade. The way his jaw clenches betrays concern he'd rather cut off his hand than admit.
I wipe my face. Fingers tremble. “I saw my mother.”
That surprises him. His brows lift. He isn’t mocking me yet.
“She was crying. Storm everywhere. She called to a man and—Alaric, he had my eyes.” My voice cracks. Damn it. I hate crying. It feels like weakness, like chains. But the tears come anyway, hot and humiliating. “He jumped. He was smiling. Like dying was nothing to him.”
Alaric’s face tightens—not with pity, something sharper. Something like recognition. “Dreams from Morwenna?” he asks lowly.
I nod.
He exhales, sits at edge of my bunk uninvited. Too close. Too warm. He rests his elbows on his knees, pretending he’s just tired, but I see the way he watches me from the corner of his eye. “Tell me everything,” he orders.
I laugh bitterly. “Why? So you can call it madness too?”
He turns his head slowly, gaze burning. “Beth.” My name isn’t a word anymore—it’s a warning, a tether. “If Morwenna sent it, it matters. Speak.”
So I do. I tell him about my mother, her tears, the pirate with my eyes. I tell him how my parents lived like nobles but poverty gnawed at us quietly, how I trained to marry the Prince like a fool chasing fairy tales. How Rowan was my future. How everything I dreamed shattered the night I boarded Alaric’s damn ship.
Words spill too fast. Pain surfaces like broken glass. “I thought my real father was a dead nobody,” I choke. “But if he was saltborn pirate blood—if Morwenna called him king—then everything… everything makes sense and nothing does.”
I look at Alaric.
And hate that I want him to understand me.
For a moment he’s silent, jaw tight, throat bobbing. He looks like he wants to say something real, something raw—but pride chains him like iron.
Instead he stands.
Typical.
He moves closer, bends slightly so we’re eye level. His voice drops to a husky whisper, uneven. “You are storm-touched,” he says. “Saltborn. Maybe meant for more than any of us.”
It’s almost gentle. Almost.
But then I break.
“Meant for what?” I snap, tears falling again. “To be hunted? Used? Crowned queen of monsters? I never wanted this—any of it!”
Alaric’s eyes flash—sympathy or rage, I can’t tell. “You think I wanted my crown?” he retorts, voice sharp like steel. “Power isn't chosen. It’s inherited like scars.”
We stare. Fire meets hurricane.
And suddenly I’m angry. At him. At fate. At everything.
“You act like you understand, but you don’t!” I shove him weakly. He doesn't fight back. “You mock me, you order me, you push me away like I’m a curse—”
“Because you terrify me,” he says.
My breath stops.
His eyes widen just slightly—he didn’t mean to say that aloud. Pride betrays him too late.
The cabin is suffocating silence.
He steps back abruptly, mask sliding over the crack like armor slammed shut. “Get some sleep,” he mutters—voice rough, wounded. He turns to go.
Something inside me fractures.
“You can’t just walk away after saying that!” I shout.
He freezes at the door. Shoulders tight. He doesn’t turn. “If I stay,” he says quietly, “I’ll say more.”
He leaves.
The door shuts softly, and that softness hurts worse than any slam.
I sit alone in the dark, chest burning like salt in fresh wound, clutching a dream that tasted like a father I never knew—and a captain who's too afraid to touch what burns him.