Seraphina Blue's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Seraphina Blue had counted the guard rotations at Moon Lagoon since she was eight, and tonight she meant to use them. She crouched behind the reeds with a coil of rope and a weight in her pocket. The plan was simple and stupid: sink herself past the shallow shelf, hold her breath, and pray the deep current carried her toward the prince's court. She had seen him surface once, years ago, during the red tide that made her cousin hide indoors for two days. He had not flinched at the waves. She had not stopped thinking about him since. She waded out past her knees. The water was cold and tasted of salt and old stone. She tied the weight to her ankle and looked down, and the lagoon looked back, black and far deeper than her lungs could manage. She thought of her neighbor crying through the storm. She thought of the prince's steady face. She lifted the weight to drop it. "You'll drown before the second bend." The voice came from a ring of stones she had passed a hundred times and never questioned. Shallow blue water glowed inside the circle, lit by shells wedged between the rocks. A merfolk had surfaced there, arms folded on the rim. He watched her the way a fisherman watches a hooked thing decide whether to fight. "That's where surface girls go when they try this," he said. "The second bend. The current folds them under." He told her the ring was a speaking place, set at the lagoon's edge so his people could meet land-dwellers without breaking the deeper laws. He had been watching her walk the shore for weeks. She untied the weight. She asked him why he was telling her. He shrugged and lifted a mask from the water. It was sleek and pale, shaped to cover her nose and mouth, with small orange lights along the jaw. "This breathes for you," he said. "Down to the court, if you can stand the pressure. I'm not giving it to you for free. You'll owe a favor, and I'll name it when I name it." Seraphina took the mask. She did not ask what the favor would be. She had already decided, standing in the reeds with a rope on her ankle, that she had no price she would refuse. He pointed across the water to a dark shape rising from the far shallows: a vine arch threaded with shells, unlit. "When that arch lights blue, you've been granted passage," he said. "Until then, you go down as a trespasser. The guards will be within their rights." He sank without waiting for her answer. Seraphina fitted the mask to her face. The seal pulled tight against her skin. She walked back into the water, alone now, with a borrowed breath and a debt she could not yet count.