Mervidia (47 page)

Before the throne, Ghita floated in front of a
neondra, whose wide crimson tail lay behind him on the flagstones, trailing down the three dais steps. His back was to Cassondra and his head was respectfully bowed, his red hair hanging loose around muscular shoulders. In her mother’s hands and raised on high, Cassondra saw that she held the Fangs above the neondra’s head.

“You have proven yourself to be Mervidia’s champion by leading the defense against the colossal squid that attacked the city.
Even if your reign had not been foretold, you have earned the right to sit on the throne. By the power invested in me as the eldest of the Divine Family,” Ghita announced, her voice carrying easily through the silent room, “I crown you, Zane, as King of Mervidia.” She lowered the coveted crown onto the neondra’s head. “I give you my blessing and that of House Lumen’s. May the wisdom of the Coral Assembly guide your hand, so that you will rule with fairness as well as with strength. Long live King Zane!” she shouted.

“Long
live King Zane!” the audience replied boisterously, its less enthusiastic members drowned out by those filled with exhilaration. Cassondra knew that the High Houses would be long in coming around to a neondra sitting on Mervidia’s throne, but Zane seemed to have plenty of supporters, judging by the cacophony of voices shouting his name and cheering.

King Zane floated up, a triumphant smile on his lips as he turned to face his subjects.
His gaze swept over the cheering audience, nodding to the Coral Assembly members in the first few rows, his Red Tridents, and the various domos of the High Houses.

The King noticed Cassondra at the back of the room.
Zane’s smile faded, surprise and admiration filling his visage. He bowed his head towards her. Everyone turned, following their liege’s gaze, seeing Cassondra as well. The room filled with the sound of inhalations and awed gasps at the sight of her. Not a single tail stayed seated. Honoring the royal consort, they all rose and bowed before her. Cassondra was suddenly self-conscious under the gaze of the whole court and tried not to blush. She bowed back to the king.

Cassondra and Zane both straightened and viewed each other with curiosity.
They were meeting for the first time, would be given no introductions, and were expected to marry in the next few moments. Their situation was ripe with absurdity, yet when their eyes had met everything seemed alright. He looked her up and down and she him.

Why not?
Cassondra thought
. If we are throwing propriety and courting to the sharks, then I’ll have a good long stare at this merwin, who I am expected to take into my bed and bear children.
The ethyrie’s eyes lingered on Zane’s chiseled torso, visible through the exposed sides of his red-dyed vest. It had been artfully crafted from some kind of fish hide, whether from a manta ray or a shark she could not tell across the distance. It was beautifully fitted, molded to his body, and embossed with mirrored frilled sharks on the chest. The neondra had a muscular tail and corded arms that looked as though they could easily crush a skull if caught within their grasp. His long red locks resembled blood drifting in water. She shook her head, thinking a vision might be trying to take hold and denying it access.

Now is not the time for premonitions
, she thought and couldn’t help the grin that formed on her lips. Zane smiled back.
With that body, our wedding night will go more smoothly than I had thought
, she giggled
inwardly.

Vaschel started forward
, jarring Cassondra from her stimulating ruminations. Cassondra swished her fins to keep pace, as the Domo of House Paua delivered her down the aisle. He was gentle but his pace was a bit more hurried than a usual wedding procession. Despite his kind words, she knew Vaschel; she had grown up constantly seeing him in the palace.

And I watched
, Cassondra glanced at his stern countenance. He was fully focused on the King ahead of them.
Adults don’t think the children see your actions, but I observed you from the shadows of these very columns. I know who you really are, Vaschel. Compliments and chivalry on the surface, but I saw you strike Iago as a fry, when he wasn’t acting highborn enough for your liking. You are fish crap, Vaschel,
she silently told him.
You care only for the favor of your monarch and the advancement of your house.
Vaschel seemed to feel her penetrating look and rotated his head her way.

“Is everything alright, my dear?” the Domo of House Paua whispered.

“Yes, I am just a bit nervous is all,” Cassondra lied, but her escort didn’t seem to notice, or if he had he didn’t care. He nodded and continued forward. The countless eyes on her suddenly made her feel angry rather than pretty. She was just a doll to them, an egg-layer, and a means to an end.

The
ethyrie bride had no choice but to set aside her feelings, as Vaschel gave her hand to Zane. The neondra was still smiling at her, his eyes delighted. Domo Vaschel took his leave, swimming over to join the rest of the Assembly on the first row of benches.

I do have a choice
, Cassondra thought, looking into Zane’s milky eyes, hoping to find assurance there.
I could swim away right now… but to where? Back to exile, living in a cave with two octolaides? Sure, I could learn from Ambrose…
Cassondra had always been fascinated by magic in general; it didn’t matter whether it was kalku or machi in nature. She was entranced by it all. Growing up, Nayan had been her primary teacher, but the ethyrie had thought her mistress blind to the balance of the two sides of merwin magic: life and death, both so intrinsically linked. Cassondra had secretly taken kalku lessons outside the palace, although her skill in the darker arts was limited by the short clandestine meetings.
But for me to live in a cave so close to the Deep Mines and the grogstack? No, I choose this,
she thought resolutely.

Nayan handed Zane a bone dagger.
So caught up in her deliberations, Cassondra hadn’t noticed that the jellod had taken her mother’s place in front of the throne. She looked to the first row and located her mother. Ghita looked at her with scorn, her daughter’s betrayal still too fresh for any look of joy regarding Cassondra’s nuptials. Her mother had not come to greet her when she had returned to the palace, but Cassondra had not been surprised. It made sense that the job would fall to Nayan anyway to marry her to Zane, being the leader of the city’s machi as well as the eldest member of the Coral Assembly.

You will see mother
, Cassondra promised.
Soon, you will understand.
She returned her eyes to the king, who was turning over her hand. He gently drew the dagger across her palm, causing a thin line of blood to well up. Cassondra winced and Zane gave her an apologetic look. He then passed the dagger to her and offered his own hand. She repeated the cut to his palm, gave the dagger back to Nayan, and gripped her bloody palm to his, mingling their blood and allowing their life forces to join as one. They finished by entwining their fingers, a common tradition at merwin weddings.

Nayan opened her arms wide, the dagger in her right hand still wisping with Cassondra and Zane’s blood, creeping away from the blade in tiny crimson tendrils.

“Merwin of Mervidia!” Nayan called, as the audience took their seats once more. “We are gathered here today to witness not just the coronation of King Zane, but also to see him wed into the Divine Family. Their children will represent change, a new beginning for Mervidia with their mixed blood. However, the old ways will still be honored in this joining. House Lumen’s gift of premonition will carry on to another generation, continuing to protect our home and its people.” The jellod fixed her eyes on Zane.

“Do you, King Zane, take Cassondra to be your blood mate?
Will you promise to honor her as your wife until you draw your final breath?”

“I will,” Zane said,
looking Cassondra in the eye and nodding to her as if to reinforce his vow more personally.

“Do you, Cassondra of House Lumen,” Nayan intoned, turning her white eyes on the
ethyrie bride, “take King Zane to be your blood mate? Will you promise to honor him as your husband until you draw your final breath?”

“I will,” Cassondra replied.

Nayan tucked the ceremonial bone dagger into a sheath beneath her yellow mantle.

Interesting
, Cassondra thought, watching Nayan slip the dagger into the hidden scabbard under her cape. They were positioned in such a way that only the wedding pair had seen her surreptitious act.
Dear Nayan,
I would not have thought you to have a secreted blade on your person.
In all her twenty cycles in the palace and as her teacher, Cassondra had never seen the jellod reveal that particular secret. Cassondra also noticed that the jellod had not wiped the blood from the blade. Nayan fixed the younger merwin with a stern look.
Oh, I am not judging you, Nayan. If anything, I have much more respect for you now. I just wonder what plans you have for our blood.

“While this marriage was not initiated by the bond of love,” Nayan continued on with the ceremony, speaking directly to the couple before her, “given time, I am confident that you will grow to love one another.
For now, respect each other, enjoy each other’s companionship, confide in one another, and trust one another.”

“By the power invested in me by the Coral Assembly, I hereby bind King Zane to his
royal consort, Cassondra,” Nayan proclaimed. “May your marriage bring you both joy and be blessed with fertility,” the machi finished and opened her hands to receive a fishbone tiara, decorated lavishly with white pearls, from an assisting jellod with bright blue hair. The girl was young and gaped unabashedly at Cassondra, as children often did before knowing it was rude to stare. When the young merwin noticed that Cassondra was meeting her gaze, she looked away, realizing she was gawking. What fascinated Cassondra was the sparks of white light coming from within the child’s gelatinous lower half. She had seen that type of bioluminescence in jellyfish, but never before in a jellod. The ethyrie bride set aside her curiosity, as the girl withdrew, focusing on the wedding’s officiant. Nayan, too focused on her task to notice the exchange, calmly placed the tiara on Cassondra’s head. “May you and your children lead us into a new age.”

Cheers erupted from the audience, as the merwin rose from their seats, their clapping hands joining with their voices
in resounding approval. Nayan waved a glowing hand over Zane and Cassondra’s clasped fingers and waved the other one towards the throne, indicating to the King that he should sit. Zane was bewildered for a moment though, looking at his healed hand, without a trace of blood or even a mark on his skin.

“It will take some time for me to get used to my wounds just disappearing,” Zane whispered.
“First my injuries from fighting the squid and now this....”

Nayan grinned at the King.

“There are many benefits to being Mervidia’s monarch,” the machi whispered back. “Having the city’s most powerful healer as your personal physician is one of them, Sire.”

Her body being magically restored was not so wondrous to Cassondra, having healed and been healed in the past.
There had been an incident when she was younger when one of Flinn’s
friends
turned out to be not-so-friendly to merwin other than her brother. If Cassondra had not been highborn, she would still bear the scars of the wound inflicted by the frilled shark on her right cheek that had extended up into her scalp. Had a trainer not immediately pulled the shark away, looping an uklod skin rope around its neck and tearing it aside from the blood that had been flowing from her wound, she could very well have lost her life that day. That travesty had been the turning point in her relationship with her brother. After the terrifying incident, the siblings had begun to grow apart.

Cassondra
smiled at Zane’s astonishment and took his arm. Her gesture seemed to waken him from his bemusement. The king escorted her over to the massive piece of carved stone that served as Mervidia’s throne. The seat depicted numerous ocean scenes of merwin sparring in the palace training yard, riding frilled sharks and manta rays, mining orihalcyon, farming kelp, pulling pearls from clams, and wielding spears and short blades against the creatures of the Deeps. He released her and sat, while she floated at his side and smiled at the cheering crowd that had grown much livelier, when its new king had taken his place on the throne.

He certainly is an impressive sight
, Cassondra thought. Zane, her husband, was the perfect image of a warrior monarch with his lean toned physique. The King placed his hands on the throne’s massive arms, mooring himself in place. Not being an ethyrie, his tail was not long enough to encircle the stone peg at the base of the chair, where the past monarchs would anchor themselves. He did not seem to mind though. Zane held his head high with confidence, looking all the more remarkable with the Fangs’ sharp teeth rising from his brow. The angler fish jaw fashioned into a crown and encrusted with black pearls was representative of the Merwin races, both dangerous and beautiful. As he sat there looking over his subjects, Zane certainly looked like a king.

Zane
sat patiently, while she floated at his side, for some time before the merwin in the chamber finally calmed down. Realizing that it was his place to conclude the ceremony, Zane rose and took her hand, placing it in the crook of his elbow. He escorted her through the first set of uklod bone double doors into the ballroom. The space mirrored the throne room in size and with its orihalcyon lanterns hanging from the high coral roof. It also had no windows, ensuring the safety of Mervidia’s monarch in addition to preserving the privacy of its guests. The numerous lanterns illuminated the room radiantly enough to make up for its lack of windows, which would have allowed visibility of the city’s lights. The countless orihalcyon beacons set the room ablaze with a red brilliance that was nearly too bright for merwin eyes, which were accustomed to the dimness of only one of two lanterns per room and the pitch-black of the water of the Deeps. It was much smaller than the ballroom on the floor below, which could have hosted a larger party. However, considering Beryl’s assassination, the Coral Assembly had selected the smaller ballroom for the feast and had limited the number of coronation and wedding guests, keeping the celebration as small and private as possible.