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The Empire of Glass
by Andy Lane
Prologue
July 1587
One month.
Mary Harries gazed out across the sparkling blue ocean at the departing ship. From her position on the cliff she was looking down upon its deck - freshly scrubbed and glistening in the hot summer sunlight. Its sails were swollen with the breeze, and it listed slightly to one side as it began its long tack out of the harbour and its longer journey home. Gulls swooped low around its bows and, higher in the sky, the black squiggles of larger birds were wheeling and soaring. She couldn't tell what sort of birds they were, but there was a lot about New Albion that she couldn't recognize.
Turning her attention back to the ship, she could see sailors scurry across the rigging like spiders on a cobweb. One of them turned around and gazed back toward the coast, shielding his eyes with his hand. His chest was bare, and he wore a bandana around his head. Seeing her, he waved in big, sweeping gestures. She waved too, choking back a sob. It was Jim: even at that distance she recognised his sun-bleached hair, drawn back in a tarred pig-tail and bouncing against his back as his powerful arms moved. Those arms, which had pulled her close and held her, tight. Those arms, in whose embrace she had slept on many a night. Those powerful, tender arms.
One month.
She blinked, and the ship was blotted out by tears as if by a sudden squall. They spilled, hot and salty, down her cheeks and across her lips, and it was like tasting the salt on Jim's skin again as her mouth explored his body. A s
