Ink before dawn [Part 6]
My moonlit heartflare,
Once again my fingers betray me, moving faster than my thoughts, rushing these words onto the page with nothing but a fragile hope. I do not know if this ink will echo the warmth of the last ones, or if it will drift to you like a lost whisper in the wind.
Your letters—oh, Belle—your letters were balm to a bruised soul. They touched something raw in me. A heart not used to gentleness, suddenly undone by tenderness. It frightens me, how easily I fracture where you are concerned. And when your letter came to me by the bird—your name upon its wings—I could not ignore the cruel poetry of it.
Belle. I held the scroll as if it burned, fearing what would be within. That perhaps the story we’ve dared write across distance might have found its final period. I was not brave, Belle. Not then, not yet. I left. Like a coward flees the storm, not knowing he’s abandoning the shelter.
You know better than most: life teaches you to bend or break. And I bent—sometimes into shapes I despise. I’ve done things I wouldn’t want carved into stone. Things that echo in my quieter hours, when the moon is absent and the waves grow too loud.
But tomorrow—I ask for your presence. At the dock, as dawn breaks. No disguise, no pretense. Let me be the man who doesn’t run. Let me be the one who stays. Let me hold you and tell you that everything—everything—can begin anew.
Portus gave me his blessing. I now kneel before fate, hoping for yours.
If I could, I’d trade places with the bird who carries this message. I’d fly through the dark with nothing but your name on my wings. Until the light returns,
Yours in trembling hope.
Arriving back home on the docks, walking around in a fog, a daze. As if she had been hit hard in the head, everything spinning and her heart beating uncontrollably put if her chest. She waited at her brother’s lands for the bird to return, which it did but returned empty. Not a note saying ‘wait, im on my way’ nothing. Cold silence the depths of a winters day in the most horrendous freeze cold. Stinging as the icicles pierced through her very heart and soul. Needless to say she wasnt expecting anything from him upon her return home. So when the boy ran up to her and handed her the scroll her heart which was barley beating all but stopped as she opened it and read it. The boy waiting for a return. Pulling out a page from her pouch she wrote only 3 words “ill be there” rolled it up tied it with the ribbon and sent the biy on his way.
She didn’t know how to feel she didn’t know how to react. Before she left her brother’s she found his room and roamed about it. Her fingers glided over the desk she pictured him writing at. They picked up the pillow he laid his head upon and inhaled his scent before placing it back down. She also took off the bracelet that her mother gave her when she was younger, entwining a lilac ribbon through it and laid it back on the desk leaving a note using the paper he used “i not know where we go from here but your carried in my heart always, Belle” leaving and closing the door behind her. She made for her house and would wait for the time to meet him, on the docks at day break. Unable to sleep she paced back and forth, a blue ribbon tied again around her wrist replacing the one she tossed in the fire earlier and the gem he gave her pressed tightly in the plam of her hand. Time was there for her to go to the docks and that is just what she set out to do….
There are moments when fate aligns so precisely, so cruelly, it feels orchestrated. This was one of them. The two men must have sensed it—that shiver in the air, the stage set perfectly in the dusky veil of dawn.
The dock lay quiet, deserted. And there, alone, stood the woman. They moved like shadows stitched into conversation, feigning oblivion. They had mastered this. Predators cloaked in casual banter, their intent hidden. Only those who’d seen it before would have recognized the performance for what it was.
When they drew near, the illusion shattered. In a breath, one seized her from behind—an iron grip clamping over her mouth. The other’s hands were swift, intrusive, scouring her for valuables tucked away. Their touch was rough and aggressive, their presence suffocating.
Belle hadn’t seen it coming. Her mind was elsewhere—on Silas, on whatever promise awaited her.
Not this. Never this. She struggled, not just to break free, but to protect something clutched tightly in her fist. Her resistance wasn’t just desperation—it was defiance. Whatever she held, she guarded it like a sacred ember. More than precious. Maybe even more than her own life.
The men were relentless. When brute force failed, cruelty stepped in. A blade flashed. Cold steel kissed her wrist—not to kill, but to loosen her grip. Pain as persuasion.
They didn’t flinch. Men like them never did. Morality wasn’t part of their vocabulary. They lived for moments like this. Opportunists. Jackals in the dawnlight. They had seen the gem once before, a fleeting glance as she studied it under sunlight, unaware of what she possessed. But they knew. And they would stop at nothing to claim it—not even murder.
Belle was fighting for the prize she was entrusted with, not for value but for something far more important to her. It was given to her from him. One little gem, it could of been a trick and she would of protected it. While she struggled a flash of him, their meeting…she did remember it..in the bakery, that smile had taken her the moment he flashed it. It was him..she began to struggle harder, fighting for her worth, her family and for them. They were too strong. Prayers for her family were now said. For silas….
Silas felt the odds stack against him with every breath. The tide turned traitor, the wind a dead whisper against the Stormcrow’s sails. The vessel crawled rather than cut—a ship bound by fate’s cruel hand.
It was as though the gods themselves conspired to slow him, to ensure he arrived too late. He would’ve thrown himself into the sea if it meant reaching her faster, but even that wouldn’t bridge the distance in time.
When the dock finally rose into view, it was not Belle he saw first. It was the sound that reached him—a scuffle, sharp breaths, a stifled cry. Then the world narrowed. From the corner of his eye, he saw her—Belle—trapped between two men, their intentions carved plainly into their movements. Blood bloomed dark and damning on her wrist, seeping through fabric like a scream.
“Let her go!” His voice cracked across the morning with the force of thunder, the voice of a man who’d led men into battle and returned. But he was too far—too far to make that instant difference.
He jumped and sprinted. “Belle!” he called again, this time a raw edge of fear fraying the command in his tone.
The attackers stopped. Just a beat. A glance. They knew the name, and worse, the man behind it. “Silas,” one spat, panic scraping his throat. But fear didn’t stop them. It hardened them.
The blade flashed—merciless and fast—as the other pried at Belle’s fingers, desperate for the gem she refused to surrender. When her grip held, the choice was made.
One brutal slash. A life, stolen without pause. So quick. So numbingly final.
The type of death that leaves behind silence louder than screams. “I have it!” the second cried, victorious and vile. The gem was his. The woman was gone. “Run!” And they did—cowards with blood on their hands and fire at their heels—leaving Belle to collapse like a broken psalm upon the dock.
Crows Murder 
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