by C. L. Wilson
“You spoke your vows? Without a priest? Your mother will not approve.”
Dilys felt Gabriella stiffen at his side, and his own body drew tight with rising aggression. In a quiet voice, he said, “Uncle, you forget yourself. Do you not give welcome to my liana, Mystral’s first Siren since the Slaughter?”
Immediately Calivan pasted on a smooth smile and an expression of warm welcome.
“Forgive me, Myerialanna,” he said in crisp Eru, “Welcome to the Calbernan Isles. Warmest of greetings to your new home.” He held out his hands, palms up.
After a quick, tentative glance up at Dilys, Gabriella placed her hands in Calivan’s. “Thank you, Chancellor Merimydion.”
“I was horrified, leili, to hear of the capture of you and your sisters, and devastated—as were we all—to learn of your sisters’ untimely and tragic deaths.”
“Thank you.” Gabriella gave a flawless smile, gentle, understanding, serene. It was the smile Dilys had come to recognize as part of her “court face.” Calivan’s accusatory greeting had put her on edge, and she had retreated behind her most polite mask in response.
“The Myerial and the Donimari await us at the palace. I’ve arranged for a watercoach to take us. It’s just over here.” Calivan released one of Gabriella’s hands and tucked the other on his arm as he turned and led the way. “I must apologize again for the rudeness of my initial greeting, leili,” Calivan said as they walked. “It’s just that I have spent a lifetime looking after my twin’s happiness, and I know how much she was looking forward to planning and attending your wedding.”
“I’m sorry. It was not my intention to have robbed Dilys’s mother of a long-awaited joy.”
Dilys didn’t like hearing Gabriella apologize for wedding him, and he certainly didn’t want her entertaining any regrets about it. “Our vows were spoken on the sea and bound in blood and salt,” he said, “but I see no reason why we could not have a second ceremony at Cali Va’Lua or perhaps Merimydia Oa Nu. I’m sure Nima would enjoy it just as much.”
“Of course,” Calivan said. “That is what many of the Calbernari who returned with their lianas have already done.”
“Problem solved, then.” Dilys told himself he shouldn’t bristle. His uncle had, after all, devoted his life to Alysaldria’s happiness. And it was true Dilys’s mother probably would be at least a tiny bit upset that her son had already spoken his vows on the sea, without the ceremony and celebration she had always envisioned for him. “I only have one son, and he will only wed once,” she’d always told him when they spoke about her plans for his wedding. He had long ago resigned himself to a huge court affair, complete with parades, balls, fire ships, and more. Still, no matter what his mother wanted, that didn’t excuse Calivan from voicing his displeasure in front of Gabriella.
“What reason did you give for evacuating the oulani from our waters?” Dilys asked to change the subject. There wasn’t a single foreign ship in the harbor. That didn’t surprise him. All oulani ships would have been sent away the instant Gabriella’s Siren Shout had reached Calbernan shores.
“We told them there was a tsunami coming and that all foreign vessels needed to head out to sea.”
“Ah.” Gabriella’s Shout had, in fact, generated a tsunami, so the warning hadn’t been a lie. The Calbernans had simply dissipated the wave before it could make landfall. “And what will we say to keep them from returning?”
“The matter is still under discussion with the Council.”
“You plan to isolate Calberna from the rest of the world?” Gabriella interrupted. “Why? Just because I’m a Siren?”
“Not just because you’re a Siren,” Calivan replied. “But because you’re the only Siren—and the first born to this world in thousands of years. Your protection is of paramount importance. Especially given the recent unpleasantness.”
“But my kidnapping had nothing to do with me being a Siren. Mur Balat and the Shark didn’t know what I was. If they had, I doubt Balat would have sold me to Solish Utua.”
“All the more reason to be extra cautious now. Calbernans have done everything in their power to erase all record of the Sirens and to dismiss the memories of them as fanciful folklore and myth, but it is possible there are those in the world who still know the truth, who would do you harm if they knew what you were. The Sirens were slaughtered precisely because Calberna allowed oulani into their lands and waters. We will not let that happen again. You are here with us now, and we intend to protect you in every way possible.”
She pulled her hand off Calivan’s arm and stopped walking. “You’re proposing that I should be—what?—imprisoned here in Calberna for the rest of my life? Cut off from the outside world? Cut off from my family?”
“Of course not. Your sister Khamsin and her husband will always be welcome to visit. But do not forget that Dilys is your family now,” Calivan said. “As are the Myerial and I.”
Dilys recognized the flare of rebellion sparking in Gabriella’s eyes and the determined tilt to her chin, and he grew alarmed. Calivan was making a muck of things. “No one is talking about imprisoning anyone, least of all you.” He shot his uncle a hard look. “But my uncle is right about the danger oulani now pose to you. Moa haleah, you know about the Slaughter. You know why the truth about your gifts must never be revealed outside of Calberna. We cannot risk such a thing ever happening again. I will not risk such a thing happening to you.”
“I understand that, and I’m not proposing that we run around shouting what I am to all corners of Mystral. But I just spent weeks being held against my will, and that will never happen again. I may be a Siren and I may have married you, but I will be returning to Wintercraig to visit my sister Khamsin and her husband and their children. And I also intend to hold you to your promise to show me the world.”
“And I will keep my promise, as I keep all of them. We will return to Wintercraig within the week, if you like.” Now that the Shark and Mur Balat were gone, the most immediate danger had passed. Others would need time to prepare before they dared launch an attack. But even if that weren’t the case, if she needed to see her family, he would make it happen. He took her hands and pressed her palms to his chest, willing her to feel his sincerity, willing her to believe that no matter what his uncle or even his mother said, Dilys’s first loyalty was to Gabriella now. Now and forevermore. “Whatever you want, moa haleah, whatever you need, so shall I provide.”
“All right,” she said. “All right.” She took a breath and grew visibly calmer. “As for isolating Calberna from the rest of the world because of me, I believe that is precisely the wrong thing to do. People fear the unknown. If Calberna closes its harbors and no longer welcomes foreigners to its shores, all you will succeed in doing is rousing suspicion and distrust.”
“I’m sure the Myerial and her Council would welcome your input as they decide the way forward, Myerialanna,” Calivan said.
Gabriella looked as if she was about to argue more, but instead, she swallowed it back and gave another of her polite court smiles. “Then I shall be sure to speak with them, Lord Chancellor.”
They began walking again, chatting about less volatile subjects as they went. Gabriella did not take Calivan’s arm again, but instead remained close by Dilys’s side. He liked that after the argument with her uncle her first instinct was to make it clear she and Dilys were a unit: Dilys and Gabriella, a mated pair.
“Ah, here we are. Your watercoach, Myerialanna.” Calivan gestured to a lacquered blue-green boat, open at the front, and shaped to resemble a cresting wave, complete with silver fringe and accents made to resemble sea foam.
“How beautiful,” Gabriella said as Dilys helped her into the fanciful canal boat. “I almost feel as if it should be pulled by along by a harnessed team of dolphins.”
“That’s only for when we take the coach for a spin on the open sea,” Dilys said. Her eyes widened, and he laughed. “I’m joking, moa kiri. Although now that you mention it, such a mode of transpor
tation would, no doubt, delight Nima, although she doesn’t do as much sailing as she used to.”
“Why not?”
It was Calivan who answered. “There are many demands on her time. Queendoms, like kingdoms, don’t govern themselves.”
“Well, perhaps that will change now that Dilys and I are married and can be here to help.”
Dilys smiled and lifted her hand for a kiss, happy that Calivan’s earlier, uncharacteristic blundering hadn’t put her off the idea of making Calberna her home.
“Perhaps, it will indeed.” Calivan nodded to the gondolier, and with an answering nod, the muscular Calbernan thrust his pole into the water and pushed off.
The city was clustered at the base of a great mountain peak that rose sharply into the sky, its steep surfaces forested in lush green foliage broken by dozens of tall cloud-fed waterfalls. The slender watercoach glided smoothly through the crystal-clear waters of the city canals towards a tunnel in the side of the mountain.
Schools of brightly colored fish swam in the crystalline waters beneath the boat. It was astonishing to Gabriella that any city’s waters could remain so clear and unpolluted, even on Calberna. She started to say something about it to Dilys, but just then a Calbernan male and three small boys swam underneath the boat. They rolled over on their backs to grin and wave as they passed by.
Her mouth fell open. “My word.”
Beside her, Dilys laughed. “Someone’s showing off. That’s another of my cousins, Maru Ocea, and his boys. They will meet you properly at the palace.”
“Ocea? Any connection to—?”
“Tey. Maru is married to Ryll’s sister.”
She watched the man and his three sons, four dark shadows knifing swiftly and effortlessly through the waters, until they swam so far ahead she couldn’t see them anymore. Not once did they surface for air. “So it’s true that Calbernans can breathe underwater?”
He shrugged. “It’s true.”
“How?”
“A gift of our physiology. We have gill slits. Here.” He traced a finger down the side of his ribs. “They seal when not in use, but when we swim, we can open them to breathe the oxygen in the water.”
“Like fish.”
“This upsets you, moa kiri?”
“No, I’m not upset. Maybe a little disappointed.” She bit her lip and smiled a little sheepishly. “I was sort of hoping it was more Calbernan magic. The kind you could work on other people, so I could go swimming like that, too.”
“Ah.” He was smiling again. Relieved. “I’m afraid not.” Dilys laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. She leaned back against him and snuggled closer when his arms wrapped around her.
“Our children, will they be born like you? Able to breathe in water?”
His arms tightened a little at the mention of children and his lips found her neck for a kiss that made her eyes close in quiet bliss. “Tey. All imlani are. Does that thought disturb you?”
“No, not particularly. But how is it possible? Your people have been mating with outlanders almost exclusively for over two thousand years. Genetically, speaking, you should have bred out almost all Calbernan traits by now.”
“I explained to you about the ability of Calbernan males to store and use the magic gifted to them by women of power.”
“Yes.”
“Well, native-born Calbernan females have a gift too. Not only can they fuel the magic of our males, but they can pass all or a portion of their gifts to others. Every female bearing Calbernan young will visit the imlani women of her House during her pregnancy, and the imlani will pass a portion of their seagifts to the young. The closer the blood ties, the more magic the imlani women will share with the unborn child—especially if the child is a daughter. It is how we survived after the slaughter of the Sirens. To keep our race alive, the strongest of our remaining women shared their power with the next generation, and upon their deaths, they gave what remained of their gifts to the Myerial. And every Myerial thereafter passed that power along with her own to her successor. My mother, when she inherited the throne, received all the accumulated power of Myerial Siavaluana II and all the Myerials that came before her. She would have passed that power to our daughter, but since you are a Siren, the Sea Throne and the Myerial’s gifts rightfully belong to you. And you can pass both to our daughter in time.”
“What if we don’t have a daughter?”
“If we have a son who marries and bears a daughter, you will pass the Sea Throne and your gifts to her. Should you perish without a daughter or granddaughter of your blood, then the throne and your gifts will go to my mother’s uncle Aleki’s daughter Aleakali Maru. None of Siavaluana II’s children bore her female grandchildren while she was still alive, and Aleakali Maru is the eldest granddaughter of Siavaluana I, born while her aunt, Siavaluana II was on the throne, and thus granted a queen’s gift while in the womb.”
“That seems very confusing.”
“Calbernan succession is always determined by which imlani daughter has the closest and most recent blood ties to the line of the Myerials. All imlani females who belong to the House of the current queen or the House of a previous Myerial receive a gift of power from the current Myerial while still in the womb. That power will be added to her own, thus making her and her daughters stronger in their gifts, and ultimately restoring the Sirens to Calberna.”
“But I have no blood tie to the Myerials. Won’t there be objections to my taking the throne?”
“You are a Siren. Those objections are moot.”
“Hmm.” Many a civil war had broken out over disputed royal successions. And as they’d been sailing down the crowd-lined canalways, Gabriella thought she’d seen more than a few native Calbernans who didn’t appear quite as enthusiastically welcoming as the rest.
“Dilys is correct,” Calivan said. “The families who wanted Dilys to wed an imlani liana will hold their silence now. Tradition demands it.”
People holding their tongues was a far cry from people embracing her in welcome, but she was no stranger to court politics. She’d won over diplomats from enemy kingdoms and garnered support for her father’s initiatives on more than one occasion. She’d make a place for herself here, too. This was a land where women led. She was more used to being a subtle power behind the throne, but she’d been trained to be a queen who would do any kingdom proud. She’d do Dilys and House Merimydion proud, too.
“Then I will do everything in my power to serve House Merimydion well and prove worthy of the support and acceptance of Calberna’s esteemed families,” she said.
For the first time, Calivan smiled with genuine warmth. “Well spoken, Gabriella.”
Dilys settled back in his cushioned bench, his arm still curled around her shoulders, one hand gently stroking the side of her throat. She liked his touch. It soothed her, that closeness, the tender intimacy, the knowledge that if she was near, he hungered for physical contact as much as she did.
Symbiosis, indeed. Since they’d wed, she couldn’t go more than a minute or two without wanting to touch him. If Dilys’s parents had shared a similarly deep bonding experience, she wasn’t sure how Myerial Alysaldria had managed to survive all these years without her husband. Now that Gabriella claimed Dilys as her own, and been claimed in return, the idea of living life without him was anathema. She wouldn’t linger on for years as her father had done, consumed by loss until love turned to madness. She would find a way to follow him.
The boat turned left at another curved intersection, and the rows of houses and grassy banks opened up to a spectacular final approach to the palace. Larger-than-life statues of muscled Calbernan males with flowing ropes of hair, their massive fists clutching tridents of pure gold, lined both sides of the canal, and arcs of water shot from the points of their tridents. The watercoach sailed beneath the canopy of jetted water into the cool, darkness of the tunnel. On the other side of the mountain, another formation of statuary greeted them, but these stony Calbernans were female, sl
ender and shapely, with graceful arms lifted overhead, holding large conch shells from which spouted another crisscrossed canopy of glittering, sun-drenched water.
Beyond them, the canal opened to an enormous, crystal-blue lagoon ringed on all sides by steep, lushly-greened cliffs.
“How stunning,” she breathed. “Is this—? Was this—?”
“A volcano?” Dilys supplied. “Tey. All the Calbernan Isles are. But this is the oldest and greatest of them all. Long since dormant, of course. Now home to the children of Numahao.”
“It’s magnificent.” The water-filled crater of the volcano had been transformed into a massive, naturally-walled city, its only navigable entrance through that tunnel. At the center of the great lagoon rose the pink, gold, and ivory beauty of Cali Va’Lua, Calberna’s royal palace.
The canal boat docked, and Dilys led Gabriella through the immaculate palace gardens into Cali Va’Lua’s stunning coral and crystal foyer.
From the foyer, they passed through a wide gallery lined with paintings and statuary of the great queens of Calberna, then down a wide marble stair to a magnificent room that Dilys called the Hall of Waters. On either side of a wide marble walkway, clear sheets of water poured from pearl-encrusted fountainheads into the large pools. Abundant clusters of fragrant lilies covered the surface of the pools. Beneath their wide green leaf pads and trailing roots, bright orange, white, and purple fish swam in leisurely circles, while beyond the Hall’s thick glass walls and reinforced glass roof, brightly colored tropical fish of the wild variety swam among vibrant coral reefs.
At the end of the Hall, a curving spill of stairs led to the throne room below.
“Wait,” she said when the guards flanking the throne room doors started to open them.
Dilys regarded her in concern. “Gabriella?”
“I just need a moment.” She took a breath. She was surprised at the nerves fluttering inside her. She’d spent her whole life at court, first her father’s, then Wynter’s. But it wasn’t really the introduction to a new court that was making her nervous. “Are you sure your mother’s going to like me?”