Crown of Coral and Pearl

“What?” My voice was sharp with indignation, but inside I was riddled with guilt, like wormholes in coral. “That’s ridiculous. Zadie was there—she’ll tell them the truth!”

“I will,” Zadie said behind me. “It was an accident, Father. A terrible accident, but nothing more. Nor would never even dream of hurting me!”

Mother stooped down beside Zadie. “You don’t have to lie for her,” she crooned. “You’re still going to be a princess.”

“Can’t they send Alys?” Sami asked.

“They would, if they believed they had a choice,” Father said.

I placed a hand on his arm. “What do you mean?”

There were dark circles under his eyes, and his skin was sallow, as if he’d aged ten years overnight. “Two generations ago, a chosen girl drowned a few days before she was supposed to leave for Ilara. The elders were forced to send a different girl in her place. When the prince discovered that he had received a girl of inferior quality, he punished our people by cutting off our water supply for a month. Dozens of Varenians died, mostly children.” Father swallowed hard. “The elders are afraid that if we send Alys, the Ilareans will say we deliberately deceived them.”

I had known the Ilareans were harsh, but this seemed extreme even for them. “What happened to the girl they sent?”

Father shook his head. “We don’t know. The prince married an Ilarean girl instead.”

“And what do you think they’ll do with a girl who is severely injured?” I asked. “Sami heard Elder Nemea say that Zadie might not survive the journey.”

“She may not survive, it’s true,” the elder said. “But the emissary has been here. He saw Zadie. If we send Alys now, he’ll think it a deliberate deception. At least he knows that Zadie was healthy before. The prince will have to understand that this was just an unfortunate accident.”

“And if he’s still dissatisfied? What’s to stop him from cutting off our water supply, our food, our firewood?” I turned to Nemea. “Let me go in her place. She’s not strong enough.”

“And what do you propose to do about your scar?” Mother asked, her voice full of derision. “The emissary saw it.”

It. Not me. But she was right. Talin had studied me closely enough. I was sure he’d seen my scar.

Nemea scratched at a mole on her chin, considering. “I may be able to create something to disguise it. Some kind of a stain. I told the rest of the council that Zadie is in no condition to travel, but perhaps they need to see her for themselves. Scar or no scar, I have to believe the prince would prefer a living girl to a dead one.”

My mother shook her head. “The prince isn’t some fool buyer at the floating market. We can’t just swap out one bolt of cloth for an inferior one when he isn’t looking. If he discovers what we’ve done—”

“This isn’t your decision,” Sami growled.

I flinched, but it was at my mother’s words, not Sami’s. I’d long believed she saw me that way—as an imperfect version of Zadie—but she’d never said it out loud before.

“Give me some time to work on the stain,” Nemea said. “And to try to convince the rest of the council. There were several who voted to banish Nor, and they might see this as the next best thing.” She looked at me. “Do you really believe you can pretend to be your sister?”

I was too stunned at the mention of banishment to speak, but I managed a weak nod.

“Good. Come to my house tonight. This conversation doesn’t leave here until we’ve decided.”

She looked at Sami for a moment, as if she were about to ask him to take her home, but thought better of it. “I’ll borrow your boat, Samiel. You can fetch it later.”

When Elder Nemea was gone, Father lowered his voice so that only I could hear him. “Your sister has spent the past seventeen years preparing for this and only just realized she lacked the courage to see it through. You have two days to prepare. Are you sure you can do this?”

He knew. He knew it wasn’t an accident, but he also knew it wasn’t my fault. Had he argued on my behalf at the meeting? Had he at least tried to defend me to Mother? To the elders who wanted to banish me? In my lifetime, only two villagers had been banished—taken far out to sea in a small boat and abandoned with no oars—and their crimes had included attempted murder. Oh gods, did they think I’d tried to kill Zadie?

“Father,” I said, hoping all of my questions could be conveyed in that one word.

But he only squeezed my arm and turned me back toward Zadie and Sami. “Your father has not yet decided what he will do with you, Sami. The elders believe you should marry Alys, now that Nor’s honor is in question.”

“I won’t,” Sami said as Zadie’s hand flew up to cover her open mouth.

“Your mother agreed with them—” Father began.

“Traitor,” Mother spat. “To think I called her sister.”

Father went on, ignoring her. “But your father said we needed to deal with one crisis at a time. He wants to speak with you, Sami.”

“And what about me?” Zadie asked.

Mother sniffed. “What about you?”

“Doesn’t anyone care what I have to say? Don’t the elders want to speak with me before they accuse my sister of being a liar or send me off to Ilara when I can’t even stand? Are they really so quick to forget my existence?”

“Don’t you see?” Mother said. “Without your beauty, you are nothing. That’s all any of us are—bodies to cook food and bear children. You had everything, and you let your sister throw it all away. And now she will be a princess, and I will have to watch you wither into an old woman, spending the rest of your miserable life in my house. I thought I had made it clear how important this was. I thought you understood what was at stake. Now I can see you’ve learned nothing in the past seventeen years. And you shall pay dearly for it.”

As Mother spoke, Zadie seemed to shrink in on herself, growing smaller with every word. I had always thought Mother’s ambitions were about vanity, about righting a wrong against her twenty years ago, but it was clear this meant far more to her than that.

She had accused me of thinking I was too good for Varenia, but it was she who believed we had no value here beyond the symmetry of our faces or the curves of our bodies; that to be chosen to go to Ilara meant you were better than all that, better even than the men here. Was that why she despised me so much? Because she thought she saw something of herself in me?

The very idea stung me. I was nothing like my mother. “It is you who have learned nothing,” I spat. “And you who has paid for it.”

“Nor,” Father said, trying to pull me back.

“You were never wronged, Mother. You think we are worthless if we’re not chosen. Why? What is the value in being sent off to a king who keeps us poor and isolated, in marrying a prince who can’t even be bothered to choose his own wife? All we talk about here is honor, but there is no honor in being beautiful, in having your fate decided because of a crooked tooth, or a bent nose, or a scar.”

Zadie was sobbing loudly now. “Please don’t fight,” she said, but I ignored her. This had been building for years, and I couldn’t stop myself now any more than I could stop the tides.

“You took two daughters who loved you and turned them into weapons to exact your revenge, never realizing that there was no enemy.”

“Shut up,” Mother screamed. “You ignorant, foolish—”

“Perhaps I am a weapon,” I continued, despite Father’s grip on my arm. “A blade honed on your bitterness. And perhaps I have come to stab you in the back.”

She leaped at me, but Father flung me away just in time to catch her. I hit the floor hard but picked myself up quickly, ignoring the pain in my arms, yet unable to pretend my heart wasn’t broken.

If Mother and the elders were so willing to believe this villainy of me, then let them. Zadie and Sami had each other now. I would go to Ilara, where none of the other villagers would have to see me again. And Father would forgive Mother, as he always did, for even he couldn’t see past the power of her beauty.

* * *

The hours passed slowly after that. Sami retreated for a time to speak with his father. Nemea returned once to tend to Zadie’s wounds, which she said were healing well under the circumstances, and Zadie slept for most of the afternoon. Mother, on the other hand, wailed and cursed me for hours, not caring who heard about her evil, traitorous daughter, while Father attempted to console her.