Glacielle Frostweave's Arc

Chapter 2 of 15

Glacielle spent the night at the canyon mouth, back against the stone, thinking about the two who knew. Coralina had named no names. One enforced the tide law. One did not. Guess wrong, and the first person she trusted would haul her project into the sun. She needed to know before she cut another joint. At dawn she waited on the shelf above the dead coral door. Coralina surfaced with a battered trunk balanced on her shell — a clam-shaped chest painted over in bright waves and fish, hinges eaten thin by salt. She slid it onto the shelf between them. "My mother's," Coralina said. "She kept letters from everyone who ever asked about the canyon. I took it while she slept." Glacielle's hands went cold, colder than her dress. "You stole from your mother." "I borrowed. For you." Coralina's tail flicked once, hard. "Open it." Glacielle lifted the lid. Two folded letters sat inside, tied with different threads. One green. One black. Coralina touched the green thread. "This one is a scholar. Harmless. She wanted to map the bends and my mother told her no." Glacielle's finger hovered over the black. "And this one?" "I don't know which is which. My mother never said their names out loud. Only that one wears the tide-law badge." Coralina met her eyes. "I brought you both. So you can choose without me choosing for you." Glacielle understood then. Coralina was giving her the risk back. If Glacielle picked wrong and approached the enforcer, Coralina would not be the one who did it. The ally was protecting the friendship, not the project. Glacielle unfolded the black-threaded letter. The handwriting was small and careful. It asked after the health of a specific merfolk — a name Glacielle had heard once on the surface, in a courtroom, when a mixed couple was pulled apart. The writer signed with a rank. She folded the letter closed. Her hand shook. She set it back and lifted the green one instead. That writer asked about currents and stone density. Nothing about people. "The black thread is the enforcer," Glacielle said. "The green is the scholar. I'll write to the scholar today. I need someone who understands stone, and she already wants in." Coralina exhaled. "And the other?" "We stay away. We never send word. We never leave a joint where a patrol boat could see the frost bloom." Glacielle closed the trunk. "And your mother finds this back under her bed before she wakes." Coralina nodded once and lifted the trunk onto her shell. Glacielle watched her go. She had her answer. She also had a new problem. The scholar would want to see the canyon, and the moment a second dwarf walked through the dead coral door, the secret stopped being hers to keep quiet. She pressed her palm to the stone and started the day's first joint.