Glacielle Frostweave's Arc

Chapter 6 of 15

Glacielle woke to the wolf's weight against her door and a knock on the canyon rim. Coralina was already there, half out of the water, her turtle-shell back scraped from a hard swim. She had come by the reef, not the deep route. She had seen the dead stretch. "Every fish," Coralina said. "For a hundred yards. I swam through it twice to be sure." Her hand was tight on the coral edge. "Tell me what killed my reef." Glacielle climbed up onto the ledge. The frost-wolf padded behind her and lay in the surf. Coralina looked at the wolf, then back at Glacielle, and her face went still in a way Glacielle had not seen before. "You've had a wizard here." "Yes." "For what." Glacielle sat on the coral bench they had built together, the ice arms cold under her palms. She could lie. She had a lie ready about a current shift. Coralina would take it and swim home and never trust a word again. Or she could give up one truth to keep the bigger one. "A drift-veil," Glacielle said. "Cold layer over the canyon. Patrols can't see down through it. It lasts two weeks. It kills the fish in the stretch it covers. I asked for it. I knew what it would do." Coralina's mouth opened, closed. "You didn't tell me." "No." "That reef fed three families upshore." "I know." "You know." Coralina pulled herself the rest of the way onto the ledge. Water ran off her shell. "What else haven't you told me." Glacielle's hands went cold inside her ice sleeves. She thought of the forge tools, sold in a back room to a smith who did not ask questions. She thought of her grandmother's mark on the hammer. She kept that one behind her teeth. "A penguin on the ridge yesterday," she said instead. "With a spyglass. Watching the dead water. That's why I needed the veil. If they find the canyon before we finish, there is no city. For anyone." Coralina looked at the wolf, at the dead reef, at Glacielle in her ice dress. "You should have asked me first." "You would have said no." "I would have said yes to a smaller stretch. Or a slower plan." Coralina's tail slapped once against the stone. "Next time you spend my reef, I hear it before the wizard does." "Next time," Glacielle said. "You hear it first." Coralina reached under her collar and drew out a small silver charm on a chain — two figures kissing, an ice prince and a mermaid. She held it a moment, then let it drop back against her chest. "Three families," she said. "You owe them." She slid off the ledge and went. She had not walked away. But she had not stayed either. Glacielle sat with the wolf and the dead water and the debt she had just agreed to.