Chapter Text
The docks at midnight smell like salt and metal and old wood long past saving.
Aiah Arceta locks the last bolt on the shop door, a battered sheet of glass with NEEDLE & SALT painted in fading teal across it. The sea is close enough to hear, waves lapping against the stone breakwater two streets down. The neon OPEN sign inside hums a little longer before she flicks it off.
Another quiet night. Another shift done.
She leans back against the doorframe for a moment, cigarette tucked behind her ear, weighing whether this is a night for music or silence.
Then the door bangs open hard enough to rattle the glass.
Aiah startles, half-turns—
and three girls tumble in on a wave of perfume, laughter, and something sharper beneath.
The first thing she clocks is their shoes—off. Sandals swinging from fingers, toes bare and still dusted with pale beach sand. The second is the edge of too much Prosecco in their voices. The third—
the third is the girl at the center.
Aiah knows her face before her name.
Everyone on this island does.
Mikhaela Lim. Crown princess of Isla Sagrada. Heiress apparent to a throne that barely rules but still weighs more than most monarchs would admit.
Tonight she’s wearing a slinky black dress and an air of deliberate carelessness. The gold chain around her neck catches on her collarbone as she sways in the doorway.
“I want a tattoo,” Mikha says, voice steady despite the obvious tilt of her stance.
Behind her, Jhoanna and Maloi—Aiah recognizes them too, Island Club regulars, old-money brats with sharp tongues and sharper wallets—snicker into their sleeves but make no move to stop her.
Aiah crosses her arms. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m determined.” Mikha flashes a crooked grin. It doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Sit down before you fall down,” Aiah says. No smile. No warmth. Just the weight of someone used to drunk late-night dares.
But Mikha steps forward anyway, gaze locked like a challenge.
“I want something that says I’m not theirs.”
For the first time, Aiah stills.
Not theirs. Not the crown’s, not the palace’s, not her fiancé’s—though the whole island knows about the engagement announcement set for the Founding gala. Not the family’s. Not anyone’s.
Just hers.
And she’s asking to put it on her skin.
“You sure?” Aiah asks, softer this time.
“Mark me.” Mikha lifts her chin. The faintest tremor in her hands.
Jhoanna perches on the arm of the old sofa. “Come on, Miss. One little mark won’t kill her.”
“Maloi dared her,” Jhoanna adds with a smirk.
Maloi raises her hands. “She took the dare willingly.”
Aiah exhales through her nose. If she were less tired, maybe she’d argue harder. But there’s a thin line in Mikha’s mouth, the kind people wear when they’re one small step from breaking, and Aiah’s seen enough of that not to push.
Still. No drunk girl wakes up grateful for a tattoo she chose at two a.m.
So she sets down the cigarette, pulls out her drawer of temporary ink—professional-grade, waterproof, lasts a few days. Close enough to feel real. Safe enough to regret and survive.
“You get this first. If you still want the real thing in the morning, come back sober.”
Mikha wobbles onto the worn leather chair, legs crossed like she’s daring the room to look.
“Fine. But make it good.”
“Where?”
A pause.
“Here.” She touches her inner wrist, just above the pulse. “Visible. So I remember.”
Aiah crouches beside her.
The princess smells like salt and champagne and something tired beneath it all.
“What words?” Aiah asks.
For a beat, Mikha says nothing. Her friends quiet too, as if the question ripples wider than the room.
Then softly, almost to herself:
“Something that says… wherever I run, I’m choosing it. Not being dragged.”
Aiah meets her gaze. Holds it.
Then dips the brush into ink.
“I’ve got one.”
The room breathes with them. The needle hum remains silent in its case. Only the brush moves now, sweeping words onto skin in slow, deliberate strokes.
ALL ROADS LEAD HERE.
Mikha watches every letter appear, eyes glass-bright. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away.
When it’s done, Aiah sets the brush aside. “Don’t scrub it tonight. It’ll hold three, maybe four days.”
“I’ll keep it,” Mikha says.
Jhoanna rolls her eyes. “We’ll see in the morning.”
Maloi’s already taking photos. “Your mother’s going to have a royal fit.”
But Mikha’s fingers trail over the ink like she’s reading it in braille.
“Good,” she murmurs. “Let her.”
Aiah watches them leave not long after, laughter echoing down the street.
Only when the neon’s gone dark again does she light her cigarette. One long drag. Then a second.
Some things, Aiah knows, don’t wash off as easy as ink.