Return to Inheritance

Chapter I

In a matter of seconds the chaos was already unbearable. The unknown crew quickly invaded their ship as Jade was with her hand on the sword's hilt, in shock. The two teams started fighting to death before long, seemingly ignoring the girl for now. She only came back to her senses when Willy Buns was in front of her with the point of his sword in her direction.

As she took out her own sword, she drove him back in hopes he would stumble at the ledge and fall into the sea to feed the fish, but he started blowing attacks of his own, pushing her to the ground.

"Don't make me hurt you, Beatrice."

"Stop calling me that! I'm not who I used to be anymore."

"So you acknowledge the fact that you know about everything I just said, stop hiding it."

The girl remained silent. She hated him. She hated him so much that she would have rather died than marry him. Last time she ran away from home, when she was only ten and found out she was promised to a stranger at such a fragile and innocent age. That was the moment when her innocence vanished; the moment she ran away from her birthright, from her blood family, and defied her fate. Until now, ten years later.

She first kicked him in the knee and took advantage of his moment of pain to stand up and move away. She ran, climbing on a barrel and making her way to greater altitude. She had always been an excellent climber when it came to her father's ship. Her adoptive father in fact, the one who took her in as his own. Of course, getting him to accept her as he did wasn't as easy as it seemed. It started when she hid inside one of the shipments, an empty barrel, and in the middle of the sea the crew found her. She ran away from them until the captain showed up and talked to her. By then she had climbed up the main mast high enough to feel safe from the apparently hostile sailors. It took her a while to talk him into letting her join his crew as an apprentice sailor. Instead he took her as his daughter.

"Fine," she remembered he had told her after explaining the situation. "From now on, if anyone asks, your name is Jade and you're my daughter. Your mother is dead and you have no other relatives." She remembered being so happy that she jumped from the mast right into his arms.

But now she wasn't happy at all. It was like a curse she had been able to avoid half her life had just come back, stronger than ever. Real again.

She had the advantage of height, but as she took a look around she noticed her crew being mercilessly slaughtered or fleeing, jumping in the sea at the risk of drowning. She was suddenly alone, and even as she had her sword on her she felt defenseless against the opponents who outnumbered her by far.

"You're alone now," said Willy Buns, mouthing her thoughts as if it wasn't obvious enough. "Come to me or I'll have to force you."

"Never!" she shouted before jumping back down on the deck and made a run for it. Before anyone could stop her she dived graciously into the water like she had seen some of her own crew do a minute earlier.

"Get her!" she heard her enemy shout as she was experiencing one of her many free-falls into the water.

Jade was now diving, as deep as she could. If she couldn't escape marriage then she might as well drown. She thought it for the best. But in vain. Two of the pirates were already after her and swimming rapidly. Maybe they would drown as well with her, but no. They quickly grabbed her ankles and pulled her back up to the surface. As much as she tried getting away she couldn't break both their strong grips on her. With minor effort as it seemed, they brought her back on the deck of her own ship and forced her on her knees in front of their captain. Her gaze was always downwards because she refused to look at him.

"Now that was unnecessary. Don't even think you can get away like that." He then reached for her chin and gently moved her face so she would look at him, but she immediately pulled away violently and Willy Buns got upset. "Take her to my new cabin!" he ordered.

Without hesitation, the same two pirates grabbed her strongly by the arms and forced her into the captain's cabin, locking the door when they left.

She felt weak and cold so she fell to the floor without realising it was her own cabin she was in. Only after a few minutes of sobbing and trembling she did recognise the picture on the wall showing her next to her adoptive father when she was fourteen, and so happy.

She took a look at the oval frame, remembering the night they found it abandoned on an island they had explored in their free time. She was the one to find it. It was plated in silver and beautifully ornated with what looked like waves all along the margins. Tears were in the girl's eyes, but she wasn't crying anymore. When she reached her hand to touch the image, she heard the door unlock and open. Unmistakably, Willy Buns walked in.

"Those moments are over," he told her as he noticed her attention was pointed towards that image on the wall. "Welcome back to your real life, Beatrice."

"I'm not Beatrice anymore so stop calling me like this."

"Oh! But of course you are and always will be my dear Beatrice."

"How can you even call me 'dear'? You never knew me properly, just like I never knew you. And why do you want so desperately to marry me since you don't know me?!" Besides being angry, the girl was also genuinely confused.

"Because it's my destiny!" he exclaimed. He girl turned her back in him in an instant.

"There is no such thing as fate or destiny!"

"Of course there is. Otherwise I would have never found you. Ever since we were little our parents knew we were meant for each other, that we were supposed to be together for eternity."

"How did you find me?" she cut him off. He seemed very happy to answer this question, but when he answered, the girl felt like she would feel sick.

"It wasn't easy. It took me a while to figure out where you ran off to. Not even your parents found out too quickly. And trust me, they tried day and night to find you, but it was as if you had vanished in thin air. In fact I was the one to tell them what they were unable to figure out themselves." The way he talked with such pride made the girl feel even worse. But she wanted to find out what happened so she listened in silence.

"So when I found out you boarded a foreign ship I thought I had lost you. I was thirteen by then. By the time I turned fifteen I started my trade as a sailor. My family knew I was searching for you, so although they couldn't stand the thought of me being a sailor, I had their support. This year I finally raised enough money and bought a ship of my own, and hired the best mercenaries I could find. Soon I heard word that a woman was the captain of a ship, and I knew it had to be you!"

"This has nothing to do with fate or destiny."

"Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But you're still going to become my bride in a couple of days, as soon as we get back to shore."

The girl really felt a very sick feeling in her stomach and thought she would throw up, but forced herself to hold it in. She was still on her ship and someday she planned on taking it back. She didn't want this memory to come back to her when she would see the stain of vomit left on the wooden boards.

What would her father do in her stead? She couldn't tell because seeing him in her situation seemed impossible. She felt alone, and really was alone.

"You might want to get some rest," suggested Willy Buns. It was the first time Jade agreed with anything he said, so she simply nodded. "See you tomorrow," he added, going out of the captain's cabin and locking the door.

Jade never could have imagined being locked in her own cabin, but was happy to know that Willy Buns didn't intend to sleep there too. She sighed in relief and made herself comfortable in bed. However, as hard as she tried, she couldn't come up with a plan in order to save herself once more from her cruel fate. She didn't even have her sword anymore.

As she laid in bed, face to the wall, a tear rolled down her face when she closed her eyes.