Tavia, who had the legs and torso of a blue crab, scuttled over to the mirror. Serafina could see that it was empty now. There was no river witch inside it. No terragogg in black. All she saw was her nurse’s reflection.
“Pesky vitrina. You probably haven’t been paying them enough attention. They get peevish if you don’t fawn over them enough,” Tavia said.
“But these were different. They were…”
Tavia turned to her. “Yes, child?”
A scary witch from a nightmare and a terragogg with freaky black eyes, she was about to say. Until she realized it sounded insane.
“…um, different. I’ve never seen them before.”
“That happens sometimes. Most vitrina are right in your face, but occasionally you come across a shy one,” Tavia said. She rapped loudly on the glass. “You quiet down in there, you hear? Or I’ll put this glass in a closet!” She pulled a sea-silk throw off a chair and draped it over the mirror. “That will scare them. Vitrina hate closets. There’s no one in there to tell them how pretty they are.”
Tavia righted the chair Serafina had knocked over, then chided her for taking so long to join her court.
“Your breakfast is here. So is the dressmaker. You must come along now!” she said.
Serafina cast a last glance at her mirror, questioning herself already. Vr?ja wasn’t real. She was of the Iele, and the Iele lived only in stories. And that hand coming through the glass? That was simply a trick of the light, a hallucination caused by lack of sleep and nerves over her Dokimí. Hadn’t her mother said that nerves were her foe?
“Serafina, I am not calling you again!” Tavia scolded.
The princess lifted her head, swam through the doors to her antechamber, and joined her court.
“NO, NO, NO! Not the ruby hair combs, you tube worm, the emerald combs! Go get the right ones!” the hairdresser scolded. Her assistant scuttled off.
“I’m sorry, but you’re quite mistaken. Etiquette demands that the Duchessa di Tsarno precede the Contessa di Cerulea to the Kolisseo.” That was Lady Giovanna, chatelaine of the chamber, talking to Lady Ottavia, keeper of the wardrobe.
“These sea roses just arrived for the principessa from Principe Bastiaan. Where should I put them?” a maid asked.
A dozen voices could be heard, all talking at once. They spoke Mermish, the common language of the sea people.
Serafina tried to ignore the voices and concentrate on her songspell. “All those octave leaps,” she whispered to herself. “Five high Cs, the trills and arpeggios….Why did Merrow make it so hard?”
The songspell for the Dokimí had been composed specifically to test a future ruler’s mastery of magic. It was cast entirely in canta mirus, or special song. Canta mirus was a demanding type of magic that called for a powerful voice and a great deal of ability. It required long hours of practice to master, and Serafina had worked tirelessly to excel at it. Mirus casters could bid light, wind, water, and sound. The best could embellish existing songspells or create new ones.
Most mermaids of Serafina’s age could only cast canta prax—or plainsong—spells. Prax was a practical magic that helped the mer survive. There were camouflage spells to fool predators. Echolocation spells to navigate dark waters. Spells to improve speed or darken an ink cloud. Prax spells were the first kind taught to mer children, and even those with little magical ability could cast them.
Serafina took a deep breath now and started to sing. She sang softly, so no one could hear her, watching herself in a decorative mica panel. She couldn’t rehearse the entire spell—she’d destroy the room—but she could work on bits of it.
“Alítheia? You’ve never seen her? I’ve seen her twice now, my dear, and let me tell you, she’s absolutely terrifying!”
That was the elderly Baronessa Agneta talking to young Lady Cosima. They were sitting in a corner. The gray-haired baronessa was wearing a gown in an alarming shade of purple. Cosima had on a blue tunic; a thick blond braid trailed down her back. Serafina faltered, unnerved by their talk.
“You have no reason to fear her, so don’t,” had always been Isabella’s advice, but from what Sera had heard of Alítheia, that was easier said than done.
“The gods themselves made her. Bellogrim, the smith, forged her, and Neria breathed life into her,” Agneta continued. Loudly, for she was quite deaf.
“Is there kissing during the Dokimí? I heard there’s kissing,” Cosima said, wrinkling her nose.
“A bit at the end. Close your eyes. That’s what I do,” the baronessa said, sipping her sargassa tea. The hot liquid—thick and sweet, like most mer drinks—sat heavily in an exquisite teacup. The cup had been salvaged, as had all of the palace porcelain, from terragogg shipwrecks. “The Dokimí has three parts, child—two tests and a vow.”
“Why?”
“Why? Quia Merrow decrevit! That’s Latin. It means—”
“‘Because Merrow decreed it,’” Cosima said.
“Very good. Dokimí is Greek for trial, and a trial it is. Alítheia appears in the first test—the blooding—to ensure each principessa is a true daughter of the blood.”