Aqua Coral's Arc

Chapter 7 of 16

Aqua left the castle at dawn to face the one thing her promise could not fix. She had agreed to stay with Alden. But her shop still opened by her hands each morning. If she stayed at the castle, the shop would close and her work would die. She walked the whole way to the water's edge to reach it. The shop stood where the tide came close. Wavy blue patterns curled across its front. Twin shells hung above the door. Inside, jars of salve and dried kelp lined the shelves she had built herself. She ran her palm along the counter. Every board here held her sweat. She could not run it from a castle far inland. She needed someone she trusted with all of it. Only one name came. Azure. Aqua found her friend by the fields near her cavern home. Azure knelt in the dirt, her son on a blanket beside her. Blue scales caught the light on the boy's small horns. Azure pulled a weed and did not look up. "You walked a long way for a woman who just moved into a castle," she said. "I need your help," Aqua said. "My shop. I can't leave the water and keep it too." Azure sat back on her heels. "You want me to run it." "I want you to keep it alive. The salves, the kelp, the people who come sick." Aqua's throat tightened. "You know the water. You know worth. I trust no one else with it." Azure looked at her son, then at the fields Kai worked in the distance. "I have a farm. A baby. A husband." She wiped dirt from her hands. "I can't stand behind your counter all day." Aqua's chest sank. She had walked so far for this. "But I know a girl," Azure said. "Lena. She works the tavern. Sharp with coin, good with strangers, and she needs steady work." Azure stood. "I'll teach her your books myself. I'll check the shop each week. That I can do." Relief loosened Aqua's shoulders. "You'd watch over it." "I'd guard it like my own field." Azure lifted her son to her hip. "Bring me your keys and your ledger. I'll handle the rest." That afternoon Aqua returned to the shop one last time as its keeper. She showed Azure and Lena the salves, the kelp, the price of each jar. She handed Lena the key. Her hand shook as she let it go. Then she stepped back and watched another woman stand behind her counter. The shop would live. Her work would not die. But it was no longer hers to open. Aqua walked back toward the castle lighter and hollow at once. She had freed herself to stay with Alden. Now she owed Azure a debt, and Seph was still out there, hunting a threat and sure the king would take everything she gave up her old life to reach.