Iris Catchpole's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Iris Catchpole twisted the ring on her finger without thinking. She'd done it a thousand times before. The metal was warm from her skin, smooth, familiar. But when she pulled it off to clean beneath it, she stopped. There was something there. A mark. Dark lines crossed her skin like tiny cracks or letters she couldn't read. Her breath caught. The mark hadn't been there yesterday. She was sure of it. She turned her hand in the light. The lines shifted, changed shape. They looked like symbols, maybe. Or a language she'd never seen. Her chest tightened. The ring had done this. After all this time of wearing it, protecting it, warning others not to touch the inside. Now it had marked her. She pressed her thumb against the lines. They didn't hurt. They didn't fade. They just sat there on her skin, waiting to mean something. Iris looked up at the ice castle across the plaza. People said scholars worked there. People who studied old marks and languages. She'd avoided it before because her search was about the jeweler, not about understanding symbols. But this changed things. The ring wasn't just a clue anymore. It was leaving clues on her. She slipped the ring back on, covering the mark. Then she pulled it off again and stared. The lines remained. She walked toward the castle, passing a massive boulder split with web-like cracks. The fissures caught the light the same way the marks on her skin did. Iris stopped. She looked closer. The patterns weren't random. They curved and crossed like the lines under her ring. Near the boulder's base sat a carved blade, its surface covered in similar symbols. Blue and purple patterns ran its length. Someone had left it there. Someone had made these marks mean something. Iris picked up the blade and turned it over. The symbols didn't match exactly, but they spoke the same language. She had a direction now. The jeweler had left more than just a ring. They'd left a trail.