Neovina Lantis's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Neovina Lantis had seen the dark shell once, years ago, buried where warm currents crashed into deep cold. She never forgot its faint heat in her palm, or the emerald ink that swirled across its base like the splatter on her own tail. She was sure the shell hid a clue to her family's stolen heirloom, an ink-marked treasure ripped from her home. Tonight the tide bent the right way. She swam down through the cold to claim it. A black shape uncoiled from the trench. It was a sea serpent man, his wispy body trailing smoke, his long white hair drifting like weed. Silver tattoos glowed across his skin. His eyes burned red. "Turn back," he said. "These waters are mine to guard." Neovina held her ground. "The shell is down there. I need it." "I am Serpin. I keep the Dark Shell." He drifted closer. "Push past me and it tears you apart." She looked past his coils. Below him rested the shell, black and glossy, its inside glowing red like a coal. Heat rippled the water around it. Her tail throbbed at the sight of the matching ink. "You don't want to guard it," she said. She had watched his shoulders sag when he named it. "You're trapped here." His tattoos flickered. For a breath he said nothing. "Something lives inside," he said. "I did not choose this. The Shell chose me." Neovina thought fast. She could not fight him. But he wanted out as badly as she wanted in. "Then help me take it," she said. "If it leaves your waters, maybe your bond breaks with it." Serpin studied her. His red eyes narrowed. "You would carry the thing inside. Knowing nothing of it." "I've held it before," she said. "It didn't harm me." That surprised him. His coils loosened a fraction. "No one has touched it and stayed." "I did." He went still, weighing her words against his own chains. Then he swept aside, clearing the path down. "Take it," he said. "But it watches you now." Neovina dove. The heat grew as she reached the shell. She wrapped both hands around its glossy black surface and pulled it from the silt. It burned warm, alive, heavier than she remembered. The emerald ink on its base matched her tail exactly, drip for drip. She rose with the shell against her chest. Serpin hovered, watching. His bond did not break. His tattoos still glowed. His face fell. "It did not free me," he said. "It only moved." A low pulse throbbed inside the shell, against Neovina's ribs, like a slow heartbeat waking. The heat sharpened. Something had noticed her. "Now it follows you," Serpin said. "And I follow it." Neovina held the shell tighter. She had what she came for. But she had not walked away clean. She had taken a guardian's chains, and whatever slept inside had turned its gaze toward her.