Crown of Coral and Pearl

Those who have never known pain or adversity are as shallow as the waves lapping on the shore." "And what is wrong with being shallow?" I'd asked him. "What lies beneath the surface of shallow waters? Nothing. It's only when you go deeper that the ocean comes alive. The deeper you go, the more mysteries and surprises await.

Hiding our scars doesn't mean they're not really there. Just as beauty cannot disguise who we really are beneath the surface.

I will see you again, in this life or another. Now go, meet your destiny.

I would never be that good, that pure of heart. And that was a harder sort of pain to bear.

My people had a saying about home, as they did about so many of the important things in life: a Varenian can never be lost at sea, because he calls the entire ocean home.

Home was not a house, or a village, or a sea. It was family, and love, and the space where your soul could roost, like a seabird safe from a storm.

There was an old legend that said pearls were the tears of the gods, but we mortals wept only saltwater, and we had more than enough of that around here.

Beware the lionfish, my dear, Beware the fish that's made of stone. Beware sweet nothings in your ear, And the heart as hollow as a bone.

I’m the perfect seashell you pick up from the ocean floor, only to turn it over in your hand and see the crack. I’m the fabric with the tear in the seam that you give back to the trader and demand first quality.

Sometimes I wonder if it was our names that determined our fates, or the other way around. Nor and Zadie: coral and pearl.

I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,” he murmured against my skin. “It’s like a tiny star, marking you as something special for anyone too senseless not to know it.

But I’ll never have the one person I love best of all. He may have my heart, but you, my dear, beautiful Nor, are the twin of my soul.

What lies beneath the surface of shallow waters? Nothing. It’s only when you go deeper that the ocean comes alive. The deeper you go, the more mysteries and surprises await.

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'd never seen shallow waters, but I did know one thing about them: you could walk through them to the shore. and there could be no greater mystery or surprise than land. At least not to me.

I turned the button over in my hand. it was engraved with a small, many-petaled flower. I'd heard of roses, though I'd never seen one before. I tried to imagine a world in which something as small as a button was deemed worthy of this level of craftsmanship.

She was like a beautiful house built on stilts, only the stilts were lies, and accepting the truth meant destroying the foundation of her existence. Accepting this new outcome would mean admitting that life could, in fact, go on.

But I was coming to realize that beauty—at least as defined by my people—was more of a burden than a gift.

I believed in the spirits that lived in everything around me: the water, the birds, the air itself. It was all alive and beautiful and just as divine as any invisible god.

I loved that he wanted to protect me, and that he didn´t argue when I told him no.

A man was supposed to envy every wave that touched his lover's body, not rest his arm on her shoulder like a cushion.

To hold on to the past was as useless as trying to find the same wave twice...

Sorrow is good for the soul, Father had said after the incident, when I had recovered from the pain and sickness but had still not grown used to the feel of the torn flesh on my otherwise flawless skin. Those who have never known pain or adversity are as shallow as the waves lapping on the shore. And what is wrong with being shallow? I’d asked him. What lies beneath the surface of shallow waters? Nothing. It’s only when you go deeper that the ocean comes alive. The deeper you go, the more mysteries and surprises await.

He closed the space between us, cutting me off with his lips and stealing my thoughts along with my words.

Mother was wrong, Nor. You have the power to do anything and everything you dream of, more than any person I’ve ever known. And that power, that inner strength, that is what makes you the most beautiful girl in Varenia.

To what end, child? Hiding our scars doesn’t mean they’re not there. Just as beauty cannot disguise who we really are beneath the surface.

Hiding our scars doesn’t mean they’re not there. Just as beauty cannot disguise who we really are beneath the surface.

Beauty is power, Mother had told us time and time again, until the words rang as true as the sky is blue and water is wet. I didn’t want to believe that a woman’s worth was entirely defined by her appearance. But there was a small, nagging voice in my head that asked, What if Mother is right?