The Glimmering Sea

CHAPTER FIVE

≈I decided I will not go as far as that. But I will not allow the Rites to determine my future. I shall pick my fate, for good or ill.≈

Delfina's words arrived with barbed tips. ≈You are misguided, Armida. You cannot be above tradition.≈

Armida dislodged a braid when she shook her head. ≈You are the misguided one. It all exists to pacify us. The ocean is changing and the entirety of Marea is in denial. You will soon understand.≈

Delfina's hands fluttered, then settled at the back of Armida's head as she reattached the braid. Armida was not surprised to feel Delfina's mindpath resist her. Delfina was unaccustomed to rebellious opinions. Or an opinion of any kind, for that matter. Armida could barely recall that once she had been as untroubled.

The rippling water in Armida's chamber announced an approach from the outer passage.

Armida twisted away from the mirror to see her father. ≈It is too soon. I am not ready.≈

Faro smiled at the girls. ≈You both are lovely. Marea will prosper with you.≈

With a tinge of purple highlighting her cheeks, Delfina offered the standard response. ≈Thank you. May Marea flourish.≈

Faro turned to his daughter with an expectation on his face.

Rage at the prison of convention curdled Armida's stomach. It hurt more to understand that her father did not see her fully.

May Marea flourish? The Marean slogan means nothing.

Gliding toward her chamber doorway, Armida avoided her father's eyes. ≈Let us go. I will not delay us longer.≈

It would be simpler to remain a child and know only childish things.

But it was too late.

✧✧✧

Paolo hugged Armida as she left their homecave. ≈You are my beautiful sister.≈

≈And you are my adorable brother. I shall miss you and think of you every day. Goodbye, Little One. Remember my love.≈

Those eyes, multitudes of greens contained within the color green. The ocean, the kelp, the stones of her necklace. Those eyes contained Marea. She would be back to look into those eyes again, no matter the obstacles, no matter how her Rites unfolded.

Tunnels led to the Metamorphean Antechambers, where the participants and their families would wait. The adults of Marea—nearly one hundred—lined the tunnels, holding hands as they floated with their backs to the walls. Their luminescent necklaces created a shimmering atmosphere in the otherwise dark space. Their chants were deep and pulsing in Armida's mindpath. The resonance mimicked that from the Watcher Station.

She and her father skimmed past the chanters to reach the Northeast chamber. Delfina and her mother Rosamunda were in the Southeast chamber and Isabetta was with her father in the Northwest chamber. Rinaldo was in the remaining chamber with Isabetta's mother. Normally only fathers participated in the ceremony but Delfina's father had gone missing and Rinaldo was an orphan.

These were the most majestic spaces in Marea. The columns dominating the four antechambers had formed over thousands of years when the sea went dry while the Antichi yet lived. Tiny bits of minerals had seeped from the surface and dripped down from the cave ceiling and also built up from the cave floor until merging into vast towers. Immersed again centuries ago, they glistened, the surfaces polished smooth by the currents. The accumulations lining the walls and floor appeared soft in the luminescent light, but they were not.