“I know.”

“But keep coming, every month. I’ll do everything in my power to get there.”

“So will I.”

We bought what we needed at the floating market quickly, neither one of us wanting to waste any more of the time I had left. As Sami began to row us home, a family passed us, their faces grim. If they recognized me as the village outcast, they didn’t say anything.

Then I noticed the dark cloth in the bottom of their boat, covering a lumpy object about five feet long.

A body.

The family was going to bury their dead. Sami and I dropped our heads at the same time, touching our hearts in a gesture of sympathy. The father nodded at us when we lifted our heads again, and they continued on in silence.

Varenian funerals were private, solemn rituals. Only the immediate family attended. That way no one else needed to feel as though they had to avoid certain places out of respect for the dead. I had attended one funeral as a child, that of my father’s father. He’d been killed by a windwhale, a predatory white whale with a giant dorsal fin that acted like a sail, making it one of the fastest creatures in the ocean. My grandmother had been left a widow. Fortunately, most of her children were grown then, and she went to live with one of my aunts.

I didn’t remember the words my father spoke, only the way the cloth had clung to the body as it hit the water, briefly revealing my grandfather’s features. He was weighted down with rocks and sank quickly, though we’d all known it wouldn’t be long before the sharks gathered.

Why don’t we burn the bodies? I’d asked my father, thinking anything would be better than being eaten, even if you were already dead.

Because, child, as we take from the sea, so must we give. Through Thalos, the ocean provides us with our food, with the pearls we harvest. It makes us strong and healthy. And when we die, we must return to the ocean, so that it, too, can have nourishment. So that the blood coral may grow from our hearts, and begin the cycle anew.

I touched my scar as the memory faded. “Everyone thinks I tried to hurt her, Sami—maybe even kill her.” I looked down, my eyes burning with unshed tears. “I think my own mother started the rumor.”

“Maybe, but it’s Alys’s mother who spread it. She’s furious that you were chosen in Alys’s place.”

“Not because I’m more beautiful than her. Only because they had no choice.”

He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Listen to me, Nor. You’re not a second-rate girl. You never have been.”

I chuckled wryly, but he didn’t join me.

“I mean it. I can’t think of any other girl who would be willing to spy on the king, not even Zadie. Your mother taught you to believe your scar made you ugly, but it has made you brave.”

“Brave?” I kicked at the sack of grain. “I’m terrified, Sami.”

He laughed, a deeper version of the laugh I’d always loved as a girl.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re not afraid of anything, Nor. You never have been.”

He was wrong. I was afraid of leaving Zadie and Father, of leaving the only home I’d ever known. I was afraid of being alone among strangers, of having to pretend to be someone else. I was afraid of marrying a young man I’d never seen, knowing I had no more choice in the matter now than when I’d been betrothed to Sami.

And worse than that, I was frightened of the person I was becoming: a woman who lied to everyone, who disrespected her parents, who helped her sister injure herself. A woman who would spy on a king.

A woman who would steal a crown.

* * *

There was no celebration that night. The big send-off that had been planned for Zadie, as well as the announcement of my engagement to Sami, had been called off after the accident, and the village was as quiet as it was on a typical evening.

It was just as well. I couldn’t have taken the whispers and stares.

I would see Sami one last time in the morning, when he took me to shore. Other than him, the only two people who wanted anything to do with me were here in our house, so home was the only place I wanted to be tonight.

Even if my mother still wouldn’t look at me.

“Do you have everything?” Zadie asked. She was able to sit up now, and a bit of her color had returned, though I could see she was still in a good deal of pain.

“Yes,” I said, patting the trunk of belongings that should have been hers. Father had insisted I take it, despite Mother’s protests. “Please, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“No, it’s always been your job to worry about me.” She squeezed my hand. It wasn’t an accusation. She was acknowledging my sacrifices, not just now, but every day for the past seven years: rowing to spare her hands, taking the blame for every misadventure, staying behind with her when Sami wanted to go exploring, and she was too worried about the cost to her beauty. How ironic, now, that it had all been for nothing. That here I was, with my rougher hands and sun-kissed skin, going in her place.

I had cooked my final supper here in Varenia, as Mother refused to and Zadie couldn’t (and Father, well... Father couldn’t prepare porridge if he was starving). All we had was bread made with the grain Sami had bought for us, and some dried fish. If he didn’t marry Zadie, I was afraid they’d run out of food even sooner than Elder Nemea foretold, even with the bride price, assuming the prince accepted me and actually sent it. I found most of the pearls we traded at market, and even if she hadn’t been injured, Zadie wouldn’t be able to dive enough to make up for my absence.

She made a valiant attempt to lighten the mood at dinner. “Just think, you’ll get to see a horse tomorrow, Nor. A real horse, up close. You may even be able to ride one.”

“Do you think so?”

She nodded, and we shared an excited squeal. For the first time in days, it felt like the old us again.

“Imagine how much you’ll see on a five-day journey on land. Far more than you’d see in five days at sea, I’m sure.”

It was strange, how the conversation had turned. These were the kinds of things I used to say to Zadie. Was she trying to boost my spirits by reminding me, or was she regretting her decision?

“Remember your manners when you go,” Father said, the most he’d spoken since this morning. “You still represent this family, no matter how far away we may be.”

“She does not represent this family,” Mother snapped. “She is as good as dead to us.”

Zadie placed a hand on her arm. “How can you say such a thing? Our Nor is going away forever, and these are the words you’d have her remember you by?”