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“And you look like a Fethani warrior.” I nudge his shoulder playfully. “How did that happen?”
His eyes fill with a victorious gleam. “It turns out Arcorlan and I both know what it’s like to be pulled between our hearts and other people’s expectations. You were right about him. He is a good man.”
“You amaze me.” I brush my lips against his, ignoring the gasps that rise from the people around us.
Our plan is working. The realization sends a thrill through me. My chosen mate is proving himself in ways I hardly dared to hope, and he has just turned his greatest rival into an ally. The maraseyas are blooming and the festival fires are burning. I feel that we stand on the brink of a future filled with joy. My fears about the challenge seem small and robbed of their power in this moment. If so many impossible things have already come to pass, maybe that one can as well.
Drums and wood flutes take up a rollicking beat. I grab Keliveth’s hand and whisk him out onto an open stretch of shining sand. Other couples sprint after us. W we form a circle and fall into the steps of the traditional first dance of the night.
Keliveth fumbles through the first round of steps, but I pull him along with me and nudge him in the right directions. He picks up the steps quickly, his natural sense of rhythm flowing into every movement. We whirl on and on until we’re dizzy and laughing and the moonlight and firelight are a dazzling swirl to our sight.
At last, the music shifts and a new dance pulls us apart. I weave in circles and lines, passing from partner to partner and shifting effortlessly from one rhythm to another. Every now and then I catch a glimpse of Keliveth as the dance takes hold of him and his movements grow bolder.
My steps carry me past Arcorlan and Lirana where they dance on the fringes of the revelry, hand in hand as she guides him through the complex movements. She gazes at him with eyes that are soft and bright in the moonlight. He looks as if he’s been hit by the blast of a stun rune. I laugh with delight as I spin past them.
At last the pattern of the dance brings me and Keliveth together again. Just when we’re losing our breath and our feet feel heavy as stone, the musicians stop. We collapse onto the sand together, breathless and utterly satisfied.
The evening passes in a contented haze of eating and drinking, singing and talking. All seven moons light the sky tonight. As we watch them rise we share stories of times long ago, each of us remembering the world as it was before Raith’s tyranny. As we chatter and laugh, a thrilling hope unfolds within me. I begin to believe that our future will be full of happy stories as well.
Midnight finds me curled up by the largest bonfire with my head on Keliveth’s shoulder and my soul filled with tired contentment. Lirana and Arcorlan sit nearby, speaking in whispers with their fingers entwined. My mother is nowhere in sight. Without her icy presence, all the shadows seem to have lifted from the celebration.
A cry goes up from a group of people gathered closest to the water. Their excited words are taken up and carried around the fires. It takes a moment for their words to reach me through my haze of pleasant fatigue, but as the excitement around me swells, one phrase finally calls adrenaline back into my veins.
“The sun shark!” The cry rings out all around us. “The sun shark is among the islands!”
“The what?” Keliveth asks, looking out at the moonlit waves.
I scramble to my feet and pull Keliveth up with me, ignoring his groan of protest.
“The sun shark is a sign of blessing.” I bounce on my toes in anticipation, all lethargy fleeing me. “Whenever he is seen among the islands, we swim to catch him. It is said he can only be caught by one who has the Creator’s favor.”
Keliveth’s eyes sparkle with familiar, eager resolve. “What are we waiting for, then?”
Every warrior is on their feet within moments. Arcorlan comes up behind Keliveth and gives him a brotherly shove toward the water. The two of them take off at a run, hurling taunts at each other as they join the flood of people racing to catch the elusive shark. I sprint after them, eager for the hunt and spurred by the thought of the tiny, golden shark and what it would mean to the tribes if Keliveth or I were the one to catch it.
Iron fingers clamp down on my shoulder and spin me around. I trip to a halt. A chill creeps over me as I look up into the Seamother’s face. The flickering firelight casts her narrow features in deep shadows, and she looks like a specter. The sight is so at odds with the warmth and joy of the festival night that for a moment all I can only blink, disoriented. As though pulled out of a beautiful dream.
“Let them go,” she says, her voice eerily calm. “The Seamother’s daughter has no need of the sun shark’s blessing.”
I pull out of her grip and give her an uncertain smile. “No warrior would disgrace herself by refusing such a hunt.” I step toward the water again.
“This will be the least of the ways in which you have disgraced yourself tonight.” My mother passes me in swift strides and turns, blocking my path and nearly causing me to stumble into her. I clench my jaw, looking her in the eye. She only stalks toward me until I’m forced to step backward. “I have bided my time waiting for the elf to fail—”
“He isn’t failing,” I say firmly. “He’s as strong as any of our warriors, and he bears the gifts of the Dalzanas.”
“TheDalzanas.” My mother spits the name from her tongue. “Do you not even hear your own words? A Dalzana brought endless sorrows upon the world, and now you would bring more ruin upon our people by welcoming one of their cursed breed among us. Would you let this invader carry you off as a prize, as his brother did to Ruwa?”
“Keliveth is nothing like Raith,” I say through clenched teeth. “Surely you can perceive this. You bemoan our sorrows, yet when offered the hope of joy and restoration you cast it aside. If the Creator sent Keliveth here, then disgrace falls on you, not on me, if you seek his harm.”
With a swift movement, she yanks one of the shining maraseya blossoms from my hair. I gasp as she hurls the sacred flower to the ground. “The Creator no longer turns His face to us. He has made Himself blind to our suffering.” Her features twist as her fear and rage well up. “Our ways, our traditions, are all we have left, and you would overturn them.”
“I would have my people remember what we were meant to be.” I stoop and lift the fallen blossom gently in my palms, brushing the sand from the gleaming petals. Then I lift my gaze to meet her cold, furious eyes. Every instinct tells me to back down, but I can’t. I won’t cower before the Seamother anymore—not when she is turning her back on all that is true. “We no longer stand as the roots of the maraseyas, and that is a disgrace that falls on all of us. You still speak of Ruwa with reverence, yet you forget the first words the Creator spoke to her. We should—”
“Enough!” Her hand lashes out toward me. Pain burns across my cheek as her sharp nails cut deep into my skin. “As I said, I have bided my time. I thought you would come to see your folly and remember your duty to the Atathari, but instead you have let the elf lead you further astray.” She tugs at the fabric of my white gown in disgust. “It is no matter now. He will not live to see the challenge.”
Her words freeze me. I turn them over in my thoughts, making sure I have heard right. Pieces click together in my mind. All the dread I’d pushed aside comes crashing back over me. “This hunt is not a work of chance, is it? That’s why you disappeared from the revelry—you sought out the sun shark and carried him here on the currents tonight.”
“Of course.” She gives a sharp smile that confirms my fear. “Who knows what might happen in dark waters amid the chaos of a hunt? I would never harm a contender, but I think there are some among the tribes who are less honorable.”
