Maris Calderon's Arc

Chapter 1 of 14

Every dusk, Maris Calderon swam to the shallows to watch the shore. He was a siren, born to swamp water, hunting for a lost kingdom and a throne he meant to take. But tonight he watched for one thing only: the land-born girl who walked the bank at sundown. He wanted her. He would win her, and his crown would follow. His green eyes broke the surface, and the net closed over him. The ropes caught his shoulders and dragged. A hunter stood in the mud, hauling the line hand over hand. Maris twisted, but the knots bit deeper. The old scar on his left arm tore against a barb. He clawed for the reeds and missed. The man laughed and pulled harder, walking backward up the slope, dragging Maris across stones toward the dry shore where sirens died. Maris stopped fighting the rope. He grabbed it instead. He yanked once, with all his weight, and the hunter stumbled forward. The man's boots slid. He pitched face-first into the shallows. Maris wrapped the net around the hunter's neck and held him under. Bubbles rose. The legs kicked, then stopped. The line went slack in Maris's hands. He lay half in the water, gasping, tangled in the dead man's net. His tail still worked, but the shore held him. He could not free himself before dawn dried his skin. Then he heard footsteps on the bank. She came around the reeds carrying a lantern. The land-born girl. Her hair was loose, her feet bare, her sleeves rolled to the elbow. She stopped when she saw him. The lantern shook in her hand. She looked at the drowned hunter, then at Maris, at the tail, at the net. Her mouth opened. "Please," Maris said. His voice came rough. "Don't." She stepped back. He knew the sound coming next. One scream would bring the village and the knives. He needed something faster than his voice. He reached into the pouch at his hip. His fingers found the pearl he had carried for years. It shimmered even in the lantern light, iridescent, alive with color, spun from the breath of a creature no land person had ever seen. He held it up between two fingers. "For you," he said. "Take it. Cut me loose and it's yours." The girl froze. Her eyes went to the pearl and stayed there. The scream never left her throat. She knelt in the mud, set the lantern down, and stared at the light moving inside the glass. Behind her, a willow leaned over the water. Its trailing branches glowed with soft blue blossoms, painting them both in pale light. She looked once at the tree, once at Maris, and reached for a knife at her belt. She cut the first rope. "Who are you?" she whispered. Maris breathed. The shore had nearly killed him. Now the girl who could destroy him held his life in her hands, and she had chosen the pearl.