Rhode's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Triton's warning stayed with Rhode all night. By morning their mother would demand answers, and Rhode had only her conviction. Conviction had not swayed the court. It would not sway the Queen. She needed proof that peace with the surface was possible. So she left the palace before dawn and swam up toward the light, her golden trident gripped tight. She surfaced near a crowded beach. The water stung her eyes. Oil slicked the surface. Plastic drifted past her face. Below her, fish darted around a sunken net, trapped and thrashing. This was what her people hated. This was the wound. If she wanted the court to believe, she had to bring back something more than words. Rhode cut the net loose with the edge of her trident. She freed the fish one by one. Then she heard a small cry from the shallows. A surface child had fallen from a dock and could not swim. No one on the beach had seen. Rhode did not think. She boiled a current under the child and lifted him gently to the sand. The child stared at her crown shaped like the sun. He did not scream. He reached out and touched a strand of her dark hair. "Are you a mermaid?" he asked. Rhode smiled. For the first time since the court turned on her, a face looked at her without fear. She pressed a small pearl from her trident into his palm. Then she dove. She returned to the palace as the water brightened. Triton waited in the great hall, among the gilded columns and glowing blue accents. He was not drinking. That alone frightened her. "Where were you?" he said. "Mother's awake. She's asking." "I went up," Rhode said. "I saw what we did and what they did. A child was drowning. I saved him. He wasn't afraid of me, Triton. He thanked me." Triton rubbed his jaw. "That's your proof? One kid on a beach?" He paused, corrected himself. "No. That's not nothing. That's more than the nobles have given either of us." He drifted closer. "But it won't be enough for her. She lost brothers to those people. She'll want a treaty. A plan. Not a story about a boy." "Then I'll tell her the story anyway," Rhode said. "And I'll tell her I'm going back." A guard entered and bowed low. The Queen summoned them both. Triton looked at his sister. "I'll stand with you," he said. "Again. But understand what you did. You surfaced. You touched one of them. If Mother decides that's treason, there's no taking it back." Rhode lifted her trident. The sunstone gems glowed warm. She had no treaty. She had a freed child and a pearl in a human hand. It was proof of nothing the court wanted. It was proof enough for her. She swam toward the throne room, and her brother followed.