Caspian Tideborne's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Caspian Tideborne swam along the coast for the third day, hunting for anything he recognized. He wanted only one thing: to find the person who could tell him his name. But the shore gave him nothing. Every cove looked the same. He had woken on a beach with no memory, no map, no idea which direction his old life lay. Without a landmark, he could only drift. He rested in the stone grotto he had claimed as a home. Green moss dripped down its old walls, and the arched mouth held back the current. He had slept here since the first night. It felt safe, but it told him nothing about who he was. He turned his left palm up and traced the scar there again. Nothing came. His tail caught the light from the grotto mouth. The dark green scales showed their gold edges. He stared at the gold, the way he always did, waiting for it to mean something. A soft blue glow drifted through the entrance. His pet jellyfish, the one that followed him everywhere, pulsed at the water. Its bell flickered blue and yellow. It bumped against a shelf of rock near the back wall, then bumped it again, insisting. Caspian swam closer. Something was wedged in the crack behind the shelf. He worked his fingers into the gap and pulled. A gold arm cuff came loose in his hand. He turned it in the dim light. Waves curled across its surface. A shell sat at its center, ringed by small painted shells in blue, orange, and green. He had seen this gold before. It matched the gold on his tail exactly. His chest tightened. This had washed ashore with him. He was sure of it now. Someone had made this, someone who knew the same craft that marked his own scales. This was not a lucky find. This was a thread back to his past. He pressed the cuff onto his arm. It fit as though shaped for him. The jellyfish circled close, its light steady now, calm. Then Caspian saw the marks. Along the inside edge ran a line of carved symbols, worn but clear. They were not shells or waves. They were writing. A place, or a name. He could not read them. But someone could. Someone had carved this by hand, in a real place, with a real name. For three days he had drifted with no direction. Now he held one. Caspian gripped the cuff and swam out of the grotto into open water. The coast still stretched blank in both directions. But he no longer searched for any shore. He searched for whoever knew this writing. He turned into deeper water and started to swim, faster than hunger, faster than doubt, toward the first true clue to his name.