Five other mermaids, true and strong,
Who sometimes didn’t get along.
Back in those caves, we didn’t know,
How much we’d help one another grow.
We’d suffered losses, cried bitter tears.
We’d hidden hurts, and hopes, and fears.
But slowly we began to trust,
In ourselves, one another, all of us.
What doesn’t kill you, leaves you broken.
Like loss and anger, grief unspoken.
But the spell of friendship, deep and real,
Can help a battered heart to heal.
Friendships forged when times are bright,
Will not withstand a sea-fret slight,
But bonds that form through strife and pain,
Will weather gales and hurricanes,
Only the gods can truly say
What happens when each goes her way,
But I know until my own life’s end,
I’ll call you sister, fighter, friend.
One heart, one mind, one soul are we,
My bloodbound sisters of the sea.
The last notes of Sera’s sea spell rose in the water.
Clear and bright.
Perfect and true.
Shining and real.
Then gone.
“YOU LOOK SO BEAUTIFUL. Are you ready?”
Sera nodded. She smiled at Mahdi, so handsome in his jacket of light blue sea silk, and took his arm.
He led her through the Grand Hall and out of the palace. “Nervous?” he asked.
“About the ceremony? No. About your breathing, yes.”
She’d heard a hitch in his chest. She was sure of it.
“I’m fine,” Mahdi said. “The doctors said I could do this. Don’t worry so much, Sera.”
“How can I not?”
“Because I’m not in a coma anymore!” he replied, cheerfully exasperated with her.
Sera bit her lip. He tended to get frustrated if she, or anyone else, fussed over him too much. He was eager to be up and about. To resume his duties. He was getting stronger every day, but still—she worried. She couldn’t help it. She’d come so close to losing him that everything scared her now. She was worried if he was pale, or flushed. If he looked tired. If he didn’t eat enough. If he sneezed or coughed.
She’d come home from the Southern Sea to find him sitting up and conscious. It was the happiest day of her life. She’d hugged him and kissed him and cried tears of joy.
But he wasn’t out of the kelp forest yet. He still had a long current ahead of him. His recovery had been slow and full of setbacks, but now, nine months later, he was up and about most of the day, though his doctors insisted that he rest after lunch. He would return to Matali to rule soon, when he was stronger.
They continued on their way out of the palace and into the town, with Alítheia following them—until they arrived at the scuola superiore.
Sera wasn’t wearing a fine gown, or any sumptuous garments of state today. Instead she was dressed in plain robes of black sea silk—scholar’s robes. This morning, for a few hours, she could forget that she was the regina and be just another seventeen-year-old mermaid who was about to be a proud graduate, along with the hundred-odd other students in her class.
Sera’s schooling had been interrupted by an invasion of her realm, and by bloody battles against Vallerio, Orfeo, and Abbadon, but ever since she’d returned home from the Southern Sea, she’d made her studies a priority.
Mahdi swam with her to the front rows of the school’s auditorium.
“I’m so proud of you, and I’ll be clapping the loudest when your name’s called,” he said, kissing her cheek. Then he went to sit with Thalassa, Fossegrim, Desiderio, and Astrid.
Serafina found her seat between two of her classmates. The ceremony started. Music was played, speeches were given, and then the diplomas were handed out.
“Serafina di Merrovingia!” the dean called. “Summa cum laude, with Distinction in History!”
Sera swam up to the dais, shook the dean’s hand, and accepted her diploma. It was written on kelp parchment and signed with squid ink. As she swam back to her seat, she hugged it to her chest.
Summa cum laude. Latin for with highest honors.
She’d worked her tail fins off to get good grades. In a few months, she would enter the kolegio, and begin her undergraduate degree. If all went well, she would defend her doctoral dissertation in ancient Atlantean history in six years. She knew it wouldn’t be easy to rule her realm and pursue her degree at the same time, but she’d faced harder things.
They all had.