Victor Rosevale's Arc

Chapter 7 of 18

Victor turned back to the hollow with Sable in his arms. The dragon settled across the trail behind them, moss shifting on its shoulders as it lowered its head onto its forelegs. It watched the mouth of the hollow, not the slope. Victor felt the change in its posture before he understood it. Something inside the hollow had drawn its attention, not something outside. The spring was moving. The water that had closed Sable's wound now rose in a slow spiral above the basin. Steam curled off the surface. Then a woman lifted out of the pool to the waist, blonde hair sheeting water, aquamarine scales catching the gray light where her body met the pond. Victor set Sable down against the stone and put himself between them. He kept the spear low. "Put that down," the mermaid said. "I'm not the one you should be pointing it at." Her voice was light, almost cheerful. Her eyes were not. "Who are you?" "Marina. This pool feeds a river that feeds the sea. I feel every cut that closes in it." She looked at Sable. "Your girl used a lot of it." "She was dying." "I know. That's why I let it work." Marina rested her arms on the stone rim. "Now I need something back." Victor's grip tightened. "We don't have anything." "You have a road home. I need a message carried to the coast. One line, one name. Give me your word you'll carry it when you pass through Mosswood, and the dragon lets you walk out." Victor glanced at the dragon. It had not moved, but its pale blue eye was on him now. Waiting again. The same waiting as on the slope, when it had asked whether to kill the two men. He understood. The dragon was not his. It had been hers the whole time. Sable spoke from the stone behind him. "Take the deal, Victor." He lowered the spear. "What's the message?" Marina told him a name and a single sentence. He repeated both until she nodded. She did not explain who the name belonged to, or what the sentence meant. He did not ask. "Say it in the tavern at Mosswood. Someone there will hear it." She sank until only her eyes showed above the water. "Go straight home. Don't stop at the river bend." "Why?" "Because I said don't." The water closed over her. The dragon rose and stepped off the trail. The way out stood open. Victor lifted Sable again. She was lighter than she had been yesterday, or he was steadier. He walked past the dragon without looking at it. It did not follow. At the lip of the hollow he stopped. He now owed a debt to something he did not understand, and he had agreed on Sable's word as much as his own. He carried her down the slope toward Mosswood with the mermaid's sentence held in his mouth.