The severing

Ulín went home for a while, to prepare for the wedding. Laufkariar escorted her out of the sea palace. Ulín’s father had sent emissaries. He was suspicious and angry—did the prince of the serpents imprison his daughter under the wave? She told him it was all right.

In a large room overlooking the sea, Ulín met with her parents to make wedding plans. It was chilly, and the windows were open. She inhaled the smell of sea and pines, her skin drinking in the autumn light. How marvelous, to have a room with windows, a room full of air that came in and out. To listen to birdsong. Certainly Laufkariar would allow his bride the pleasure of spending time here, with her family. Perhaps she could still go to the university. She would always return, after all.

Doubt, a small bird, nestled in her ribcage. It was inobtrusive and hidden, and yet it rustled there, turning its delicate beak this way and that. But before Ulín could even name this bird, her father’s anger expanded, choking out air.

“This marriage is wrong,” he said. “I do not trust the serpent people—in peace now, but our ancient enemies—yes, there’s peace now and been for a while, but what reason other than politics is there for such a marriage?”

“I don’t know,” said Ulín’s parent.

“Your mother, or your father?” I ask, to be sure.

“My other parent, Sibeli. They are ichidi. My father is Kannar.”

I nod.

“I don’t know,” Sibeli said. “They could be in love. Laufkariar could love her.”

Ulín’s father replied, “He is seven years her senior. Twenty-six, and they marry young, and he could not find a bride among his people? This is a pile of guano.”

I’m right here, Ulín wanted to say. Stop discussing me as if I’m nothing. But when she spoke, she tried to sound reasonable, adultlike. “The age difference is not a problem for me—you yourself have lovers both older and younger, and so does most everyone on the Coast.”

“He’s aiming for First Dreamer.” Her father spoke loud and fast. “This is a power play, he wants to rule, and my daughter will be a means to this end. You don’t see it because you are still a child, I will not allow this to go forward.”

If Ulín were to say, I am not a child, it would come out childish. She steeled herself. “I only want peace between our peoples.”

He said, “There already was peace between our peoples before this whole thing began!”

She wanted to stopper her ears and scream, but Kannar’s anger upset her beyond her ability to express. His three-deepname configuration of three single-syllable deepnames, the Warlord’s Triangle, made her father both irritable and incredibly powerful, but he had never before turned to Ulín in anger. She had been, until this moment, the smart and learned child, the beloved and beautiful child, the responsible, brilliant child with a future in governance once Kannar himself retired. She had not told him yet that she had no interest in governance.

Never before did his anger turn toward her, and now it felt like everything was falling apart. Did her father not love her? Did her father not want her to make her own choices?

“Do you love Laufkariar?” Sibeli asked Ulín.

“Yes,” she yelled, even though her parent did not yell. Ulín was louder even than her father. The small bird of doubt was shocked into silence. “I love him, I want to be with him, I am no different from anyone else on the Coast who is free to take lovers!”

“You want to be married, Ulín, according to the customs of his people,” her father said. “Even here, such a ceremony holds a heavy weight, and is rarely undertaken. Among the serpent people, even among other nameway people who do not share our Coastal ways, a marriage means so much, a marriage can mean forever, and you cannot expect me to support—”

The bird of doubt stirred again at his words, but then Sibeli said, “She is of age.”

“Newly of age,” Kannar roared. “As soon as she was of age, he was on the prowl—”

Sibeli continued, as calm as if those words weren’t spoken. “Ulín is not lesser than him, than anyone. She must have freedom to make her own decisions. If it is a mistake, then she will make it of her own free will. If later she walks away of her own free will, then we will be here.”

“I will not abide—my child gone from me for years—to live underwater, of all places—”

Pain shot through Ulín's head and her ears filled with noise. She ran out of the chamber, down the familiar, age-worn stone stairs. It felt good to be home, good to run, but more than anything else she wanted to be away from her parents, away from everyone, under the open sky. There, on the small secluded beach between jagged rocks, she paced among the stones, trying not to look out to the sea. Ulín did not want her lover or her father to find her -- she needed time to think -- but it was her brother who found her.

I touch Ulín’s hand again as she gulps for air. “Do you want to stop? A sip of tea?”

She shakes her head. “I must press on before I lose my courage.”

“Forgive me,” I say. “I understand.” I take another breath, and another, then tell her that I am ready to hear.

Tajer had just turned fourteen a few weeks ago. He was awkward and moody, and when she returned from the wave, the two of them barely exchanged greetings. There was something odd about her sibling, something strange and powerful and different, like a graceful but venomous snake, even though Ulín did not want to think of her own brother that way.

There was nothing graceful about him when he found her on the beach. He was bloodied, disheveled, in torn clothes, with bloodshot and bulging eyes. And his presence was powerful, off-kilter, suffocating, as if there was no more air.

Before she could think about it, or ask him anything, he yelled, “What in Bird’s name did you tell him about me?”

Guilt and defiance churned in her gut. “You always spied on me—on us—”

He laughed, a startling, ugly sound, more a scream than a laugh. “Did you tell him I’m jealous? Less than a man?”

I told him you could be ichidi. I did not mean anything by it. The serpents—they think differently about things—

She could have said that. Apologized. But she didn’t. Anger at her family churned in her, and guilt, and a fierce defiance. None of them honored her. All of them hated her choice; they all hated Laufkariar. Ulín yelled, “You were jealous—he is my betrothed—”