Marina Snaptail's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Marina Snaptail floated at the welcome arch of Bubblantis three hours before her interview, rehearsing a speech she had already memorized twice. Today the city's Guardian would decide whether she became the official Voice of Bubblantis, the first face every visitor met at the gates. Marina had waited six years for this chance. She had studied every district, every statue, every tide. She had one weakness, and she had spent all week pretending it did not exist. The weakness was the old sunken chapel at the city's western edge. No guide would speak plainly about what lay inside its warped hull. Marina had asked three archivists and gotten three different answers. She had written down none of them. A visitor arrived early. He was a scholar from the surface trenches, and he carried a slate full of questions. Marina greeted him with a bow and offered the standard route. He waved the route away and pointed west. "I came for the chapel," he said. "Tell me what the whispers say." Marina felt her tail go cold. Behind her, the chief officer Sierra Tidalclaw watched from the guard post, arms folded, notebook open. He was there to score her. One wrong answer in front of a paying visitor would end her chances before the Guardian ever heard her name. She could bluff. She could invent a pretty legend. Sierra would know. The scholar would check. Marina made her choice fast. "I don't know the answer," she told the scholar. "But I know who does. Follow me." She swam west without waiting for permission, past a tall pink obelisk that pulsed with soft light, its carved swirls turning as they passed. She did not stop to describe it. She kept moving until the chapel's red spires rose out of the silt. Sister Liera Jura was waiting at the chapel door, as she always was. Marina had sent word an hour before, hoping. The small nun folded her hands and smiled at the scholar. "Ask," she said gently, "and I will tell you what the tides told me." The scholar asked. Sister Liera answered for a full twenty minutes, and Marina stood beside her and listened and wrote every word down. When the scholar left, his slate was full and his coin purse lighter. Sierra closed his notebook and gave Marina a slow nod. That evening the Guardian, Kaiari Ves'Luria, received Sierra's report at her chamber. Marina waited outside, hands shaking. Kaiari called her in and studied her a long moment. "You did not lie," Kaiari said. "You brought the visitor to the truth. That is the beginning of a Voice." She placed a small pearl badge in Marina's palm. "Provisional. One month. Prove it holds." Marina swam home clutching the badge. She had the title now, and with it, a new problem: in the shadows near the chapel, Nerilith Vaeles had been watching the whole exchange, and she had not looked pleased.