The Pirate's Stowaway Bride

Chapter 1: Sample

If you follow the tail

of the moon, you might just

write your own story.

I DON'T MISS it. My legs pulled as close to my chest as the excessive fabric of my dress allows, I stare at the shadowed wall opposite me and know that. I don't miss any of it. Even sitting here, between two splintered crates on a rough plank of wood, with a sheen of sweat coating my skin. Even being here, in the cargo hold of a random ship, with a wet mugginess hugging the air. Even as tears blur my vision, I only let one fall, because I know only bitterness remains in my heart.

An evening wedding! Mother's voice repeats in my head. Oh, it'll be beautiful. Won't it be beautiful, Adora? she asked me, but before I had a chance to open my mouth, she'd looked away and continued talking.

Yeah, beautiful.

Taking a deep breath, I glance at the wooden ceiling when noise and footsteps close in, breaking the still silence of the minute harbor.

My lips pinch, and I hug my legs tighter, knuckles blanching. The cover of darkness didn't calm my nerves when I ran here, but I suppose it did help mask the white gown fleeing down side alleys. And it did help that the crew was away, for dinner or drinks at the nearby tavern, leaving only a single snoozing guard behind.

My head's heavy when I lean it against the wall behind me. The long, chestnut strands of my hair are all twisted about jewels and pins, and piled high. My face is heavy with makeup. Powder after powder applied to bleach my freckles and the too-tanned skin of my arms. The dress weighs my body down.

Ah, how sweet it'll be to be rid of it all.

My lips quirk with the thought, tears forgotten. Two more fall, and then they are done, and I don't bother wiping my cheeks, because they are done and forgotten. Whatever path I'm walking now, it's my own. A sigh escapes my lips. No, no, that's not right. It's not just my own; it's the one I forged. With my own pretty little, manicured hands.

A dull grinding hits my ears. It lasts a while, as though something is fighting to break free, and then, it happens. The ship moves, easing out onto the breadth of dark blue waters that stretch on and on until the world is strange and new and mine. With my eyes closed, I imagine it fully, a shifting landscape like the many expensive pictures that line the walls back in that place I once called home.

But this—this—is real.