Chapter 1: A Coin for a Dying Star
The air in the village always tasted of salt and endings. Yamato felt it on his tongue as he shuffled past the shuttered shops, his guitar case a familiar weight on his back. The coins in his pocket—three thin, greasy disks of copper—clicked a pathetic rhythm against his thigh. They were supposed to be for a bowl of stew. His stomach clenched around the idea, a hollow echo.
He cut through the fish market. It was the fastest route to the tavern, even if it made his skin crawl. The tide was out, leaving the harbor mud exposed like a bad wound. Stalls of warped wood and rusted iron bled a cold, fishy smell into the damp. Everything was slick underfoot; seaweed strung across the stones like old hair, broken shells crunching with a sound like small bones.
A roar of laughter, too loud and too mean, cut through the general murmur.
It came from Kaito’s stall at the far end, where the market bled into the working docks. A knot of men in stained sweaters had gathered, their backs to Yamato. He should have kept walking. He always kept walking. But a space between two shoulders opened for a second, and he saw what they were looking at.
It was a heap of netting, the thick, green kind used for deep-water trawls. Something was tangled in the center of it, a flash of impossible color.
Yamato stopped.
He moved closer, drawn by a pull he couldn’t name. The men parted for him, not out of respect, but because he was thin and forgettable. They barely noticed him.
Then he saw it fully, and his breath left him.
It was a man, but it wasn’t. From the waist up, the torso was lean and muscular, sun-darkened skin mapped with fresh abrasions and older, silvery scars. But from the hips down… scales. Vibrant, shimmering scales in a gradient of sunset orange bleeding into a deep, bloody red. A powerful tail, maybe eight feet long, lay limp on the slimy planks, its great fin frayed and torn. The scales there were the worst; cracked and peeling upward in places, revealing a tender, grayish flesh beneath. They looked like parched earth.
The creature’s head was turned away, soft brown hair matted with seaweed and something darker. One of Kaito’s crew, a man with a face like a fist, poked at the tail with a gaff hook.
A low, guttural sound came from the net. A shudder ran through the magnificent tail.
“Still kickin’,” the man grunted, and the others laughed.
Kaito himself stood to the side, his arms folded over his barrel chest. His beard was a nest of salt and tobacco. “Careful with the merchandise. City aquarium’s buyer wants him alive. More money that way.”
“He ain’t lookin’ so alive, Cap’n.”
“He’ll hold.”
Yamato’s eyes were fixed on the merman’s side. It rose and fell, a shallow, desperate rhythm. As if sensing a new gaze, the creature’s head turned slowly, painfully.
Their eyes met.
They were an amber Yamato had never seen on land, the color of old whisky or late-afternoon sun through deep water. Slit pupils, like a cat’s, dilated wide with pain and something else—a furious, feral intelligence. That gaze didn’t plead. It assessed. It burned.
It saw Yamato, truly saw him, past the frayed sweater and the empty pockets. In that instant, the clatter of the market, the jeers of the men, the gnawing in Yamato’s gut—it all dissolved into a silent, screaming wrongness.
Without thinking, without a single plan forming in his head, Yamato stepped forward. His hand dove into his pocket. He pulled out the three copper coins, his last money until his next set at the tavern, two nights from now. He didn’t look at Kaito. He looked at the merman’s cracked scales, at the terrible dryness sucking the life from them.
He tossed the coins. They landed on the bloody, fish-gut-smeared planking between Kaito’s boots with a dull thud.
“For the stew,” Yamato said, his voice rough. “I’m taking him instead.”
Silence, then a snort. Kaito looked down at the coins, then up at Yamato, a slow, ugly smile spreading. “You’re what?”
“I’m taking him.” Yamato heard the words come out of his own mouth, flat and final.
“Boy,” Kaito said, the word a dismissal. “That’s not enough to buy a scale off his tail. This is a princely catch. Literally.” He nudged the net with his boot. “Aren’t you, your highness?”
The merman’s lips peeled back from sharp, white teeth. A hiss, like steam escaping a rock crevice.
“It’s all I have,” Yamato said. He was aware of how ridiculous he sounded. “You were just going to let him dry out here until your buyer comes. He’ll die.”
“Then he dies, and I sell the parts. Teeth, scales, bones. Still payday.” Kaito shrugged. “Now piss off, musician. Go pluck your sad songs somewhere else.”
The men chuckled. The merman’s eyes never left Yamato’s face. The fury in them was dimming, replaced by a haze of agony. The tail gave a weak, spasmodic twitch.
A cold certainty settled in Yamato’s chest. He walked past Kaito, right up to the net. He dropped to his knees, the damp immediately soaking through his trousers. He ignored the stench of brine, blood, and fear. He started working at the knots.
“Hey!” The fist-faced man took a step.
“Let him,” Kaito said, his voice dangerously quiet. He was watching, amused. “Let’s see what the poet thinks he’s gonna do. You gonna carry him home, boy? Put him in your bathtub?”
The net was tough, salt-hardened. Yamato’s fingers, calloused from guitar strings, tore at the fibers. He could feel the merman’s skin, cool and strangely smooth, under his touch. The creature flinched at first, a full-body recoil, but then went still, watching.
The last knot gave way. Yamato pulled the heavy net aside, revealing the full, terrible length of him. Up close, the damage was worse. A deep, ugly bruise bloomed across his ribs. One of his forearms was bent at a wrong angle.
“Can you…” Yamato didn’t know how to finish the question. Can you move? Can you speak?
The merman’s amber eyes flickered from Yamato’s face to the crowd of fishermen, to the distant line of the sea. A longing so profound it was a physical ache filled that look. He tried to push himself up on his arms, muscles corded with strain, but collapsed back with a choked sound.
Yamato acted. He shoved his guitar case behind a stack of empty crates. He would come back for it, or he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter now. He slid his arms under the merman’s torso, ignoring the gasp of pain it elicited. He was heavier than he looked, dense with muscle. The tail was a dead, dragging weight.
“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kaito announced to his crew, laughing.
Yamato locked his knees and stood, heaving the merman up in a fireman’s carry. The tail hung down his back, the great fin scraping the ground. A tremor went through the creature’s body. A low, pained vibration hummed against Yamato’s shoulder.
He turned and began to walk, step by staggering step, away from the stalls, away from the laughter. His heart hammered against his ribs. He had no cart, no wagon. His one-room cottage was a half-mile up the coast path, all uphill.
“He’s dead by morning!” Kaito called after him, cheerfully. “And you’re out your supper money! Don’t come crying to me!”
Yamato didn’t look back. He adjusted his grip, feeling the chill of the merman’s skin seep through his sweater. The path out of the market was a narrow alley of dripping stone. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
Then, a voice. It wasn’t a sound heard with the ears, not exactly. It was a scrape of meaning directly against his mind, raspy and water-worn.
”Why?”
Yamato stumbled, caught himself. He kept walking. “I don’t know,” he muttered, aloud.
Silence for a dozen more labored steps. The weight was immense.
”The water,” the voice grated, full of a desperate, primal need. ”Take me… to the water.”
“I can’t,” Yamato breathed, his lungs burning. “The harbor’s full of boats. Kaito’s men. They’d just take you again. My place… it’s close. I have a tub.”
A tremor of outrage, or perhaps terror, shook the body draped over him. ”A tub?”
“It’s all I have.”
He reached the end of the alley and turned onto the cliff path. The sea wind hit them, cold and clean. The merman lifted his head, his nose twitching as he scented the air. A heartbreaking whimper escaped him.
Yamato kept climbing, each step a small eternity. The merman’s breathing grew shallower, his body heavier. The last of the sun bled out behind the clouds, leaving the world in a deep, blue gloom.
”Taichi,” the voice whispered in his head, fainter now.
“What?”
”My name… is Taichi.”
Yamato reached his weathered cottage door as full dark settled in. He shouldered it open, stumbling into the single room that smelled of old wood, damp wool, and loneliness. In the corner, next to the cold hearth, sat a large, chipped porcelain bathtub.
He had just traded his last meal for a dying prince he couldn’t heal, and now he had to figure out how to get him into it.