JAMES
I don’t know what to expect as the guards escort me out of the castle depths, but it certainly surprises me when we stop at a set of double doors that don’t lead to the throne room.
The guards posted outside push them open and we walk into a large study.
The warmth of the fireplace crackling across the room is a welcome relief from the damp bowels of the dungeons.
The smell of books, ink and—something else, permeates the space.
Caspian has his back to the door as I walk in. “Leave us.”
The guard hesitates for only a moment. Caspian peers over his shoulder; his stare hardening in a way that leaves no room for arguing. It’s that same arrogance he’d displayed on the ship except this time, I know the reason he carries himself like this.
The guard bows and retreats, closing the door with a soft click behind him.
Caspian resumes perusing the books before pulling one from a shelf.
He flips through it and stops on a page before making his way over to his desk.
He takes a slip of paper and marks the page before closing it and setting it down.
Only then does he turn his full attention on me, his amusement back in full force.
He crosses his arms over his chest; his eyes glint in the soft light as he takes me in.
His attention catches on the fresh cuts on my face, courtesy of the guards earlier, and as his eyes travel down my body, his amusement fades and his mouth tightens with displeasure at the state of me.
Seeing him again is making my blood heat in irritating ways and I don’t like how those eyes feel almost possessive of me.
“I was right,” I say.
Caspian’s attention lifts and a genuine smile appears on his face. The shadow is still there behind his eyes but I can tell he’s trying to mask it.
“Looks that way,” he chuckles. “Not just any De’Vero noble though.”
He studies my face and when my mouth creases with annoyance, his grin simply widens.
“I’m sure after the ordeal of letting nobility slip through your fingers and your unfortunate capture, you’re quite abashed.” He pulls out a key and tosses it to me. “Don’t worry, Captain, I’m about to make it all better.”
He waves his hand at me and makes his way around the desk.
“Take those off and have a seat.”
I watch him sink into his chair and throw his feet up on the corner. I unlock the manacles, letting them drop before sitting down in one of two armchairs facing him. The crackling of the fire is the only sound for several long moments as we stare at each other.
“I hope the accommodations have been satisfactory.” I look at him in annoyance and he just grins. “Not in the mood—fine, this might put a smile on your face: I need your help.” He sighs out the sentence like it costs him to speak the words.
“My help?” I ask incredulously. “You’re the reason I’m about to hang and you want my help?”
“Oh, you won’t hang.” He waves his hand and makes a face like it’s no big deal.
“The King—your father —” I grind out. “Was pretty clear—”
“You won’t hang because you won’t be around for them to hang. If you accept my offer of course.”
I run a hand over my face and shake my head. “Enough with the fucking riddles and questions on top of questions. Just tell me what you want.”
“I came across some information recently that needs to be handled delicately.”
My eyebrows jump up at the irony. “And you think asking a pirate for help is the way to go about that?”
“I do—because it involves gold, and by delicately, I mean I don’t need my father or brother catching wind of what I’m doing.”
I settle back in my chair, regarding him with curiosity. “Go on.”
“I need a ship and a crew with the ability to sail the Straights.”
“That’s Kraken territory.”
“Aye,” Caspian nods once. “Through pirate-infested waters, Kraken territory—” He looks at me slyly. “—then further north. ”
“The Stormwrack? No one sails up there.”
“That’s why I need the best,” he says. “I need you , Captain.”
The way he says those words causes fire to curl inside my veins, but I shove it down and regard him with a tilt of my head as my hunger and thirst-addled brain thinks over why he’d want me to travel some of the most dangerous seas in the world.
“I’m not some privateer you can hire for your amusement—” I trail off as I watch him shake his head and a gleam of hunger settles on his face.
“I know I seem like a degenerate, but humor me for a moment and think bigger, Captain.”
I run a hand over my jaw, realization hitting me. But he can’t be talking about what I think he is—
“It doesn’t exist. You know that right? Whatever information you’ve come by is probably fake.”
The prince shrugs, but he’s obviously enjoying the buildup to whatever storm he’s about to drop on me.
“I heard a rumor you’ve sailed up there before,” he says instead.
“Aye—and I didn’t find anything.”
My tone makes it very clear that if I didn’t find anything, no one was going to find anything. I’d sailed the Stormwrack on multiple occasions, searching for the lost city, and never turned up with anything but a lot of false information, dead ends, and close calls with death.
“Maybe you just didn’t know where to look,” Caspian says.
“And you do?”
In answer, he drops his feet off the desk and goes over to a cart with different bottles of rum and whiskey. He pours rum into two glasses and walks back over. Handing me one, he retreats to perch on the edge of his desk, swirling the golden liquid.
“I came by a map not only showing where Grythmoor is, but giving exact coordinates.”
“Where’s the map?”
“I burned it,” Caspian says, looking slightly apologetic about it.
“You burned it.” I shake my head. “And you expect me to just trust you?”
“Yup,” he takes a sip of rum.
I wait for him to continue but he doesn’t. We stare at each other. The rum is forgotten in my hands as my mind races.
What if it is real? Even the slightest possibility of it being true is enough to create a spark in my veins—the thirst for adventure, gold and the unknown.
Not to mention a way for me to escape the noose.
There’s also maybe a part of me that wants to have more time with Caspian—you know, since I’m finally getting the answers I was looking for in the first place.
But I still have a massive problem—
“You’re a De’Vero. There’s no way I’m helping my sworn enemy get rich—no, not just rich— powerful beyond measure.”
“Right,” Caspian nods. “I was hoping our time together could have gotten us past that—”
“You’re a fucking De’Vero prince ,” I interrupt sharply. “If you were just a noble,” I tilt my head. “Maybe— unlikely —but I will admit, I still hadn’t decided whether or not I was going to kill you.”
“And now you’ve decided?” Caspian says in amusement. I frown, and when I don’t answer right away, he smirks. “I see.”
He downs his rum and walks over to refill his glass. “Captain, you do remember I said I don’t want my father and brother finding out about this, yes?”
“Aye.”
“If I were going to make my Kingdom rich, don’t you think I’d include them in the plans? If I did, I’d certainly be able to make this an actual expedition—hell, I probably wouldn’t even need to ask for your help with all the resources I could have at my disposal.”
He has a point but the implications are making my head spin.
I down the rum, hoping it helps. Caspian brings the bottle over to his desk with him.
He takes a moment to refill my glass before leaning on the edge again.
His face is serious now, in fact there’s a glint of steel in his eyes I’ve only seen once before—when I’d caught him fresh from a nightmare. It’s more pronounced now, more violent.
“I want to make something clear to you, Captain,” he says.
“I do not want to make my kingdom rich. I don’t even want to make my House rich—this money will not be used to help those—” His words have venom in them but he cuts himself off and inhales slowly before speaking again, composed once more.
“The split will be even. You would have enough money to counteract anything I do with my share, of that I’m certain.
Not only that, but you’d then know the location of the gold and could potentially continue to return for more. ”
I’m gawking at him. Openly, and without restraint, because I cannot believe what he’s just said. It’s downright unbelievable. I throw back my rum and he lifts the bottle in a question. I nod, still trying to wrap my mind around everything. He refills my glass and I sit back, shaking my head.
“How do I know you won’t double-cross me?” I ask. “There was a chance I would have done that to you.”
His smirk returns. “You wouldn’t have double-crossed me.”
“Oh?”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m fairly certain of it. But you’re right, it is a risk. For both of us.”
Caspian straightens and turns towards his desk where he fiddles with the book he pulled from the shelf earlier, tracing the cover with a finger before picking it up.
“But I think some things are worth the risk,” he glances up at me, his expression for once completely unreadable. “Wouldn’t you say, Captain?”
He holds out the book to me. “Some reading for you while you make your decision.”
I reach for the book, captivated by the intensity in his eyes. Can I look past who he is?
At least long enough to work together to retrieve the gold?
More gold than I even know what to do with in fact.
I’d been hesitant to kill him before; I could probably tap into that uncertainty again, until we both get what we want.
Or if I want to be honest with myself—I’d say to tap into my curiosity.
I could also double-cross him. But dammit, he’s right; I wouldn’t do that. I don’t know why yet, just that the feeling it invokes in me doesn’t sit right. I shy away from what that means.
Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more I realize I’d benefit more from accepting his offer than by sticking with my vendetta. At least in the short term.
I look down at the book in my hand and can’t help my jolt of surprise.
It’s a copy of the book of poetry I have in my cabin.
During my silence, Caspian has moved behind me towards the door and I vaguely hear him knock twice while I stare at the book cover.
I stand up and look towards the door to see two guards enter to escort me out.
I take a step towards them and stumble, a wave of dizziness sweeping over me—whether from the rum or lack of food and water, the room tilts precariously.
A hand latches onto my arm and Caspian is there, the warmth of him searing into my skin.
I yank my arm out of his grasp quickly but can’t quite bring myself to step away.
“This won’t change my mind about taking down De’Vero.” My words are harsh because I need to create space with something, even if my body refuses to step away from him.
Caspian’s eyes sharpen, alight with fire. “Which won’t—the book or the gold?”
“Both,” I reply, my voice more breathless than I care to admit.
I watch his attention snag on my lips—that’s the second fucking time now and I have to fight the urge to not look at his.
I don’t think I want him to close the distance all the way but I’m also surprised to find I’m not opposed to it.
He meets my eyes again and leans in. Something heavy sits in the air between us and I hardly dare to breathe.
I realize the other scent lingering in the air is purely Caspian—spice, bergamot and the sea.
My jaw tightens in an effort to keep my breathing even.
“Good thing I’m not asking you to.” His thumb sweeps across my jaw—it’s casual, quick and so feather light I can almost pretend it didn’t happen— almost .
He pulls a handkerchief from somewhere and thrusts it at me.
When his hand lands on my chest, everything ignites within me, radiating out from his touch.
He has a soft smirk on his face. “You’re bleeding all over my study, Captain.”
It takes me a moment longer than decent to grasp the fabric.
I’m sure he can feel my heart, and how short my breath has become.
He steps away but the smug look remains and I know he’s in control of all of this.
It irks me to no end, but even more frustrating, my irritation does nothing to diminish this ache that’s taken hold inside me.
A guard grabs my arm, jolting me back to reality and hauls me towards the door. Just before I’m dragged through the doorway, I have time to see the hand he touched me with flex at his side, and his chest rise with a shuddering breath before he’s gone.
Once back in my cell, I immediately sit and open the book. The paper Caspian used to mark a page falls out onto my lap. Written in neat, looping script, are five lines:
To trace the scars without asking for their stories,
to know that he is both the wreckage and the wave
—the steel and the surrender
nothing more than a man, aching
under the weight of his own name .
I re-read the lines more than a few times, then I spend the next few minutes flipping through the book trying to find the poem those lines are from only to come up with nothing.
Did he write them? That thought stalls all other thoughts for a long time and that ache in my chest is back.
This is now the second time he’s written down something not from our mutually shared book.
I turn back to the page he’s marked.
A crown of iron,
presses against the throat like steel—
to carry it is to stand upon the edge of a blade,
to know the world will carve its truth into your flesh
Etched into driftwood and forgotten wrecks,
legacies were never meant to last—
salt wears them smooth,
leaving only echoes where Kings once stood
And on the facing page:
Monsters do not hide—
they walk in the shape of man,
violence wrapped around broken pieces
Edges sharpened, but fragile still
Hands reach in the dark,
Clawing—
Tangled in something raw and ruinous.
They keep going, because
Monsters do not hide—
They escape