Vargoth Ember's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Vargoth Ember had no lair, and he called that being hungry. Below him lay the cure. Beneath Shipwreck Bay, under a hundred sunken ships, waited a hoard worth a dragon's legend. He crouched on the wet rocks and watched the water churn between the broken hulls. Every night a savage current tore through the wrecks. He had dived twice already. Both times it flung him against jagged timber and left his black scales scored. His red fire meant nothing down there. It hissed to steam the moment it touched the sea. A voice rose from the foam behind him. "You'll die on the third try. Most men only get one." Vargoth turned. A man stood on the surf, but the surf ran through him. Silas Coldwater, drowned sailor, the only soul who had swum these wrecks and come back to talk. Kelp threaded his beard. Water dripped from him and left the stone dry. Vargoth had spoken with him before, and the ghost still eyed the dragon like a fool rushing a grave. "Then teach me," Vargoth said. "Or float there and watch me learn slow." Silas laughed, a wet rattle. "The current takes what isn't anchored. I wasn't anchored." He drifted closer. "There's a woman up the shore. She read these tides before your grandsire hatched. Marina." Vargoth found her by a shallow pool, tracing circles in the water with one finger. Marina Tidecaller had blue hair and calm eyes. She did not startle at a dragon's shadow. She had ruled currents once, the ghost said, and given it up. "You dive at the wrong hour," she told him, without looking up. "The pull peaks near midnight. It slacks before dawn. Wait for the slack and the wrecks let you pass." "Slack still moves," Silas warned. "Enough to drag him." Marina nodded. "Then he needs to hold the seabed." She looked at Vargoth's claws. "Yours won't grip iron and timber. You need hooks." Vargoth thought of the vent up the cliff, the crack of dark stone where lava seamed through. His fire could not burn underwater, but it could shape metal in dry air. He climbed to the vent and worked through the day. He fed scrap into the molten seam and hammered it with his claws. By dusk he had forged an anchor of hooked iron prongs, four heavy claws bound to a ring he could clamp to his leg. He waited at the water's edge until midnight passed and the roar of the current softened. Then he dove. The slack still shoved him toward a splintered hull. He drove the iron claws into the wreck and held. The pull strained his neck, but the hooks bit deep. Hand over hand, he hauled himself down through the tangle of ships. His claws struck buried timber, then something harder. A chest. He dragged it into the light of the shallows and broke the lid. Inside lay no gold. Inside coiled a nest of thick green tendrils, and they moved.