Selena nodded softly, reaching for my corset. “They started the transition, but they didn’t finish. The process will have to be repeated. Did you spend the next few days recovering—when is your birthday?”
The sudden change in subject made me shift my feet. I raised a shoulder in a shrug; the precise date was unknown. The Leihani calendar tracked the moon from the dry to wet season. Our nights were numbered in thirty-day cycles, abbreviated by new and full moons.
I knew that tonight Leihani would experience the full moon, a time for high tides and abundant fish. I knew this was the second moon cycle of our calendar year, which started in the dry season. I knew that Calder’s calendar year began during something called winter, though it was now spring.
But what day I’d been born, I had no idea.
“It’s important,” Selena said. “Do you know whattimeof year you were born?”
“In the first half of the dry season.”
“What does that mean? When does the dry season begin?”
I gazed at her from over my shoulder as she tugged my laces. “Two months ago.”
“Okay,” Selena said, thinking. She squinted, tilting her head to watch the ceiling as she pondered something. “When did you have your first period?”
“My first bleed?”
“Yes.”
I had to consider the answer. My cousin Nola had bled first, when she was still roaming with the child group. My bleeding had come much later, after my peers had separated from the group, taking part in their daily tasks as young adults of the island. “I was sixteen. I think.”
The same year sailors began to disappear.
Selena nodded to herself. “Naiads generally start later than humans. Do you remember how long after your sixteenth birthday it came? What time of year was it?”
I scoffed at the question, unable to provide an answer. Selena stared back, sober and serious.
“No, not really,” I mumbled.
Selena straightened, stepping back to look me over. “Well, we’re in luck. Tonight’s the full moon. If it’s too late, we’ll know by morning.”
“Too late for what?”
Selena disappeared into my bathing room. She left the door open, and I followed, curious what she was searching for. But it was only a comb, which she found waiting on a vanity next to the pile of hairpins I’d shed as soon as Kye had left. Motioning for me to sit, she began working through the tangles of my hair.
A mirror hung in front of me, wrought in gold filigree. I don’t know why, but I avoided looking in it.
“Naiad children bred from two Naiad parents are born with a tail, the power to transition to human already within them,” Selena started. “Historically, they are born into colonies—family pods,Siliqua Domus. Their power is already rooted within theirbloodline, strong when the bonds of their existing family are strong.”
She paused to work out a knot, and I gritted my teeth at the pull of her fingers. “But Naiads who mate with humans will only have human-born offspring. They must wait for the door for transition to open during puberty: for females, the arrival of their first period. Human-born Naiads often lack the luxury of a family pod. Their power is individual, based on their ties to the land. They buildbonds rather than inherit them. Nature always seeks a balance. You were at a disadvantage, born without aDomus, so nature has supplied you with a higher level of power than that of a colony Naiad your own age.”
Her words slowed, and I knew she was waiting for confirmation I understood. I listened to the sounds of my hair being combed, lost in thought.
Born without aDomus.
“You could have taken a mate after transition and began your own colony,” she continued, “much like a young queen bee begins her own hive. But you signed your loyalty to Thaan in your blood. You're a part of his colony now. He is the monarch.” Selena twisted my hair onto my crown, leaving a curly tendril to drape from behind my ear and over my shoulder.
I shook my head, but the surreal thought of Thaan as my King overwhelmed the rest of my cognition. A small flash burned low in my belly, but I tamed it away.
“Naiads are lunar creatures, as you may know,” she continued softly, unaware of my struggle. “We are charged by the moon’s light and energy. The longer you wait to transition, the more blood cycles you pass, the more lunar energy you absorb, and the more powerful you’ll be when you do change. But at some point, around six years after your initial step toward womanhood, puberty ends. The door closes. If you knew your exact birthday,and how many full moons you spent outdoors gathering energy, we’d be able to determine it with a bit more certainty.”
“I’ve spent every full moon outside.”
She paused. “You have?”
“Yes,” I answered, surprised at Selena’s incredulity. “Mihauna, the full moon, brings abundance to Leihani. The best crops are tended under the full moon. I've stayed up all night to work in my garden every full moon since I was a child.”
