VESKA SILMARA's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Veska Silmara knelt at the edge of the dark lake and knew his pole would break. He had come to catch the deep-forest fis, the one old fishers swore could feed a whole village for a lunar cycle. Its scales glowed like a scattered sky. But the fis lived below the Roseus Rex line, deeper than any channel Veska had ever worked. His frostbark pole was made for river prey. It would snap the moment the fis pulled. He lowered a weighted line anyway. It sank and kept sinking. The still water swallowed it without a ripple. Veska waited. The glowing fungi along the shore pulsed soft and slow. Then the line went tight and screamed off his reel. He grabbed the pole with both hands. The wood bent, cracked, and split down the middle. The line burned across his palm before it snapped. Below, something huge turned in the deep, and Veska saw one violet eye watching him. He sat back, breathing hard, his hands empty. The fis was real. His gear was not enough. "You lost it." Veska turned. Veyla Shadewhisper stood among the frostpine trunks, bow slung across her back, spear in one hand. She was a hunter, and hunters and fishers rarely shared water. She had tracked a limping Gloomstalker for half a cycle down the wrong trail. Now she stood at his lake, saying only what was true. "The pole broke," Veska said. "It was never going to hold." Veyla crossed to the split wood and picked up both halves. She turned them over once. "Frostbark. River tool." She dropped the pieces. "You need frostpine and claw." She reached behind her back and drew out a rod Veska had never seen. It was carved from pale frostpine, taller than the man, tipped with a lure of layered scales that shimmered even in the dark. Hooks curved from it like talons. The line was thick and heavy, wound tight. "My trainer made it," Veyla said. "For deep prey. He stopped teaching me two cycles back." She held it out. "I hunt on land. It's no use to me." Veska stared at it. "Why give it to me?" "You'll fish deeper than I'll ever walk." She pressed the rod into his hands. Her fingers had the pale scar-marks of old toxin work. "I need something from that lake. A die-off spread west. Your channels feed it. Whatever killed the fungi is coming for your water too." Veska took the rod. It was cold and solid, and it did not bend when he leaned his weight against it. For the first time the fis felt reachable. "Then we both want it dead or landed," he said. Veyla did not answer. She looked at the black water where the violet eye had been. "It watched you," she said. "It knows you now." Then she turned and walked into the trees, leaving Veska alone with the rod that could hold a legend.