Crown of Coral and Pearl Read online

  I sucked in a breath. “What? Why? I thought this was what you wanted.”

  Zadie’s features were obscured in the darkness, but I could imagine the worry dimples above her brow. “I want to stay here with you. I want to marry Sami. I love him, Nor.”

  Something cold stirred in my stomach, slick as an eel. Of course I wanted Zadie to stay, for her and Sami to be together. But I couldn’t help wondering what role would be left for me in Zadie’s life if her wish came true. “I know.”

  “Do you think they’ll pick her? She is beautiful, and thoughtful and nurturing. Surely those things matter more than a crooked tooth, even in Varenia.”

  “It’s possible,” I said. “But don’t you want to be a princess? Don’t you want to see the world? Nothing can be worse than staying here forever.”

  “Varenia is my home. You and Samiel are my home. What more can the world possibly have to offer?”

  Roses, I thought. And horses and castles and all manner of things I hadn’t dared to imagine, surely. What didn’t the world have to offer?

  “Would you really want to go, if they chose you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, without a moment’s hesitation. But we both knew they wouldn’t. “What are you going to do if they choose you tomorrow?”

  When she blinked, her eyes were shiny in the moonlight. “I’ll go. But it will be my body that leaves, and nothing more. Samiel has my heart, and you, dear sister, my soul.”

  * * *

  The day of the ceremony dawned bright and clear, bringing with it both relief and dread. I needed to get out of that house, to breathe air that hadn’t been shared with twenty-nine other women. But Zadie trembled beside me like a feather in the wind as we stepped onto the long dock that connected the meetinghouse to the governor’s.

  All the girls had left behind their sun-bleached tunics and salt-stained skirts for a proper gown, many of which had been passed down through the women in their families for generations. Zadie stood out in a brand-new silk gown as pink as the seven pearls my mother had traded to buy it, nearly two months’ worth of food and supplies.

  To his credit, Father had tried to reason with her. “Zadie is sure to be chosen even if she wears the burlap sack our grain comes in,” he argued.

  But Mother had ignored him and handed the gown to Zadie. “Pink for my pearl,” she said, then turned to me and presented her old ceremony gown, which had once been white. “And red for you, Nor. The color of the coral for which you were named.”

  Blood. That was the word she hadn’t said. The newly dyed cambric gown looked like it had been drenched in it.

  The water surrounding the wooden dock was crowded with boats, entire families gathered in a single vessel for the ceremony. Some were dangerously low in the water, threatening to capsize if a toddler decided to switch positions, as toddlers were prone to do.

  Sami stood next to his father, Governor Kristos, on the threshold of their house, painted a deep orange. The figurehead cast her long shadow over them, her blank eyes staring out to sea. Sami and I shared a momentary glance, his jaw clenching before his gaze returned to his feet.

  “Good people of Varenia,” Governor Kristos began. He was a tall man with broad shoulders and a thick brown beard streaked with silver. “From our humble beginnings, our village has been blessed by the sea. Not only does it feed and shelter us, but these waters have made us strong and virile. Our oldest villager has just celebrated her one hundred and fiftieth year, as you know.”

  Hundreds turned toward a boat near the dock, where Old Mother Agathe sat surrounded by her seven elderly children and countless grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We all bowed our heads in respect.

  “Now the time has come to send one of our daughters to Ilara, where she will someday be queen. It is a loss for us all but also a great honor, and we do so not out of necessity but generosity.”

  I almost scoffed out loud but managed to hold it in. No, it wasn’t necessary, as long as we didn’t mind having our food and water supply permanently cut off. I didn’t know when the Varenian tradition of handing over pearls and women had evolved from penance to retribution, when the vow to never set foot on land had become a law enforced under pain of death—but I knew I would have rowed to shore a long time ago if I’d had any choice in the matter.

  The governor walked down the dock toward us girls, lined up like jewels on a chain. “The elders spoke long into the night as they considered this most important of decisions.”

  I glanced at the elders from the corner of my eye. They sat in chairs in front of the governor’s house, a group of thirteen men and women who looked remarkably alert, given that not one was less than a hundred years old.

  “Elder Nemea, would you like to make the announcement?” the governor asked a woman sitting in the center. Her braid, as white as sea foam, hung to her knees, and her faded skirts dragged behind her as she made her way slowly down the dock. Alys stood closest to the governor’s house, and I felt the intake of breath all around me as the elder drew near her.

  But she did not stop, and from somewhere behind me, I heard a gasp, followed by a muffled sob. That would be Alys’s mother, a woman nearly as ambitious as our own. Once we passed from girlhood into young womanhood, our mother had forbidden us to socialize with Alys, something that had always saddened me. After all, if anyone in Varenia understood what our lives were like, it was Alys.

  Zadie stood to my left, and Elder Nemea approached from my right. I kept my gaze lowered, as was customary in the presence of elders. Nemea’s worn slippers came into view, and for one moment, I wondered if there was any chance she might stop in front of me. It was a silly—and fleeting—thought, for the next second she halted, directly in front of Zadie.

  No one but a sister would have noticed, but I heard Zadie’s breath quicken, just a fraction. I couldn’t help myself: I looked up. Elder Nemea had raised one arm and placed her gnarled hand on Zadie’s shoulder. I scanned the crowd for Mother and Father, whose boat was near the front of the crowd. Mother’s eyes were locked on Zadie, and she made no effort to conceal the grin splitting her face.

  “Zadie,” Elder Nemea began. “In one week’s time, you will leave for Ilara to marry Prince Ceren. You have brought honor to your family and all of Varenia.”

  Zadie bowed her head as Governor Kristos stepped forward to place a wreath of rare white seaflowers on her like a crown, a symbol of the real crown she would wear soon enough. He kissed her gently on each cheek. “My dear girl, we will miss you,” he whispered so only Zadie and I could hear.

  “And I you,” she said.

  He turned away from Zadie to face the people. “The elders have chosen!” he shouted. “And now, let us celebrate!”

  A cheer rose up from the crowd, and I had to clench my hands into fists at my side to keep from reaching for my sister. When I glanced at Sami, I saw that his hands were balled as tightly as mine.

  One week was all we had left. And then we’d never see Zadie again.

  3

  While the rest of the village broke open jugs of homemade wine and heaped our parents with praise, I retreated to our family’s boat below the governor’s house. I told myself my sorrow was purely for my sister, but a small part of me wept for my own loss. Not only would I spend the rest of my life in Varenia, I would do it without Zadie.

  “Nor?”

  I looked up to see Sami on the ladder leading down from his house. “Mind if I join you?” he asked. “I’m not really in the mood for celebrating.”

  I burst into a fresh bout of sobs as he dropped into the boat beside me.

  “Oh, Nor. Please don’t cry.” He pulled me into his arms and held me while I tried to staunch the flow of my tears. There was an old legend that said pearls were the tears of the gods, but we mortals wept only saltwater, and we had more than enough of that around here.

  Sami smoothed
my hair back from my face. “This is what’s best for Zadie, and for your family.”

  I glanced up, shocked. “What?”

  “It’s an honor, Nor. The highest honor.”

  “That’s a lie, and you know it. If it’s such an honor, why don’t the Ilareans choose someone from their own kingdom? If we’re so special, why aren’t the rest of us allowed on land?”

  “Nor—”

  I pushed away from him and moved to the other bench. “She loves you, Sami. She told me last night. And now she has to leave us and marry some prince who will never make her happy.”

  Now it was his turn to look shocked. “She loves me?”

  “Yes.” I wiped the tears away with the back of my hand. “She said she doesn’t want to go, that she wants to stay here and marry you.”

  Sami sat motionless for several minutes.

  “Say something,” I said finally. “What are you thinking?”

  “She loves me.”

  “Is that really so hard to believe?”

  “Yes!” He started to run his fingers through his brown hair before he remembered he was supposed to look dignified today. “I always hoped she loved me, and I sometimes thought that maybe she had feelings for me, but every time I tried to get closer, she pushed me away. I thought she wanted to go to Ilara. I thought every girl did.”

  “Trust me, so did I.”

  He shook his head and lowered his gaze. “Our fathers have been talking.”

  I fiddled with a loose thread on my bodice. “They always talk.”

  “No, this is different. My father told me tonight, that you and I are to be...”

  I dropped my hands. “To be what?”

  Sami dragged his eyes up to mine. “To be married.”

  The word hung in the air between us, as heavy as a storm cloud.

  “Married,” I repeated.

  “As soon as we turn eighteen. Our fathers have always wanted this, I think, for our two families to be joined. They’ve always felt like brothers, and now they will be.”

  “But we can’t marry,” I blurted. “We don’t love each other.”

  He sighed in exasperation. “Love isn’t a requirement for marriage, Nor. Do you think Zadie will love Prince Ceren?” He spat the name out like a bitter pip.

  “My parents married for love, and so did yours. If we talk to them, tell them what Zadie told me last night, maybe they’ll change their minds.”

  But Sami already looked resigned. “The elders made this decision, not our parents. It just so happens it’s what they wanted, too.”

  I was too stunned now to cry. I hadn’t known what life without Zadie would look like, but I hadn’t expected this.

  The boat rocked back and forth as Sami came to sit next to me. “It could be worse,” he said softly. “They could have arranged for me to marry Alys. And you could have been stuck with anyone. Would you have wanted that?”

  I fisted my hands in my skirts. “No, of course not. It’s just all too much right now. I can’t make sense of it.”

  “At the very least, you’ll be provided for. And when I’m the governor, I will stand up to the Ilareans, unlike my weak father.”

  I shot him a look out of the corner of my eyes. “Careful, Sami. Your father isn’t too weak to stripe you like a sea snake if he hears you talk like that.”

  He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I knew then why we could never marry: because where he touched Zadie almost reverently, as if she were as fragile as a bird’s egg, he touched me like a brother touches a sister. It was too comfortable, too self-assured. A man was supposed to envy every wave that touched his lover’s body, not rest his arm on her shoulder like a cushion.

  I shrugged out from under his arm. “I should find Zadie now. We haven’t had a chance to speak.”

  I was relieved that he didn’t try to stop me, but I wondered about his true feelings toward our betrothal. Was it just that I was the next best thing to Zadie, or did he really believe he could love me the way a husband loves a wife?

  I tried to see him not just as a best friend, but as an eligible young man. He wore his finest tunic and trousers tonight, and his hair was neatly combed and oiled—or had been, before he’d ruffled it. But when I looked at his face, all I could see was the mischievous boy from my childhood, the one who had dropped anchor without securing the rope and told Father it was my fault, who had once stolen my tunic so that I had to return from diving wearing my skirts as a dress. When his eyes, rimmed with long dark lashes that were the envy of many a girl, met mine, I didn’t feel anything but the same kind of love I felt for my family.

  “I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “When your parents are out. Tell Zadie... Tell her the elders chose well.”

  I managed a small smile. “You should tell her yourself. Good night, Sami.” I was reaching for the ladder to the dock when I felt his hand on mine.

  “I didn’t ask for this either, you know.”

  The coldness in his voice startled me, and I realized I had wounded his pride with my reaction to his news. Sami was kind and handsome, and he would make a good leader one day. Any girl would be lucky to marry him. But I needed him to understand how I felt.

  “I am not my sister, Sami,” I told him as gently as I could.

  “I never said you were.”

  Our eyes locked for another moment before I climbed out of the boat, leaving Sami alone in the dark.

  * * *

  I was still grappling with Sami’s news when I went in search of Zadie. I found her surrounded by the other girls from the choosing ceremony, and I was happy to see she was smiling, her golden-brown eyes beginning to glaze over as she took another swig of wine. We weren’t normally permitted to drink, but it seemed like none of the rules applied tonight.

  “You must envy your sister,” a woman my mother’s age said to me. “She gets to leave Varenia. She gets to marry a prince.”

  As if I wasn’t aware. “Yes, ma’am, she is very blessed.”

  “And to think, if you hadn’t saved her from that fishing net and cut your cheek all those years ago, it might have been you chosen tonight. It must be difficult not to blame her for your misfortune.”

  I glanced again at the woman and felt that same strange sensation in my belly, like a writhing eel. It was Alys’s mother.

  Contrary to what many Varenians thought, I had never once blamed Zadie for the scar on my cheek. It was a small price to pay for my sister’s life. That didn’t mean I had never envied my twin, or that I never wondered how things would be if the incident hadn’t happened. But I often consoled myself with the fact that if I didn’t have my scar, Zadie and I would have spent our lives competing with each other. The idea of viewing my sister as an obstacle, rather than my best friend, was unthinkable.

  Alys’s mother was like a flounder stirring up sand that had settled long ago, trying to bring painful memories to the surface. I buried them back down where they belonged. To hold on to the past was as useless as trying to find the same wave twice, Father always said.

  “I’m happy for my sister,” I said, then left to join Zadie.

  We didn’t return to our home until late into the night, after the entire village celebrated with enough homemade wine to hide the fact that there was no feast, as there should have been.

  Mother was half-asleep by the time Father led her back to our house, but the triumphant smile on her face never faltered. She relished every single congratulatory word, drank in the jealous looks of other mothers, many of whom seemed to know that Mother would now have a princess and the governor’s wife for daughters. Word traveled fast in Varenia, but it was clear no one had yet told Zadie about my betrothal, for while she was tipsy and exhausted, her mood was still riding the current of an entire village’s elation.

  I helped her undress and eased her onto our bed, then carefully
folded up our gowns. I tried to imagine my sister in a whale-bone corset and high-heeled shoes—things I’d never seen but heard about from Sami, who had encountered all manner of people at the port where he did his illegal trading.

  Only Ilarean men came to the floating market where we purchased our goods, and they never spoke to us about life in Ilara. They were polite but curt, keeping the conversation on business in their clipped cadence. (Though we spoke the same language, I’d always thought it sounded more musical on Varenian tongues.) But over the years, I’d gleaned small details about life on land from their clothing—never ornate, though fine—and mannerisms. And while Mother haggled, I often studied the intricate carvings on their boats: people and horses, trees and rivers, and dozens of creatures I couldn’t name.

  Perhaps, if I married Sami, I could sneak away with him and see those things for myself one day. Surely the governor’s wife would have more freedom than a villager’s daughter.

  I pulled a blanket over my sister, my eyes filling with tears at the thought that we had so little time left. It was a crueler twist of fate than Alys’s mother realized, that Zadie would leave Varenia and see the world, while I stayed behind and married the boy she loved. I scrubbed angrily at my tears, accidentally brushing the scar on my cheek. Without it, I might have been chosen, and Zadie could marry Sami. I didn’t resent my sister in the slightest, but I muttered a curse to Thalos that would have made even Sami blush. None of this was fair.

  I lay down on the straw-filled mattress next to my sister and carefully removed her seaflower crown, then began to release the braids in her hair. I’d thought she was asleep, but then I heard her breathe a sigh so weary, she sounded as old as Elder Nemea.

  “What is it?” I whispered. Mother and Father were asleep in their own bed across the house, but we only had curtains to separate our rooms.

  “It just all came back to me.”

  “What?”

  “What tonight meant. For a little while, I allowed myself to forget. I was just a girl celebrating with her friends.” She rolled over so I could work on the braids on the other side of her head. “I can’t believe I have to leave in a week. I’ll never see you again. It doesn’t seem possible.”