Cleo's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Cleo waded to her waist in the shallows and found nothing but sand. Her family waited below, out where the water turned dark and cold. Their ship lay wrecked in the deep, trapped between the tides, and she could not reach it. She had no vessel of her own. She could search only what she could walk into, and the walking ended where the seabed dropped away. So she went to find a boat. A dolphin pod trailed her along the coast, chattering, one of them a pale periwinkle among the gray. Cleo spoke to them the way she spoke to all sea things, and they showed her a spit of shore hidden behind a rock wall. There a low boathouse stood on wooden posts, its walls gray with salt. Inside floated a small red-hulled boat, tucked away from any honest eye. She climbed the plank and set her hand on the rail. That was when the water behind her broke. "That boat won't hold the deep," a voice said. A tail of blue and purple curled at the boathouse edge. Milo Deepcrest lifted herself onto a beam, teal hair dripping. Cleo had heard of the mermaid noble. She had lost her council seat and her people's fishing waters, and she did not look like someone in a giving mood. "I only need it for the shallows," Cleo said. "The shallows won't get you what you want." Milo's eyes moved to the dark water past the door. "I know what sank out there. I know who else is looking for it." Cleo went still. "Then help me." "I don't help pirates." Milo said it flat, done with it. Before Cleo could answer, a second boat slid into the boathouse mouth. Black sails, gold trim. A woman stood at the bow in a red coat, black hair loose down her back. Cleo knew her before she spoke. "Little Cleo," Trina said. "Stealing boats now." "Aunt." Cleo did not let go of the rail. Trina stepped onto the plank. She looked at the red hull, then at Milo, then back. "You'll never reach them in that. It'll swamp in the first deep swell." Her voice dropped, quieter. "I have a ship that can. I'll lend it." "For what." "A share of what's down there." Trina held out a ringed hand. "And you tell me what your captain took from me." Cleo looked at the small red boat that would drown her before she reached the wreck. She looked at the deep water where her family waited. Then she took her aunt's hand. "Done," Cleo said. Trina's fingers closed hard. "I always collect, Cleo." Milo slid back beneath the surface without a word. The boathouse felt colder for it. Cleo now had a ship that could reach the deep. But she had bound herself to the one person on the water she could never fully trust, and she still did not know what her captain owed.