Chapter Text
The skies above Thantarra roared as if the gods themselves bore witness to a rebellion not yet begun.
Cloaked in stolen stillness, Prince Dunk climbed down the western palace wall. Each movement was fluid, practiced—not because he was trained for escape, but because he had dreamed of it for years. The marble gardens behind him glistened with dew, unaware they’d seen their last glimpse of the second prince. Ahead, beyond the cliff trail, the Thantarra Sea waited—vast, star-soaked, and free.
He landed softly on the grass, boots pressing into the mossy earth as a low whistle broke the night.
“You’re insane,” Phuwin whispered. “Absolutely deranged.”
Dunk turned with a grin. “You followed me anyway.”
Phuwin Tangsakyuen, son of the royal advisor, tightened his cloak. “Because if I didn’t, your corpse would end up in a fishing net tomorrow.”
Behind them, Fourth hopped down the wall with surprising grace for someone who is barely seventeen. Sword at his back and wide-eyed wonder in his face, he looked like a child stepping into a legend.
“I brought the maps,” Fourth said proudly, holding up a soaked scroll.
Dunk winced. “That’s not going to be helpful now.”
“Tell me again why we’re doing this?” Phuwin hissed as they crossed the quiet orchard.
Dunk grinned over his shoulder. “Because I’m tired of bowing to people who burn villages in my name.”
Phuwin didn’t smile. “You’ll be hunted for this.”
“Then I’ll run faster,” Dunk said.
The docks were quiet when they arrived. A ghost hour, where shadows curled at the edges of oil lamps and the guards slumbered with bellies full of plum wine.
The Raysworn, a slender scout ship once meant for royal ceremonies, waited like a loyal hound. Dunk had spent the past year refurbishing it under the guise of historical restoration. What they didn’t know was that the prince had learned every bolt, every knot, every splinter of its hull.
He ran his hand along the polished rail and exhaled.
“Let’s disappear,” he whispered.
***
Dunk Natachai leaned over the edge of the Raysworn, his fingers trailing in the sea spray. The moonlight kissed his pale-white skin, his expression unreadable, equal parts longing and defiance.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Phuwin said, stepping beside him with a tight frown.
“That’s not true,” Dunk replied, not turning to face him. “I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m choosing freedom.”
“And dragging us into exile with you?”
Fourth, seated by the mast with his sword across his lap, tilted his head. “Speak for yourself, Phu. I wanted out of the palace since I was ten.”
Phuwin crossed his arms. “You were ten. You thought the court was haunted.”
Fourth raised a finger. “Still do.”
Dunk chuckled quietly. The sound didn’t reach his eyes.
He’d always known the kingdom would never let him live the life he wanted. Born the second prince—heir only in name, never truly needed—Dunk was raised with golden chains. His father, a complicated man molded by a cruel court, loved him deeply but led with an iron fist. The elders, particularly the ever-watchful and power-hungry Lord Leo, had whispered from the moment of his birth: “A prince must serve. He cannot stray.”
But Dunk had always strayed.
From palace walls, from arranged meetings, from destiny itself.
And tonight, he had escaped entirely.
***
Three days passed on open water.
The sun painted Fourth’s cheeks gold as he lay sprawled on deck, humming to himself and cataloguing clouds. Phuwin kept notes of wind patterns and grain stores, muttering about the absurdity of their provisions every night. Dunk stood at the helm, barefoot and smiling, like he had everything and nothing at all.
But joy has a way of attracting storms.
The morning of the fourth day dawned cold. The sky had lost its color, the horizon a bruise of purple and gray.
“We're being followed,” Phuwin said, peering through the spyglass.
Fog rippled unnaturally along the sea’s surface. Something moved inside it—a ship. Massive, jagged, crawling forward like a beast waking from hibernation.
Its sails were torn but proud, fire-colored symbols stitched along their length. The hull was blackened, marked with years of battle.
At the prow, a carved phoenix spread its wings in a scream.
“The Phoenix Fang,” Fourth breathed. “Pirates.”
Dunk’s knuckles whitened. “No, it’s The Pirates.”
Phuwin paled and drew his blade. “Can we outrun them?”
Fourth shook his head. “No wind. We’re dead in the water.”
A cannonball struck the ocean a breath from the hull.
The ship groaned.
“Brace yourselves!” Dunk shouted.
The sea erupted into chaos.
Grappling hooks landed with deadly precision. Shadowy figures swung aboard with brutal grace. They moved like smoke, like the sea had taught them every step.
Among them was Pond Naravit—twin daggers dancing, laughing through the carnage.
“Hello, noble scholar!” he called. “Will you surrender with grace or with style?”
Phuwin met him with steel.
“I’m not just a scholar,” he hissed as their blades met.
“Good,” Pond grinned. “I like surprises.”
From the mast, a lithe figure dropped silently—Gemini. His weapon shimmered with notches from previous battles.
Fourth rushed him, eyes wild. “Back off!”
Gemini caught his arm mid-strike. “Easy, cutie.”
“You hit me!”
“Barely,” Gemini winked. “Still standing, aren’t you?”
Above them, silence fell for a heartbeat.
The Joong Archen had arrived.
He stepped onto the Raysworn like he owned it. His coat fluttered in the salty wind, pistol at his hip, sword gleaming. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.
“Prince Dunk Natachai of Thantarra,” he called.
Dunk stepped forward, bloodied but unbowed.
“You’re worth more alive than dead,” Joong said, voice smooth as polished stone. “So I suggest you don’t do anything stupid.”
“That depends,” Dunk replied, drawing his blade. “Do you consider fighting back stupid?”
Joong’s lips twitched. “I consider it amusing.”
They fought.
Sparks flew from steel. Dunk was a storm, erratic and passionate. Joong was the tide—calm, unrelenting, swallowing every move with precise counters.
“You don’t fight like a prince,” Joong muttered.
“You don’t look like a thief,” Dunk shot back.
Their swords locked. Their eyes met.
It wasn’t anger. Not entirely.
It was something else.
Joong flicked his wrist and sent Dunk’s sword flying.
“Bind him,” he ordered.
As his crew moved to obey, Dunk hissed, “You’re making a mistake.”
Joong leaned in. “The mistake was yours, thinking royalty meant anything here.”
***
The brig of the Phoenix Fang was colder than the sea.
Dunk sat chained, salt drying on his skin, rage simmering just below.
Joong stood at the bars, arms folded.
“You’ll regret this,” Dunk said.
“Your father burned a village for refusing to pay a tax on drought land,” Joong said coldly. “You regret nothing.”
Dunk’s voice cracked. “I didn’t ask to be born his son.”
Joong’s expression didn’t change. “But you still wear his crowns.”
“I had no choice.”
“Everyone has a choice.”
Dunk glared at him. “Is that what you told the orphans in Maenor Bay? That they chose to starve?”
Joong flinched. Barely.
“I’m not your enemy,” Dunk whispered.
Joong stared. “Then prove it.”
“How?”
“Tell me where the navy hides its ships.”
Dunk’s face twisted. “You think I’d betray Thantarra?”
Joong shrugged. “Didn’t you already?”
It hit harder than expected.
Because it might be true.
Because maybe running was betrayal.
Or maybe betrayal was the only way to do good.
Outside, the waves whispered things the sky didn’t dare say.
And the Phoenix Fang sailed deeper into legend.
***
The discovery of the hidden cargo shifted the energy of the Phoenix Fang like a snapped sail mid-storm.
Joong kept his silence, his grim hands lifted child-sized shackles from rotted straw and cracked crates. His looks spoke louder than any command.
Word spread quickly. Every member of the crew passed the story around like a cursed relic—grain rotting while villages starved, royal seals forged by greed, and the unmistakable smell of state-sanctioned cruelty.
The deck grew quiet over the next hours. Meals were eaten in silence. Laughs died halfway through. Even Pond didn’t make jokes.
Mae, who had once sung while oiling the ship’s rigging, stopped humming altogether. She was one of the younger crew members—sharp-tongued and quick with a blade. Though not high-ranking, her loyalty to Joong and her hatred for the crown were well-known.
Dunk noticed the shift, but it wasn’t until he found himself alone at dinner that he felt it in his bones.
Phuwin and Fourth sat a distance away, isolated not by order—but by atmosphere.
“I feel like we’re ghosts,” Fourth muttered, pushing a potato with his fork.
Phuwin looked around. “We’re not prisoners anymore.”
Fourth glanced at a pirate cleaning a blade just two feet away. “Aren’t we?”
But where Dunk had once been the only royal in chains, it became increasingly clear that none of the three fugitives were free.
Phuwin and Fourth were not tossed into the brig, but they were watched constantly. Meals were handed to them at arm’s length. Their movements were limited to the top deck and storage bay. Each member of the crew regarded them with a wary eye, some with barely concealed hostility.
Mae had once spat near Phuwin’s feet. “Another princeling who doesn’t know what blood tastes like,” she muttered.
Fourth fared only slightly better, the crews endearing themself through sparring matches with him—he was fast, precise, never cruel. But even as his bruises faded, the distance remained.
During drills, Mae kept her strikes on Fourth just a second too long. During inventory, Pond would ask Phuwin for the same confirmation twice—as if daring him to lie.
Fourth limped away from one particularly tough sparring session when Gemini found him.
“You're good,” Gemini said. “But they’re waiting to see if you’re good enough for them.”
“Do you think I am?” Fourth asked quietly.
Gemini shrugged. “You’re still standing.”
***
It was the next morning when Joong made a quiet but meaningful change.
He let Dunk walk unchained. Phuwin was handed the ship’s log to assist with planning. Fourth was invited to spar with Mae and Ton.
Still, the tension remained—simmering like a storm just below the horizon.
The breakthrough came two nights before the planned assault on Matan’s Point.
Matan’s Point was never meant to be a fortress. It had started as a trading outpost—a collection of granaries and warehouses nestled between two rocky hills, overlooking the southern bend of the river Kaew. But after the uprisings in the lower provinces, Leo had claimed it under “emergency decree.” Since then, it had become something darker.
Now, Matan’s Point functioned as a holding station for dissenters, a halfway prison between villages and labor camps. Reports described high wooden walls, iron gates, and a small watchtower overlooking the only passable trail. Few guards. Fewer supplies. But what it lacked in manpower, it made up for in message:
“Obey. Or disappear.”
.
.
.
.
The royals were eating on the deck when Joong called for attention.
“We’ll need more eyes,” he said. “More minds that know how Leo thinks.”
He looked directly at Phuwin.
“You read those ledgers like they were bedtime stories. I want you in the war room tomorrow.”
Phuwin nodded once, surprised.
Joong turned to Fourth. “You can move like a shadow. Tower duty’s yours.”
Fourth grinned, pride glowing across his face.
Finally, Joong looked at Dunk.
“You want to fight?” he asked. “Then learn how not to die.”
The sparring arena was just an open patch of deck near the prow, lit by lanterns and sea mist.
Dunk rolled his shoulders. “Just don’t tore my lip. It’s my best feature.”
Joong didn’t smile. “You’ve got ten minutes to prove you’re not decoration.”
They clashed.
Dunk was passionate—too passionate. He struck hard and wide, using emotion to fuel every swing.
Joong dodged most with ease, occasionally striking back with taps of the wooden blade.
“Don’t lead with your ego,” Joong warned.
Dunk growled, lunging. Joong sidestepped, knocking him down.
Again.
And again.
After the fifth fall, Dunk lay on his back, panting.
“You hate me,” he muttered.
Joong crouched beside him, pressing the tip of his sword against Dunk’s chest—lightly.
“I don’t,” Joong said. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”
Dunk looked up at him. “You really think we can win?”
Joong stood. “No. But I think we can stop them from winning.”
He offered his hand.
This time, Dunk took it.
***
Smoke still clung to the horizon long after Matan’s Point was reduced to ash.
The Phoenix Fang drifted at anchor two miles off the coast, its sails furled, the ship eerily quiet. Below deck, the scent of saltwater clashed with soil and the metallic tang of adrenaline. The silence was not peace—it was exhaustion, heavy and unfinished.
Dunk sat on the railing of the top deck, watching the sea swell against the rocks. His tunic was still torn from the skirmish. His hands bore the red marks of hastily tied rope and a too-tight sword grip. He didn’t feel like a prince. He barely felt human.
Joong stood beside him, arms crossed. Neither had spoken for minutes.
“They’ll be hunting us now,” Dunk said eventually.
“They were always hunting us,” Joong replied. “Now they just have better reasons.”
Dunk tilted his head. “Is that why you don’t sleep?”
Joong didn’t answer. His eyes remained on the fading black streak in the sky.
***
Below deck, the rescued villagers were huddled in the cargo hold. Most had never seen the ocean before. A boy clutched a broken wooden soldier. A woman wept without sound, not from grief but disbelief. They had been kept in cages. Now, they were cradled in a ship made of stolen wood and rebel rage.
Phuwin sat nearby, helping a teenage girl bandage her wrist.
“She said her name is Lin,” he told Mae. “She hasn’t spoken since the camp.”
Mae didn’t look at him. She dipped a cloth into a bucket and wrung it out slowly.
“This won’t be the last village,” she said. “Leo’s rot runs deeper than most rivers.”
Phuwin glanced toward the hull. “We should document everything. Witness statements. Ledgers. Anything we can gather.”
Mae finally met his eyes. “Then get writing, noble.”
She walked off.
Phuwin didn’t answer—but his hand moved for his satchel.
***
Pond sat in the corner of the ship’s kitchen, uncharacteristically still. A bottle of rum sat unopened in front of him.
Phuwin found him there later. “You're quiet.”
Pond didn’t look up. “That boy today. The one with the limp. He looked like my brother.”
Phuwin didn’t ask if his brother was alive.
“I wanted revenge for a long time,” Pond said. “But I think... what I really wanted was proof that I wasn’t crazy. That the system was broken.”
“You have it now.”
“Yeah,” Pond murmured. “Now I just feel hollow.”
Phuwin sat down beside him. “Good. That means you're still human.”
***
At the stern, Fourth crouched next to Gemini, both of them watching the stars emerge one by one.
“I froze,” Fourth said.
Gemini blinked. “When?”
“When that guard came at me at the tower. I hesitated.”
“But you moved.”
“After you shot him.”
Gemini nudged his shoulder gently. “I trusted you to handle it. I still do.”
Fourth turned to him, eyes wide. “Why?”
“Because every time you fall, you get back up. Even when it’s not your fight.”
Fourth looked away, cheeks burning. “It is now.”
They sat in silence, the stars above them uncaring, eternal.
***
Joong found Dunk in the navigation cabin hours later. The prince had laid out a map and was circling trade routes with charcoal.
“You’ve been busy,” Joong said.
“I thought we could disrupt Leo’s grain convoys from the northeast,” Dunk replied. “If we block the supply lines—”
“—We’ll starve the capital,” Joong finished.
“Exactly.”
Joong crossed the room and looked at the map. “You’re thinking like a rebel.”
“I’m thinking like someone who finally sees how many people suffer in my name.”
Joong didn’t argue.
Dunk hesitated. “You knew what you were doing back there. At the camp. Every command, every call—it was instinct.”
“I used to be a palace guard,” Joong said.
Dunk blinked. “You?”
“Briefly. Before I realized I wasn’t protecting people. I was protecting a story. A lie.”
He leaned over the table, pointing to a region in the east. “This is where they train recruits now. Children. They call them apprentices.”
Dunk swallowed hard. “Then we burn the story.”
Joong looked at him for a long time.
“Welcome to the crew, Your Highness.”
Dunk grinned faintly. “Just call me Dunk.”
Joong smiled, barely. “Don’t get used to it.”
But he said it like he might.
***
That night, the crew gathered under the stars—no celebration, no toasts. Just a meal passed hand to hand, quiet voices, bruises, and bandages.
Phuwin wrote.
Fourth practiced footwork with Mae.
Gemini cleaned weapons beside a humming Ton.
Pond sat next to Joong, watching Dunk help the youngest rescued child into a hammock.
“You still don’t trust him?” Pond asked.
Joong shook his head. “I trust him not to run.”
“And after that?”
Joong’s gaze lingered on Dunk’s hands—gentle, trembling, still trying.
“After that, I hope he trusts himself.”
And above them, the sails stirred gently in the dark—ready to carry them into the fire.
The news reached them by raven.
A sealed scroll bearing the wax crest of the capital—shattered as it had been in every rebellion fantasy they’d shared in half-whispers below deck. But this was no fantasy.
Joong opened it with gloved fingers and read it in silence. Dunk stood beside him, tension in his shoulders like coiled rope.
“They’re retaliating,” Joong said. “Three more villages. Leo ordered them quarantined.”
Phuwin paled. “Quarantined?”
“Which means locked down. No food. No medicine. No way out.”
Mae cursed softly. “They’re starving people into obedience.”
Joong handed the letter to Dunk. “And they’re naming you as traitor.”
The prince’s name was scrawled in ink blacker than blood: “Dunk Natachai—renounced heir, now fugitive of the realm.”
Pond leaned against the rail and smirked. “They finally noticed you ran away.”
Dunk said nothing. His fingers tightened around the scroll.
Joong watched him. “This is what rebellion looks like. It’s not glory. It’s grief.”
“I know,” Dunk said quietly. “But I’d rather be exiled and awake than noble and blind.”
***
The council gathered in the ship’s war room—barely a room, really, just a narrow chamber near the helm where maps, knives, and secrets shared space.
Joong laid out three paths on the table.
“One: we hide, gather more intel. Two: we reroute and evacuate the next targeted villages. Three: we strike Leo’s storage vaults—cripple his funding.”
Gemini raised a brow. “We have the crew for that?”
“Barely,” Pond muttered.
Phuwin looked between the options. “The evacuations are short-term relief. Sabotage forces Leo to respond. He’ll expose more of his network.”
Joong turned to Dunk. “What would your brother do?”
Dunk blinked. “Win? He’d try to talk first. Negotiate.”
“And your father?”
“He’d burn the whole region.”
“And you?”
Dunk looked down at the map.
“I’d hit him where it hurts. But leave enough behind so he knows it was me.”
Joong’s lips twitched. “That’s a pirate answer.”
***
The vote came that night.
The full crew stood on deck, stars above, salt wind carving silence between bodies. The rescued villagers had been dropped off at a resistance outpost earlier that day. Only the fighters remained.
Joong stepped forward. “We don’t follow royals. We follow truth. So we vote.”
One by one, hands rose.
Gemini. Mae. Ton. Then more.
Phuwin looked surprised when his name was called next.
“Royal with a spine,” Mae said. “Didn’t see it coming.”
Fourth grinned and raised his hand. “If I get to punch Leo’s face eventually, I’m in.”
Finally, Joong turned to Dunk.
“You want to lead this?”
“No,” Dunk said. “I want to change it.”
Joong nodded. “Good. Then you’re ready.”
***
In the quiet after, Dunk and Joong stood at the bow. The sea below churned, carrying whispers of war.
“I thought I knew what I wanted,” Dunk said. “Freedom. Escape.”
Joong didn’t interrupt.
“But maybe freedom isn’t just leaving something behind. Maybe it’s choosing something better.”
He turned.
“You chose this life,” Dunk said. “But did you ever regret it?”
Joong stared at the dark water.
“I regretted not choosing it sooner.”
They didn’t touch. They didn’t speak again.
But for the first time, they looked ahead together.
Toward fire.
Toward hope.
Toward war.