Tandis nightshade's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Tandis dragged herself onto the far side of the cliff before dawn. Her clothes clung wet and cold. She had beaten the lantern patrol once by swimming below it. But now sunlight touched the water, and she heard voices above. Her brothers had changed their watch. They no longer waited for night. They searched the cliff's far side by day, the one path she had left. If they saw her climb up soaked in seawater, they would cast her out at once. She pressed flat against the rock and listened. Two brothers walked the ledge overhead. One kicked loose stones down past her head. "She goes into the water," he said. "Check the low rocks." Their boots moved toward the very ledge she needed. She could not climb up. She could not stay. The tide was rising to cover her. Marius surfaced below her, silent. His dark blue hair spread on the swell. His green eyes found the ledge where the boots scraped, then found her. "They hunt the day now," he whispered. "There is no dark left to hide you." "I can't go up," Tandis said. "I can't stay down here. The water's coming." He pressed his cold hand flat over his own chest, then reached it toward her. She knew the gesture. Trust. "You already crossed," he said. "The shore was closed the night you swam to me. Stop climbing back to a door that is shut." A brother shouted above. "Wet marks! She came up here!" A lantern, useless in daylight, clattered on the stone. They had found the place she always climbed. In a moment they would look straight down. Tandis looked up at the ledge, then down at Marius's open hand. She had one breath to choose. She let go of the rock. She dropped into the sea. The cold closed over her head. Marius caught her waist and pulled her under, away from the cliff, into deep green water. She held her breath and kicked. Above them the surface shrank to a pale ceiling. She saw two shapes lean over the ledge, searching the rocks she had just left. They saw nothing but water. Marius drew her to a shelf of stone below the tide line. Air pooled there in a pocket under the rock. She broke the surface and gasped. "They saw the marks," she said. "They know I went in the water." "Then they know you are gone," Marius said. "They will not find a body. They will not find you climbing back. To them you are dead or cursed." Tandis pressed her hand to her own chest. Her fingers shook. She had not just missed the patrol. She had vanished from the shore entirely. No lie remained to tell her family, because she would never face them again. The land was closed. Only the sea was left, and the prince beside her, and the air in this small stone pocket that would not last the rising tide.