Tilda's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

The cloth around Tilda’s left palm split as she lifted a coconut. Gold light leaked through the gap. She dropped the coconut into its basket and clamped her hand shut. If the market saw the mark burned into her skin, they would ask where it came from. Tilda wanted that answer too. She just did not want to find it with a crowd watching. She left her coconut stall and pushed through the market. Her bare feet slapped wet boards. The torn wrap snagged on her wrist with each step. At the dockside rag shop, strips of cloth swung from a line over the open counter. None looked strong enough to trust. Hale Lungren stood inside the shop, mending a net with a hooked needle. Tilda had seen the scaled fisherman carry crates through storms without a word. He did not stare at her hand when she held it close. “I need a wrap,” Tilda said. “One that stays put.” Hale glanced at the loose threads. His dark scales shifted under his worn vest. “Show me what it must hold.” Tilda pulled the cloth back one finger at a time. Gold shone across her palm in a hard, bright mark. Hale’s needle stopped. A woman at the counter turned toward the light. Tilda grabbed for the old cloth. It tore free. Hale closed his broad hand over hers before anyone else could see. “Back room,” he said softly. Behind a hanging sailcloth, he wrapped her palm in thick canvas. He stitched the edges with waxed line, drawing each stitch tight. Tilda watched his needle pass near the gold mark. “You’ve seen one before,” she said. Hale tied the final knot. “Not on a living hand.” Tilda’s breath caught. “Where?” He handed her the old, shredded wrap. “On a drowned sailor. The mark pointed toward something he feared.” The new wrap held firm when Tilda opened her fingers. Then the gold light pressed through the canvas, bright enough to show every stitch. Hale looked at it once. “It is waking,” he said. Tilda left with her secret covered, but the mark had begun to burn through the strongest cloth she could find.