Chapter 1
0. Prologue
A suffocating tension hung over the courtroom of Port Royal, and the crowd stirred restlessly.
Crack crack!
“Silence!”
The judge banged his gavel, silencing the mouths of everyone gathered in the courtroom.
In the solemn atmosphere, the only one smiling was the single pirate standing before the bench.
“The trial will now begin. Captain of the ‘Howlers’ pirate crew, ‘Karin.’ The defendant stands accused of harming countless lives through piracy and extorting the property of others, in direct violation of the Empire’s law.”
In the face of the outrages committed by the lawless wanderers of the sea, neighboring nations had joined forces to eliminate piracy, forming an international treaty to capture and execute them.
Under pressure exerted from every nation, the pirates scrambled to hide themselves.
In particular, Port Royal, the wealthiest port city in the world, was famous as a hiding place for pirates due to its deep harbor and favorable location.
Ironically, it was also famous as an execution ground for pirates. With so many pirates present, it was only natural that the navy’s crackdowns were correspondingly severe.
The pirates brought here, without exception, trembled before their impending executions.
But she, though bound in chains, tilted her head with ease. Not a trace of intimidation showed on her face.
She was somewhat taller than the average woman. Without a corset, the contours of her body showed even more clearly. Her red hair was tangled and matted with mud. Amid the hair that flowed down in winding curves, her green eyes shone boldly.
Even dressed in rags no better than a beggar’s, she carried herself more arrogantly than anyone else.
“Law? To begin with, I’m not a citizen of this place—can you really say I’ve violated the Empire’s law?”
Despite the heavy iron shackles binding both her wrists and ankles, her voice remained bold.
At the provocation that broke the silence, the judge’s brow furrowed.
Captured pirates, whatever their circumstances, were all sentenced to death.
The trial was merely a formality for reciting their crimes. Surely she knew this, and yet the woman’s mouth showed no sign of closing.
‘Is it that she has nothing left to lose before death, or is this simply her nature?’
The judge clicked his tongue.
A woman who had led those fearsome pirates and risen to the position of captain.
Breaking the pirates’ own rule that no woman should be allowed aboard ship, Karin had nevertheless become their leader.
“Your words hold no meaning here. If you belong nowhere, then you must follow the law of the place where you were captured. The law is equal for all, and the punishment that follows is likewise fair.”
She found it laughable that the judge spoke of equality and fairness while wielding the law however he pleased, and burst into a light, mocking laugh.
“Hey, we don’t punish people however we feel like it either, you know? When it’s our people who got wronged, you lot say ‘not our citizens, not our problem’ and wash your hands of it—but the moment it’s time to punish us, suddenly it’s ‘follow the law of this place.'”
The judge ignored the scoundrel’s words and continued the trial.
“The evidence of plunder is clear, and the outcome that follows is unavoidable.”
The words moving toward sentencing signaled the trial’s end.
“Your crimes are unforgivable, and therefore you are sentenced to death—”
“Wait. You should hear my defense first.”
Before the sentence could be passed, she rattled her shackles with a clink. Whatever nerve she had, she kept smirking without a trace of remorse, and the judge’s expression never once softened.
Defense, what defense. The parchment listing her crimes ran to more than thirty sheets. And that was only the crimes they’d managed to uncover—there was no telling how many more there were among the ones still unknown.
“There’s nothing here worth hearing. I will pronounce the verdict.”
As the judge shook his head, the woman grinned and opened her mouth.
“I’m pregnant.”
The moment she finished speaking, the courtroom erupted into murmurs. Whispers burst from the mouths of people turning to one another.
“Pregnant?”
“Whose child could it possibly be? Don’t tell me—a pirate’s child?”
The whispers gathered and tangled together, swelling into a great commotion.
Crack crack!
The judge banged his gavel, calming the crowd. Once the courtroom fell silent again, he let out a long sigh.
It was a law shared across the world.
Even the most vicious criminal, even one who had assassinated a king, could not be executed while pregnant.
“…If it is true that you are pregnant, it could have a significant bearing on the legal verdict. Do you have any evidence to support your claim?”
“I’m no doctor, what evidence would I have. It’s just that I haven’t had my monthly bleeding in quite a while, that’s why I’m saying it. Call a doctor. I’ll get examined.”
She giggled and shifted her gaze. Toward the naval officer standing guard, protecting the judge from the pirate Karin. As if he had been watching her the whole time, her eyes met the man’s at once.
Beautiful golden hair the color of gold itself, and eyes as deep and blue as a sapphire worth a chest of gold coins. The beautiful man who possessed all of this was looking at her with a gaze full of shock.
Even after so long, his rigid, straightlaced face looked even harder dressed in his white uniform.
‘Did you think you’d escaped my hands?’
Holding back laughter fit to burst, Kalina stared at the man. The gazes of the woman, filthy with dust and grime, and the man, dressed head to toe in white, collided.
The face that was always stiff and rigid wavered, unmoored. It had been a rash act done in a fit of anger, but seeing that face now, she thought it hadn’t been such a bad thing to do after all.
The judge let out a deep sigh.
“Though the crimes committed by the defendant warrant the death penalty, the execution of a pregnant woman cannot be justified regardless of the criminal in question. Therefore, Karin’s execution is postponed until the child is born.”
The gavel struck the bench three times, marking the end of the trial.
She raised both hands and placed them on her belly, as if on display. The man standing before her was the only one she looked at. Her cracked lips moved wordlessly.
‘Hello, Lucy.’
* * *
The sea was calm and no rain clouds were in sight. No one had anything to say about the captain, who lay alone in a hammock fastened to the mast, indulging in an afternoon nap.
With her tricorn hat pulled over her face to block the sun, Kalina enjoyed her nap without a care in the world.
Above her, from the crow’s nest where he kept watch, Morgan’s shout rang out.
“Captain, it’s a warship of the Dreisen Empire!”
At the loud cry, Kalina, deep in her sweet sleep, shot upright. The tricorn hat covering her face tumbled onto the deck.
Kalina quickly snatched up the hat, put it back on, and pulled a spyglass from her worn leather belt.
“Oh, so it really is.”
The flag fluttering atop the mast of the ship of the line. Spotting the golden lion emblazoned upon it, Kalina climbed onto the railing without hesitation and turned her spyglass toward it.
Standing precariously on the swaying railing with both feet, Kalina brought the spyglass into focus.
A goddess statue bearing a lion shield. Recognizing the familiar figurehead, the corners of Kalina’s mouth curled up mischievously.
“It’s our darling Lucy.”
“Is that his fleet?”
Finn, climbing down from the mast, wrinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes. Without lowering the spyglass from her eye, Kalina chuckled.
“See, I told you—it’s fate. Running into each other again on this vast, endless sea.”
They weren’t even sailing the same route, yet here they were meeting again after only a few days.
It wasn’t as though she had any particular purpose—she simply drifted aimlessly—and yet here they were. As if she’d never known a dull moment, excitement surged through Kalina’s whole body.
“I’d call that a curse, not fate.”
Ignoring Finn’s blunt retort, Kalina scanned every inch of the deck.
And then she found it—the face that, as ever, showed not a shred of flexibility. A man shining alone under the sunlight. His unusually bright golden hair caught the eye.
On this leisurely sea, the man alone carried a taut, unyielding tension, and his spyglass turned toward Kalina.
All he could possibly see was her hair, at most—and yet the man’s disciplined bearing shifted at once.
Kalina waved her hand with easy nonchalance. The man immediately lowered his spyglass and shouted loudly to his men.
The fleet burst into a flurry of movement. Signal flags fluttered, and through her lens, the man leapt straight over the railing, dropping down onto a sloop below. Honestly, that body of his was something else. Just leaping down like that.
Clicking her tongue in admiration, Kalina moved her spyglass. The sloop belonging to his fleet quickly picked up speed. Goodness, there was no need to rush so—they’d be face to face again in no time.
“What should we do?”
At Finn’s urging, Kalina let out a long whistle and raised one hand. The crew watched the fist raised high in the air, awaiting their captain’s order.
“Let’s play with him.”
As Kalina smirked and beckoned with her palm, the crew’s grins deepened.
As the two ships picked up speed, the distance between them closed in an instant.
“Hello, Lucy.”
Her ship, with its unusually high hull, had sturdy defenses. From her high vantage point, at Kalina’s carefree greeting, Lucian couldn’t even fire his gun, his face twisting instead.
“You worthless scum…!”
Honestly, this man really did hate being looked down on. Kalina grinned, drew the cutlass at her hip, and leapt straight down.
Clang!
The moment Kalina’s and Lucian’s swords met, pirates poured down in a flood, and the deck erupted into chaos in an instant.
“Quite the fierce greeting today.”
At her sly greeting, Lucian swung his sword with a fierce expression. Kalina hopped back from the wide arc of the attack, the corner of her mouth curling up. Ah, really, she just loved that face.
“Sulking because we didn’t see each other for a while?”
“Shut up!”
“Our Lucy always gets so foul-mouthed whenever he sees me. Practically pirate-worthy.”
At her giggling laughter, Lucian lost his composure and thrust his sword forward with force.
‘Really, something’s off about him today.’
Something’s going on. Tilting her head, Kalina put some distance between them—and in that moment, her gaze shifted to something behind Lucian.
Then—bang.
The man who had just had his blade locked with hers scattered droplets of ruby-red liquid and collapsed on the spot.
It was a naval officer who had shot Lucian.
