Coquina's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

The channel opened wide near dusk. Ahead, the shell-white castle rose from the bank. Its walls dropped straight into the river. Coquina slowed. She saw no gate, no low door, only smooth stone and dark water beneath it. Guards moved along the top. She could not swim in blind. If they spotted her, the fisherman would hand off the pearl and vanish. The cub gripped her hair and made a small sound. "Stop here," Cove said. He pointed to a bed of tall flowers along the shallows. Pink blooms speckled with pearl-white dots floated among the reeds. "We watch first. We don't rush a place we can't see into." Coquina pushed into the flowers and went still. She hated waiting. Every hour was salt she did not have. But charging the wall meant capture. She watched. The guards passed, turned, passed again. Then she saw it. A pale shape slipped from a crack low in the wall, right at the waterline. A dolphin. Small, silver, dotted with tiny shells. Pearls ringed its tail. It nosed the flowers, curious, then looked at her with wide dark eyes. Coquina held her breath. The cub chirped. The dolphin chirped back and swam a slow circle, close, unafraid. "It came from inside," Cove said, low. "There's a way through that wall. Under the water." Coquina followed the dolphin's path with her eyes. It had come from the crack, swum out, and now turned back toward it. The gap sat below the guards' sight, hidden by the flower bed. A drain, or an old flooded passage. Wide enough for a body. "They can't see the base from up there," she whispered. "The flowers hide it." Cove nodded. "Then that's our door." They moved when the guards turned. The dolphin led, quick and sure, weaving through stems. Coquina swam behind it with the cub flat on her back. The crack yawned dark ahead. She pressed her mud-sealed gills tight and slid in. Cold stone scraped her shoulders. The passage bent, then dropped. She kicked hard and came up inside. Water lapped in a stone room within the castle. Faint light fell from a grate above. A bench sat against the far wall, dry and grand, carved with entwined flowers and pale pearl beads and a wide shell for its back. This was no dungeon. This was some private garden room, and the fisherman had come through here. She was sure of it. Cove surfaced beside her, silent. The dolphin circled once and dove back out. The cub shook water from its ears. "We're inside," Coquina said. Her voice shook. "Now we find him." Then a voice called out above the grate. Boots crossed stone. A second voice answered, closer. They knew someone had come through the wall. The way out behind her led back to open river and drying gills. Ahead lay the castle, the fisherman, and men now looking for her.