A group of soldiers passes by, armed with spears. They surround four bearers carrying a large, ornately decorated box. Two bearers on either side lift the box on poles balanced across their broad shoulders.
I’ve heard of carrying-boxes like these, common in the capital, used to transport noblewomen across short distances. The palanquin’s thick walls shield its occupant from prying eyes.
Excited whispers follow the procession. I lean forward, curious to know who sits inside the gilded box.
“Shiki’s bride.”
I turn to see Mask following the movement of the palanquin. She nods, indicating the guards’ black-and-red uniforms. “Those are the colors of his house.”
I tug on her sleeve, and then pat my lips to draw her gaze. “Shiki?”
“A death god.”
My eyes dart to the golden box. The person inside is the bride of a death god. “She must be very beautiful. What is she the goddess of?”
“A goddess, did you say? She’s no more a goddess than you or me. Just a girl. A former Sea God’s bride.”
A Sea God’s bride. I whip my head in the direction of the procession.
A warm, sun-colored hand sweeps the drapes of the box aside, and I catch a glimpse of a round, sweet face before a guard blocks my view.
Hyeri.
A year ago, the Sea God’s bride had been a girl from the next village over. Year after year, the brides arrive from all over with caravans that stretch for miles and miles. Sometimes they come from small towns, sometimes from large cities, some even from the capital itself. But Hyeri arrived in the night, with just a sack of belongings slung over her shoulder, her hair in a simple braid down her back.
She’d stayed with our chief elder and his family for three nights before there was a knock at my family’s door. She needed someone to help prepare her for her wedding ceremony.
It was strange, sitting in a room with a girl I’d never met before, helping her dress in the colors of a bride—bright colors signifying love, happiness, and fertility—when, come morning, she would be drowning, and the dress would do nothing but pull her beneath the waves.
“You could run.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Hyeri turned to me, her lips painted pink with the crushed petals of azaleas. Her eyes were darkened with coal from the smoldered hearth. “Where would I run to?”
“Don’t you have someone who would look after you? Family to protect you?”
Hyeri shook her head slowly. “Just my sister, and she’s been gone these past five years.”
“Gone?” I leaned forward, encouraged, thinking Hyeri could go wherever her sister had gone. To the capital, maybe. To somewhere safe. “Gone where?”
Hyeri turned away. The open window of the room looked out toward the rice fields and, beyond them, the sea. In the darkness, you couldn’t see it, but you could hear it—the tireless wind blowing the warm air across the room. You could feel it—the salt on your skin, pooling in a thick layer. Like ashes.
Hyeri’s voice was quiet. “I was always better at swimming. Much better than my sister, who feared the water. Tomorrow, when they throw me into the sea, I’m just going to swim. I’m going to swim and swim until I can’t any longer.”
“But your sister—”
“Five years now. They say every bride of the Sea God is the same. But they’re wrong. Why can’t they see?”
Her voice turned urgent then. She grabbed my wrists and pulled me closer, her eyes fever bright. “Some brides are chosen, but then there are those who choose to be brides.”
Dropping my wrists, she closed her eyes. “They wonder why someone would choose to give up her own life. They could never understand.”
“They?” I asked. “The villagers?”
She nodded. “There are the girls who choose to be brides because they want to bring wealth to their family, since the bridal price paid by the village is steep. There are the girls who choose to be brides because they want the glory of being one of those beautiful few, tragically sacrificed. There are even the girls who truly believe that all of this is real, and that they won’t drown, but will be saved by the Sea God.”
Hyeri opened her eyes, her gaze finding the window and the night beyond. “Then there are the girls like my sister, who want to be the Sea God’s bride because it hurts too much to be themselves.”
I moved closer to Hyeri then, taking her cold hands in my own.
“All this makeup will wash away in the water,” Hyeri said, choking back a laugh. “And until then, I’ll look like I have ink for tears.”