Tandis nightshade's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The lanterns had swung past Tandis that night, and she had crawled home in the dark unseen. But her family learned she had gone out. Now they watched the rocks. Every night, her brothers walked the shore with lanterns, and her mother sat at the door until dawn. They did not know about Marius. They only knew she slipped away. If they caught her once more, they would cast her out. And Marius waited past the black stones, in the deeper cove, for a girl who could no longer reach him. Tandis lay awake three nights. She listened to her family's boots on the stone outside. She could not run past them. She could not outrun a lantern. So she stopped trying to hide from them, and thought about the water instead. On the fourth night, she waited until the tide dropped. Then she climbed down the far side of the cliff, below the path her brothers walked. She slid into the cold sea and swam. The lanterns bobbed high above her, useless. Their light could not reach the water. She kept her head low and pulled herself past the black stones, out of their sight. Marius surfaced beside her. His dark blue hair spread on the surface. His green eyes were sharp with worry. "You did not come," he said. "Three nights, I waited." "They watch the shore now," Tandis said. Her teeth chattered. "I can't walk the rocks anymore. If they see me, I lose everything." Marius reached out and pressed his cold hand flat over his own chest. Then he held it toward her. "Then do not walk," he said. "Swim. The land is theirs. The water is mine. Here they cannot follow." Tandis pressed her own hand to her chest, over her pounding heart. She copied his gesture. The lantern light glowed far above, small and helpless. For the first time, the sea felt like a door, not a curse. "They will still guard the rocks," she said. "I can never go back to them." "You came to me instead," Marius said. He steadied her in the cold current. "That is a choice, Tandis. You cannot take it back." She knew he was right. She had crossed water her people called poison. She had swum to the one they called cursed. If her family found her wet at dawn, they would know she had gone into the sea, and no lantern watch would ever let her free again. The old path was closed behind her now. Tandis floated in the deeper cove, her hand still on her heart. She had beaten the lantern patrol. But she had traded the shore for the sea, and the sea belonged to Marius and his people. Come morning, she would have to explain wet hair and salt on her skin, and she had no lie left that would hold.