Chapter 9 - The Quiet Evening
The wind off the sea carried salt and silence.
Tlacaelel sat at the edge of the dock, bare feet dangling just above the waterline. A half-mended net rested in his lap—limp, tangled, and currently being chewed on by a dog he wasn’t responsible for.
The bond hummed under his skin like a splintered chord—but Tlacaelel had had other problems that morning. Namely: two of the village children had used his hammock as a slingshot and someone had sabotaged his bait bucket with stones.
“This is what I get for waiting like a tragic poem,” he muttered, brushing fish scales off his forearm. “The universe sends me children, rocks, and chaos.”
He hadn’t touched the net in an hour.
Somewhere along the way, he’d stopped dressing for ceremony and started dressing for bai
