"Wake up, children! Suffering Circe, I've called you five times! Had you sand in your ears this morning?" Aelia heard through her dreamless sleep.

Aelia woke up blinking her eyes. She sat up and looked at her sister, whose copper hair was floating around her head wildly. Serafina's eyes were wide and fearful as they darted around the room. 

"Lolling in bed today of all days. The Dokimí is tonight, and you've both so much to do!" The Regina Isabella herself was swimming from window to window, throwing open the draperies.

Regina Isabella was Aelia and Serafina's mother. Serafina and Isabella seemed closer than Aelia and Isabella were. Perhaps it was because Aelia was not going to be the Regina, and therefore did not need to be taught as many things her twin needed to be. The relations Aelia held with her mother were stressed and tense much of the time. Aelia blamed it on her grandmother, who Serafina had adored. Her grandmother, though kind to Serafina, had held no love for the younger twin. Aelia had identified this when she was younger and did her best to keep how she felt safe from her grandmother's harsh words. Though Isabella had reassured her that Artemesia would also care for Aelia one day, that day had never come and Isabella had not tried to help.

Sunlight filtered through glass planes from the water above, waking the feathery tube worms clustered around the room. They burst into bloom, dabbing the walls yellow, cobalt blue, and magenta. The golden rays warmed fronds of seaweed anchored to the floor. They shimmered in the glass of a tall gilt mirror and glinted off polished coral walls. The small green octopus that was curled at the foot of the bed—Serafina's pet, Sylvestre—darted away, spooked by the light. A navy blue thorny seahorse about an arms' length long swam behind the thick japweed that hung from the canopy.  

"Can't you cast a songspell for that, Mom?" Serafina asked, her voice raspy with sleep.

Aelia spoke. "Or ask Tavia to do it?" 

"I sent Tavia to fetch your breakfast," Isabella said. "And, no, I can't cast a songspell to open draperies. As I've told you a million times Serafina-"

"Never waste magic on the mundane." Serafina recited. 

"Exactly. Do get up, Serafina and Aelia. The emperor and empress have arrived. Your ladies are waiting for you in your antechamber, the canta magus is coming to rehearse your songspell, and here you two lie, idle as sponges." Isabella batted a school of purple wrasses away from a window and looked out. "The sea is so calm today, I can see the sky. Let's hope no storms blow in to churn up the waters." 

"Mom, what are you doing here? Don't you have a realm to rule?" Serafina asked. 

"Yes, I do, thank you, but I've left Miromara in your uncle Vallerio's capable hands for an hour," Isabella replied tartly. 

She crossed the twins' room, her gray sea-silk gown swirling around her, her silver scales gleaming, and her thick black hair piled high on her head. She ended up beside Serafina's bed, frowning at the white conch shells that littered the floor next to it. 

"Just look at all these conchs! You stayed up late last night listening, didn't you?" she exclaimed. Her eyes strayed to Aelia's bedside, where a smaller pile of conchs lay. "And you as well, Aelia!" 

"I had to!" Serafina protested. "My term conch on Merrow's Progress is due next week!" 

"Thalassa had me listen to them so I could have some idea of what spells she wants to teach me after the Dokimí," Aelia replied. 

"No wonder I can't get either of you out of bed." Isabella held one of Serafina's conchs up to her ear. "The Merrovingian Conquest of the Barrens of Thira by Professore Giovanni Bolla." She tossed it aside. "I hope you didn't waste too much time on that one. Bolla's a fool. An armchair commander. He claims the Opafago were contained by threats of sanctions. Total bilge. The Opafago are cannibals, and cannibals care nothing for decrees. Merrow once sent a messenger to tell them they were being sanctioned and they ate him." 

Serafina groaned. "Is that why you're here? It's a little early for a lecture on politics."

"It's never too early for politics," Isabella replied. "It was encirclement by Miromaran soldiers, the acqua guerrieri, that bested the Opafago. Force, not diplomacy. Remember that, Sera. Never sit down at the negotiating table with cannibals, lest you find yourself on the menu." 

"I'll keep that in mind, Mom," Serafina answered. 

Aelia could hear her twin roll her eyes. Aelia checked that she hadn't stashed her robe underneath her bed like she had the last time she had left the room in the middle of the night. Instead, she had tossed it on a smaller shell that was lined with purple anemone like her bed. Aelia picked it up and wrapped it around her body again. 

"What's the matter? You're as white as a shark's belly. Are you ill?" Isabella asked. Aelia turned around and noticed her sister's face. Her sister was pale. She had dark smudges under her eyes.

"I didn't sleep well. I had a bad dream." Serafina explained. "there was something horrible in a cage. A monster. It wanted to get out and I had to stop it, but I didn't know how." 

Aelia flinched at the mention of the monster who had made an appearance in her own dream.

Isabella dismissed it. "Night terrors, that's all. Bad dreams come from bad nerves." 

"The Iele were in it. The river witches. They wanted me to come to them. You used to tell me stories about the Iele. You said they were the most powerful of our kind, and if they ever summon us, we have to go. Do you remember?" Serafina asked. 

Aelia stiffened. Her dream though cut short, had held the same theme. Not that Serafina was going to know, not if Aelia could help it.

Isabella smiled—a rare occurrence. "Yes, but I can't believe you do. I told you and your sister those stories when you two were tiny merls. To make you behave. I said the Iele would call you to the and box your ears if you didn't sit still, as a well-mannered principessa of House of Merrow should. It was all froth and seafoam." 

"They were there. Right in front of me. So close, I could gave reached out and touched them." Serafina paused and shook her head. "But they weren't there, of course. And I have more important things to think about today." 

"We both do," Aelia commented as she picked up her conchs. She placed the conchs on the shells that hung on the wall. 

"Indeed you do. Are your songspells ready?" Isabella asked. 

Aelia sighed. "Go figure."

"So that's why you're here. Not to wish us well, or talk about hairstyles, or the crown prince or his cousin, or anything normal mothers would talk about with their daughters." Serafina continued Aelia's thought. 

Aelia's eyes gazed at the ground. "You want to make sure we don't mess up our songspells."  

Isabella looked at Serafina and Aelia in turn, fixing them both with her fierce blue eyes. "Good wishes are irrelevant. So are hairstyles. What is relevant, is your songspell. It has to be perfect." 

Serafina and Aelia's gazes met. It has to be perfect. Aelia worked so hard on what she did - her studies, her song casting, her musical competitions - but the high expectations that Aelia already held and met for herself did not reach the ones of her mother. Serafina had her own set of high expectations, ones she imposed on herself and ones their mother did.

"I don't need to tell you that the courts of both Miromara and Matali will be watching. You both cannot afford to put a fin wrong. And you won't as long as you don't give in to your nerves. Nerves are the foe. Conquer them, or they'll conquer you. Remember, it's not a battle or a deadlock in Parliament, it's only a Dokimí." 

"Right, Mom. Only a Dokimí." Aelia's eyes went wide as she gazed at her sister, whose fins were flaring. "Only the ceremony in which Alítheia declares me and Aelia of the blood - or kills us. Only the one where I have to songcast as well as a canta magus does. Only the one where we take our betrothal vows, and I swear to give the realm a daughter someday. Nothing to get worked up about. Nothing at all." 

An uncomfortable silence settled in the room. Isabella was the first one to break it. "One time, I had a terrible case of nerves myself. It was when my senior ministers were aligned against me on a trade initiative, and—" 

Serafina cut her off angrily. "Mom, can you just be a mom for once? And forget you're the Regina?" 

Isabella shook her head sadly. "No, Sera. I can't." 

Her mother's usually brisk voice had taken a sorrowful note. 

"Is something wrong?" Serafina asked. "What is it?" 

"Did the Matalis arrive safely?" Aelia felt panicky. She wasn't naive to the fact that the route that the Matalis had taken was often unsafe to travel. Outlaw bands preyed on travelers in lonely stretches of water. The worst of all of them were the Praedatori, and they were known to steal everything of value: currensea, jewelry, weapons, and even the hippokamps the travelers often rode. 

She knew that Mahdi and Yazeed were okay, but that didn't mean the others traveling with them weren't okay. Madhi's parents, the emperor and empress were in the traveling party, along with Neela, who was the crown prince's cousin and Yazeed's younger sister. Neela was Aelia and Serafina's very best friend. Though both twins spent their days surrounded by people, and they had each other, they were always lonely. Letting down your guard around your court or your servants could be a fatal mistake in the long swim. Neela was the only one who really saw how both twins were when not around their courts. 

"The Matalis are perfectly fine," Isabella said. "They arrived last night. Tavia saw them. She says they're well, but weary. Who wouldn't be? It's a long trip from the Indian Ocean to the Adriatic Sea." 

"Did Desiderio ride out to welcome them?" Serafina asked. 

Isabella hesitated. "Actually, your father went to meet them," she said after a while.

"Why? I thought Des was supposed to go," said Aelia, confused. She'd known that her brother had been looking forward to greeting the Matalis. He and Mahdi were old friends. 

"Desiderio has been deployed to the western borders. With four regiment of acqua guerrieri." Isabella told the twins bluntly. 

"What? When?" Serafina asked. 

"Late last night. At your uncle's command." 

Vallerio, Isabella's brother, was Miromara's high commander. His authority was second only to her own. 

"Why?" Serafina asked in alarm. A regiment contained around three thousand guerrieri. The threat at the western borders must have been very serious for uncles to have sent so many soldiers. 

"We received word of another raid. One Acqua Bella, a village off the coast of Sardinia," Isabella said. 

Aelia's breath caught. The raids were getting more and more frequent. 

"How many were taken?" Serafina asked cautiously. 

"More than two thousand." Isabella turned away, but not before Aelia spotted the unshed tears shimmering in her eyes. Aelia's hands covered her mouth as she choked back a sob and blinked quickly to prevent the tears from falling. Serafina laid a hand on her sister's shoulder. 

Around a year ago, there was a raid in a small village in Miromara. In the time span past them, six more Miromaran villages had been hit. No one could explain why the villagers were being taken, or where,  or who was behind the raids. It was as if they'd simply vanished. 

Even though Aelia would not have a part of politics in Miromara when her sister took the throne, the hit to the Miromaran people made her heart break for their loss. 

"Were there any witnesses this time? Do you know who did it?" 

Isabella turned back to the twins, now composed. "We don't. I wish to the gods we did. Your brother thinks it's the terragogs." 

Aelia couldn't handle being quiet anymore. "The humans? It can't be. We have protective songspells against them. We've had them since the mer were created, four thousand years ago. They can't touch us. They've never been able to touch us." 

The twins shuddered at the thought of the consequences if humans learned how to break songspells. The mer would be hauled out of the oceans by the thousands in brutal nets. They'd be bought and sold. Confined in small tanks for the goggs' amusement. Their numbers would be decimated like the tunas' and the cods'. No creature, from land or sea, was greedier than the treacherous terragoggs. Even the vicious Opafago only took what they could eat. The goggs took everything they saw, and more. 

"I don't think it's the humans," Isabella said. "I told your brother so. But a large trawler was spotted in waters close to Acqua Bella, and he's convinced it's involved. Your uncle believes Ondalina's behind the raids and that they're planning to attack Cerulea as well. So he sent the regiments as a show of strength on our western border." 

This was sobering news. Ondalina, the realm of the arctic mer, was an old enemy. A century, they had waged war - and lost - against Miromara, and had simmered under the terms of peace ever since. 

"As you know, the Ondalinians broke the permutavi three months ago. Your uncle thinks Admiral Kolfinn did it because he wished to derail your betrothal to the Matalin crown prince and offer his daughter, Astrid, to the Matalis instead. An alliance with Matali is every bit as valuable to them as it is to us." 

It worried Aelia to hear of Ondalinia's scheming, considering she had had the privilege of meeting Astrid herself. But she was surprised and flattered that her mother was discussing it with her and her twin. 

"Maybe we should postpone the Dokimí. You could call a Council of the Six Waters instead, to caution Ondalina. Emperor Bilaal is already here. You'd only have to summon the president of Atlantica, the elder of Qin, and the queen of the Freshwaters." Serafina said. 

Isabella's expression turned from troubled to impatient. Aelia glanced at her sister, afraid she'd said the wrong thing. 

"The Dokimí can't be postponed. The stability of our realm depends upon it. The moon is full and the tides are high. All preparations have been made. A delay could play right into Kolfinn's hand." Isabella shot down Serafina's attempt to make her mother proud of her.

Serafina desperately tried again. "What if we sent another regiment to the western border? I listened to this conch last night..." she shuffled through the conchs on her floor. "Here it is - Discourses on Defense. It says that a show of force is enough to deter an enemy, and that-" 

"You can't learn how to rule a realm by listening to conchs!" Isabella cut her off. 

Aelia was quick to defend her sister. "But, Mom, a show of force worked with the Opafago in the Barrens! You said yourself five minutes ago!"

"Yes, it did, but that was an entirely different situation. Cerulea was not under the threat of raids then, so Merrow could afford to move her guerrieri out of the city to the Barrens. As I hope you know by now, Aelia, six regiments are currently garrisoned here in the capital.  We've already sent four to the western border with Desiderio. If we send another, we leave ourselves with only one." 

Serafina spoke up now. "Yes, but-" 

"What if the raiders who've been attacking our villages attack Cerulea instead and we have only one regiment of guerrieri left her to defend ourselves and the Matalis?" 

"But we have your personal guard, too - the Janiçari," Serafina said as her voice grew fainter. 

Isabella flapped a hand at her. "Another thousand soldiers at most. Not enough to mount an effective defense. Think, Serafina, think. Ruling is like playing chess. Danger comes from many directions, from a pawn as well as a queen. You must play the board, not the piece. You're only hours from being declared heiress to the Miromaran throne. You must learn to think!" 

"I am thinking! Gods, Mom! Why are you always so hard on me?" Serafina shouted. 

"Because your enemies will be a thousand times harder!" Isabella shouted back. 

A painful silence fell between the twins and their mother. It was broken by a frantic pounding at the door to the chamber. 

"Enter!" barked Isabella.

The doors to the twins' room swung open. A page, one of Vallerio's, swam inside. He bowed to the three mermaids, and then addressed Isabella. "My lord Vallerio sent me to fetch you to your staterooms, Your Grace." 

"Why?" 

"There are reports of another raid."

Isabella's hands clenched into fists. "Tell your lord I'll be there momentarily."  

The page bowed and left the room. 

Serafina started towards her mother. "I'll go with you," Serafina said. 

Isabella shook her head. "Ready yourselves for tonight. It must go well. We desperately need this alliance with Matali. Now more than ever." 

"Mom, please..." Aelia pleaded for her sister's sake. 

But it was too late. Isabella had already swum out of their bed-chamber. She was gone.