Velar Tidemark's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Velar Tidemark spread his net across the black water of the twilight lake and knew it would fail. He had come to catch the luminous leviathan. The great beast surfaced only during Odin's brightest frost tide, and that tide was three nights off. Velar had waited two full cycles for this chance. But his net was made for silkfin, light as spore-thread. The leviathan would tear through it like frost through a leaf. He knelt at the shore and tested the mesh between his fingers. It held a fish the length of his arm. It would not hold a thing longer than his boat. Velar had no line strong enough, no hook large enough. His plan had a hole in it wide as the lake. "Your net won't hold it," a voice said behind him. "You already know that." Veska Silmara stepped from the tree line, spear across her back, its tip glowing faint purple. She fished the deep channels past the Roseus Rex line, and Velar had taught her once to watch glowflies instead of her line in the dark. She owed him that. She did not smile. "I know it," Velar said. "I have nothing better." Veska crouched beside him. She looked at the net, then at the water. "I do." She unslung a rod from her back and laid it on the stones. It was carved from pale frostpine, fitted with a lure of blade-like scales. Claw hooks curved from a heavy braided line. Cold-forged, mean, built for something that fought back. "A hunter gave me this," Veska said. "For work I still owe. The line holds a titanfrill. It will hold your beast." Velar picked it up. The rod was heavy, wrong in his hands after a lifetime of soft nets. "Why give it to me?" "I'm not giving it." Veska stood. "The die-off in my waters is spreading. My fish carry gray sickness now. I need my hands free to find what causes it." She looked at the deep lake. "You want the leviathan. I want it dead too, or caught, so I can read its belly. Take the rod. Land the beast. Then it's mine to cut open." Velar turned the lure in the twilight. Glowflies drifted low over the water, steady and blue. He crushed one against the scale-lure the way he'd once shown Veska. The mark glowed. In the dark, he would see the strike. "Three nights," Velar said. "When the frost tide brightens." "Three nights." Veska was already moving back toward the trees. "Don't lose it in the water like the last fisher did. That rod cost him his whole rig." Then she was gone into the understory. Velar set the net aside on the stones. His old problem was solved. His new one weighed cold in his hands. He no longer needed a net strong enough. Now he needed the strength to hold a rod that had already beaten one man, against a beast far worse, with the tide closing in.