Neovina Lantis's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

They stopped to rest in a field of pink shells. Neovina pressed her back against the largest one and caught her breath. Cinder's flame lit the water dim red. Serpin hung apart from them, coiled in the dark, watching the current they had fled. His silver tattoos glowed faint. He had followed her since the trench, bound to her against his will. He had not chosen her. She knew it. If Malachi came, she could not count on the serpent to fight. She swam to him. "You'll run when he strikes," she said. "Won't you." "I follow. I don't fight." Serpin's red eyes did not move. "The bond drags me. It does not make me yours." Neovina had nothing to trade but truth. She reached into the folds at her waist and drew out an icy blue crystal, cut into a faceted pendant. It had hung at her mother's throat before Malachi's kind took everything. "This is all I have left of my family," she said. "I'm not asking you to guard me. I'm asking you to hold it. If I fall, carry it back to the cold water where it belongs." Serpin stared at the crystal. "You give a stranger your last thing." "You've been dragged your whole life," she said. "I know how it feels to lose what's yours. I won't drag you too. Go, if you want. The bond can pull, but I'll never ask you to bleed for me." Red ink bloomed through the shells. Malachi rose from it, tentacles dripping, teeth bared. His yellow eyes found Cinder. "The blank one," he said. "The blank one. Hold still." A tentacle shot toward Cinder's chest. Neovina threw herself between them. The ink seared her arm. She did not let go of Cinder. Serpin moved. He struck fast, whipping his coiled body across Malachi's tentacles. Silver light burned where he touched. Malachi shrieked and pulled back, ink clouding the water. "You said you don't fight," Neovina gasped. "I said the bond doesn't make me yours." Serpin drove Malachi backward. "This does." His tail lashed again. "You didn't ask." Malachi's yellow eyes darted between them. He hissed. "Later. Later." The red ink swallowed him, and he was gone into the deep. The water cleared. Neovina's arm throbbed where the ink had burned. Cinder's flame steadied at her side, unclaimed, still himself. Serpin uncoiled. He held out his hand. Neovina placed the crystal in it. He closed his fingers around the cold blue light. "I'll carry it," he said. "And you." The bond had not broken. But something new held now, chosen. Serpin would fight the next time Malachi came. Neovina had lost her mother's last keepsake to a stranger's hand. She had gained a guardian who wanted to guard her. She did not know yet which trade cost more.