Maris Calderon's Arc

Chapter 3 of 14

Three nights passed in the shack by the shore. Maris grew stronger. Each dusk he woke to Elara pouring cool water over his skin. Each dawn she wrapped fresh cloth around his arm. He did not tell her what the bond had done. But he felt it in his chest, a thin thread that pulled toward her. That thread carried power. When she smiled at him, his gills eased and his strength returned faster. He needed that strength. His kingdom waited under the swamp, and the man who took it would not give it back. "You keep watching the water," Elara said. She knelt beside him with the bucket. "Like it's going to call you away." "It might," Maris said. He caught her wrist. Her pulse jumped under his fingers. "Elara. The pearl I gave you. Do you trust me?" She went still. Then she nodded. "You saved my hands from that net. You could have drowned me. You didn't." She set down the bucket. "Yes. I trust you." The thread in his chest pulled tight and warm. That was the answer he had waited for. The bond needed her trust to open all the way. Now it did. Power flooded him, cold and strong, filling his limbs like a rising tide. He gasped and gripped the floor. His skin no longer felt tight. For the first time since the net, he felt whole. He stood. He did not stagger. "You're better," Elara said, rising with him. Her violet eyes shone. "You can swim now." "I can." Maris looked at her honey hair, her pale face, the pearl in her pocket. He wanted all three of the things he could not have at once. And he could only take one tonight. "There is a place I have to reach. A stronghold under the swamp. It's mine. Someone stole it." "Then let me help you. I helped before." "Not this time." He touched her cheek. "You'd dry the same as I would, only faster. And you would die." Her face crumpled. "You're leaving." "I'm coming back." He meant it. The bond would not let him lie about that. "The thread between us doesn't break. Wherever I go, I feel you. Wherever you are, you feel me. Try it." She pressed her hand to her own chest. Her breath caught. "I do feel it," she whispered. "I don't understand it." "You will." Maris opened the crooked door. Night lay over the cove. The tide had come in full. He slid into the black water and let it close over his gills. The bond stretched behind him like a line paid out from a spool. He swam toward the swamp, strong at last, aimed at a throne held by a siren with claws and long black eyes. Behind him, in the shack, Elara stood at the window with her hand on her chest, feeling him leave, bound to a man she did not understand.