A battle broke out, with the betrayed family trying to get the pearl from the traitorous two. In the scuffle, the pearl was broken. Out spilled the stars like seeds, swirling around the twelve.
It did some final magic, smoothing the gills out from the near-humans, thrusting cartilage where there had just been small holes on the sides of their head for hearing, pushing their once broad noses forward to aid their air breathing. But this last change made it impossible for them to stay long in the water. They instinctively held their breath and swam jerkily away from the rest to gasp on shore, to begin their new life, now banished from their former home forever.
The star seeds spread over the others, too, and they were what ilorays believed gave them their impressive lifespan and strength.
“Who would want to trade that for landkeeping anyway? They gave away their lives, and they turned on their blood.” These words were almost always part of the moral of the story—pride and loyalty in sea birth.
There was another part, too.
As it was told, Mother had closed the stony gates, had shut away the last pearl for protection. The deepest magic lay in Mother’s arms, but no one knew where it was, or how to find it. Some pods had sought it out for the protection of all ceasids so that they may always have one pearl . . . in case. Some had sought it out of greed. Some just wanted answers to deeper questions.
Who was Mother, really?
Gryshen’s father had always told her that She was everything. She was the salt in the sea, the gleam in hope, the tenderness in a kiss. But was there really an actual Mother, guarding a final pearl deep within the ocean?
Chapter 1
“Do you need air?” Gryshen asked her father, feeling the familiar rattle in her own chest, her constant reminder. She would feel a burning in her lungs long before any of the others would.
“You both do.” Her father’s aide signaled from the shadows in the chamber doorway. Even though he was only a child when she was born, Bravis had seemed like an elder since she could remember. No other babe had ever looked so serious. The fact that her dad considered them to be destined for betrothal didn’t move her any closer to an iloray so . . . responsible.
“I’m fine.” Gryshen could hardly contain her annoyance.
Frall considered his daughter. “Well, I am, too, for a little while. Let’s go ahead with the plan. Shall we?”
Bravis tightened his already stony features. “Let’s not take too long, then.” His brow remained furrowed as his gaze passed between Frall and Gryshen.
Gryshen recalled a recent conversation with Bravis.
“Princess.” He addressed her in the formal fashion that was comfortable for him. His awkwardness struck Gryshen as funny, but it had only grown since her father suggested they were made for each other. Maybe it was because Bravis knew it was one more responsibility she had not volunteered for. Or maybe it was because he wanted to distance himself from the idea.
“As you are well aware, your father’s condition is deteriorating. The shun appears to be taking hold.” Bravis cleared his throat, attempting to disguise the break in his signal following the sharp tone. Gryshen thought she saw the beginnings of mist coming over his dark eyes. Bravis had a perfect calm to his face, always. Only his eyes gave him away. He wore his shoulder-length coal hair twisted in a small tail at the top of his spine. It was easy for Gryshen to get stuck staring at him, but necessary for her to look away. She wasn’t going to have anyone bound to her because they would do anything for her father. She wanted some part of her destiny to belong to her.
“You are the eldest, you are next in line, and sooner or later, you will be our chieftainess. Your greatest responsibility, greater than maintaining order in our tribe, greater than ensuring our food supply, our safety . . . greater than any of these is the oath you shall take to protect our pearl. Without it, nothing else matters. It is your most sacred duty.”
Gryshen felt the bone-crushing weight of these words.
It’s not my time. It’s not my time, and it’s not Dad’s time. It’s like they’re all just waiting for him to die.
The thaw season promised warmer skies and a rush of krill for eating, but not much change in the water’s freezing temperatures. It carried waves of sunlight that stretched down deep into the ocean. In the dark season, when everything was in line with ice, Gryshen would take to the surface of the water, breathing the frosted air, floating in the stillness, a glimpse of time that seemed to belong to her. And in the thaw season, she took to the surface to take in the life there. There was something about getting out that felt like a momentary escape from a giant net. Gryshen and her tribe took comfort in the knowledge that soon the brightness would return for a half year, and with it, more food for their watery home.
The cavern that housed their pod of about two hundred ceasids was a wild labyrinth that always seemed to have new turns and bends, vast chambers to explore. There was the hub, where the tribe could congregate, where they held feasts, where loves were bound in ceremony, babes were blessed, stories were shared. There were chambers for hunters, for food preparations. Places beneath the water and above the surface where the makers tried to fuse land and sea, landkeeper creations with gifts from the ocean. There was the Medicine Corridor where many sought spiritual guidance, went on retreat, or participated in sacred ceremonies. It was where healers camped, and farther in, where you could find their shaman’s lair. Outside the cavern, not far from two halves of a split ship that seemed as if they had found each other again under the water, lay the bone pit, the place where their dead rested.
And in the deepest, farthest place of the Rone Cavern, so far, one might feel as if they’d reached the other side of the Arctic Ocean, lay the Great Pearl.
The Rone Pearl gleamed a ghostly white, blindingly brilliant. Gryshen was one of the few living to have glimpsed it, and more than once: the first time she was in her mother’s arms, one of her earliest memories.
“Look, Gryshie,” her mother, Athela, cooed, clutching her chubby-fisted infant and stroking the fin at the end of her little tail. “This is the most sacred creation to our kind. Each pod has a pearl, and each pearl protects the pod—keeping us safe, healthy, a thriving tribe. Look at that . . .” she whispered, fixated on and hypnotized by the glowing orb.
“Never stray too far, Gryshen. Never stray too far from the pearl, especially if you are sick, or there’s a lack of food. Its strength only stretches so far past our village.”
Gryshen kept these words safe within her heart—not so much for their warning, but for the love they sailed in on.
These words, this knowledge had protected her long after her dead mother was unable to.
Now, Gryshen’s second encounter with the pearl was more frightening. They made their way quickly from Frall’s chamber to the narrow private corridor that led to open space, before another twist led them down the long path to the pearl. Gryshen gripped the glass lantern tightly in her long, slightly webbed fingers, the blue jellyfish within the lantern casting a ghostly glow on her pale skin and swirling black hair.
“It’s good for us all to get closer to the pearl from time to time. It will inspire you as a leader, Gryshen. Its energy will guide and nourish us,” Frall signaled, a grate to his tone. He was working with Apocay, their shaman, focusing on his healing. The shun was the name for the sickness that had targeted laxes in her family, failing to capture her grandfather. He healed and died a very old iloray with his bride, who gave birth to Frall late in their waves. The shun had returned a second time for her father.