The Luckless Bride

The salt wind whipped through the chapel’s open doors, carrying the smell of brine and rotting kelp—the village’s perpetual perfume these last three years. You stood before the cracked altar, your mother’s silver pendant cold against your collarbone, and watched the man who would become your husband walk toward you.

Elias Thorne moved like a man approaching a gallows. His tailored coat was immaculate, but his jaw was tight, and his eyes—the color of storm-dark sea—never left yours. Behind you, your father’s breath hitched, a sound you’d heard only at your mother’s grave.

The priest’s voice rang out, hollow in the drafty space: “Who gives this woman?”

Your father stepped forward. His hand trembled on your shoulder. “I do,” he said, and the lie tasted like ash in your mouth. He was giving you—not to a man, but to a god.

Elias’s fingers closed around yours. They were cold, but his grip was steady. “Do you take this man,” the priest intoned, “to honor and to keep, in sickness and in health?”

The sea beyond the cliffs roared, a sound like laughter.