She raised the scimitar the Mehteraba?i had given her and drew its blade across her palm. It bit into her flesh. Blood plumed from the wound. She raised her bleeding hand, palm up. The spider advanced.
“I am Serafina, daughter of Isabella, a princess of the blood. Declare me so.”
Alítheia hissed. She pressed her bristly palps against the wound and tasted Serafina’s blood. And then she reared up, screaming in rage. She spun away from Serafina and slammed her legs down, cracking the stones beneath her. “No flesshhhh for Alítheia! No bonesss for Alítheia!” she howled.
She scuttled around the amphitheater, menacing her keepers, trying to crawl over them and get at the Miromarans. The merpeople screamed and rushed from their seats, but the keepers held her back by brandishing lava globes. The white, molten rock, hot enough to melt bronze, was the only thing in the world the spider feared.
“Alítheia!” a voice called out loudly. It was Isabella. “Alítheia, hear me!”
The spider sullenly turned to her.
“What is your decree?”
Not a sound was heard. It was as if the sea itself was holding its breath. The spider crawled to the royal enclosure and took Merrow’s crown in her fangs. She returned to Serafina and placed it upon her head. Then she bent her front legs in a bow, and said, “Hail, Sssssserafina, daughter of Merrow, princesssss of the blood, rightful heiressssss to the throne of Miromara.”
Serafina made a deep curtsy to her mother. The cheer that went up was deafening. After a moment, she rose, carefully balancing Merrow’s crown. It was heavier than she’d expected. Her heart was still hammering from her encounter with Alítheia, and her palm was throbbing, but she felt proud and exhilarated.
All around the amphitheater, the merfolk rose, still cheering. In the royal enclosure, Isabella and Bilaal rose, and the rest of the royal party followed their example. A bright flash of blue caught Serafina’s eye.
It was Mahdi. He was wearing a turquoise silk jacket and a red turban. It killed her to admit it, but he was so handsome. She’d seen his face in her dreams for the last two years. It was different from what she’d remembered. Older. More angular. He caught her eye and smiled. It was beautiful, his smile. But it was a little bit awkward, too. A little bit goby. In that smile, Serafina saw the Mahdi she’d once known.
It made her heart ache to see that Mahdi. Where had he gone?
She didn’t have long to dwell on that question, or the sadness it made her feel. The boru players blew a fanfare. The Mehteraba?i swam to her with her mantle and helped her back into it. Then he wrapped a bandage around her wounded hand.
The blooding was over. She knew what came next—the second of her tests, the casting. Her stomach squeezed with apprehension. This was the moment she’d worked so hard for, the moment when talent, study, and practice came together.
Or didn’t.
NOW SERAFINA cleared her mind, of everyone and everything except for music and magic.
Magic depended on so many things—the depth of one’s gift, experience, dedication, the position of the moon, the rhythm of the tides, the proximity of whales. It didn’t settle until one was fully grown; Serafina knew that. But she needed it to be with her now, and she prayed to the gods that it would be.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled on everything strong and sure inside of her, and started to sing. Her voice was high and clear and carried beautifully through the water. She sang a simple, charming welcome to the Matalis, telling them how happy Miromara was to receive them. When she finished, she bent to the ground, scooped up a handful of silt, and threw it above her head. Nihil ex nihil. That was the first rule of sea magic: Nothing comes from nothing. Magic needed matter.
Serafina’s voice caught the silt as it rose in the water, molded it, and then embellished it with color and light, until it took on the appearance of a lush island with bustling ports, palaces, and temples. She enlarged the image until it filled the amphitheater. Next, she summoned a shoal of small, silver fish. These she transformed into the island’s inhabitants and as she did, her image became a living tableau.
The island, she told her listeners, was the ancient empire of Atlantis, nestled in the Aegean Sea. Its people were the ancestors of the mer. It was their story she sang now. Her voice was not the most beautiful in the realm, nor the most polished, but it was pure and true, and it held her listeners spellbound.
Using her magic, she showed how humans from all over the world: artists, scholars, doctors, scientists—the best and brightest of their day—had come to Atlantis. She showed farmers in their fields, sailors on their ships, merchants in their storehouses—all prosperous and peaceful. She sang of the island’s powerful mages—the Six Who Ruled: Orfeo, Merrow, Navi, Pyrra, Sycorax, and Nyx. She sang of its glory and its might.