The Throne Room was a vast, circular cavern, the walls lined with luminous anemones that pulsed with a soft, ethereal light. At the center, raised on a dais of polished coral, sat the iridescent throne. Polished pearls and shells embedded in its surface caught the light and scattered it across the cavern floor like a thousand tiny stars.
The queen, regal and composed, sat upon her throne as her tail swayed rhythmically. Attendants hovered in the water behind, ready to assist her when asked. Her gaze met mine, unwavering.
I bowed low before the throne. A jolt of shock, sharp as a sudden shift in the current, rippled through the chamber at my insolence, stirring a visible reaction among the gathered Encantados. I didn’t care. My sister’s life was more important than courtly etiquette.
My voice, though trembling, rang with desperate clarity. “Your Majesty,” I began, my gaze fixed on the queen’s serene face. “My sister, Inaiá, is dying. A sickness grips her, one that Elder Nahla cannot cure.”
The queen leaned forward, her ornate trident tipped with a luminous pearl, pointing down at me as if she were about to attack. “I’m well aware,” she responded, her voice a low, resonant hum. “It doesn’t give you permission to barge in here like you have.”
“Please, I’m begging you,” I pleaded, my voice thick with desperation. “I need to be allowed to leave and go to the land to find a cure.”
“No,” Nerina stated flatly. “There is nothing but death on the land. We keep to our river.”
“But there might be a cure for her there.”
“Might,” the queen echoed, her voice laced with skepticism. “You don’t know for sure. It is not worth the risk.”
“But she’s a female,” I argued, my voice rising in pitch. “She can continue our legacy. We can’t risk losing her.”
“So are you,” Nerina countered, her gaze sharp and unwavering. “And you are of breeding age. I don’t want to lose you.”
The queen’s words caused a tightening in my chest. Our clan’s numbers were diminishing because of increased pollutionand human activities on the Amazon River. We needed to breed or face extinction. But I didn’t care. If my sister died, it would be as if I had died too. I had already lost my parents. I couldn’t face any more death other than my own.
“Please,” I whispered, my voice choked with emotion. “What if more of us get sick?”
“You don’t know if that will happen,” the queen replied, her tone softening slightly.
“You don’t know that it won’t happen,” I argued, my desperation giving me reckless courage.
Gasps sounded in the chamber at my defiance.
I shouldn’t have come.
Instead, I should have just left and gone to the land. I was stupid to think I would get permission for something forbidden.
“Your life is too precious,” Nerina repeated, her voice laced with concern.
“What… my sister’s isn’t?” I flicked my tail angrily, the movement sharp and defiant. I had to make the queen listen to me.
Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to speak calmly. “There is a flower,” I explained. “TheFlor da Lua.”
She put up her hand, and I stopped talking. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Imagine how helpful that would be for all of us if I could bring it back.”
“What makes you so sure you will bring it back?” Nerina challenged, her eyes narrowed. “The full moon is in three days. You don’t have much time.”
“I have nothing to lose,” I responded, my voice ringing with conviction. “So I will do what is needed to get the flower.”
“Your courage is commendable, Luzia,” she said, her voice resonating with a newfound respect. Then, turning her gaze to the assembled clan, her voice rose, filling the chamber with its power. “Who among you will join Luzia on this perilous quest?Who will brave the dangers of the human world to aid their sister in need? Who will go to the Glade of Whispers to find theFlor da Lua, which might not even exist?”
Silence. A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the cavern, broken only by the soft, rhythmic pulsing of the anemones. The water crackled with tension.
I looked around, my heart plummeting with each averted gaze. Eyes darted away, and fins fidgeted. Fear, thick and intense as the silt that sometimes clouded the riverbed, hung in the water. No one moved. No one spoke. The human world, with its unknown terrors, held them captive in a net of fear, a fear I no longer had the luxury to feel.
A wave of despair washed over me, cold and suffocating. Am I truly alone in this?
Queen Nerina’s gaze returned to me, her expression a mixture of sympathy and resignation. “See, Luzia,” she said softly, her voice laced with regret. “This is how doomed your quest is before you’ve even begun.”
