The kingdom of Sashida was a perfect green gem set in the silver sparkle of the Bhaskar Sea. A natural isthmus edged on the landward side by a particularly aggressive mountain range, it was unmenaced by any army of its continental neighbors. Nor, frankly, were the Sashidans inclined to test the natural wall themselves, instead turning their considerable energies towards the sea which cradled their home. They became known as masterful sailors, and aggressive traders (if prone to the occasional stint as pirates). Only one navy had ever defeated theirs, and that victory had been quickly reversed when the enemy fleet was paralyzed by internecine squabbling.

In short, as any student of geography and history could have predicted, the sea was of paramount importance to the development, sustenance and success of Sashida. Her gods, in the way of such things, transformed so that they were centered around the sea--the tides, the currents, storms, the safety of ships and crew. There were still areas of more agrarian worship far inland, but on the coasts, where the cities and the power were, the sea became the home of the gods. And it was the responsibility of Sashida's leadership, both religious and secular, to keep those gods appeased.

One such responsibility for the Sashidan Kings, or Kiritani, was the symbolic marriage to the sea. It was, in all, fairly simple, and the last act a presumptive Kiritan completed before being recognized as the new monarch. After being ritually bathed and dressed in traditional wedding clothes, the prince-groom would sit vigil in the cove for an entire night. At sunrise, his bride--a gowned effigy which had been carefully launched from the rocky spur at the mouth of the cove--would wash ashore. He would formally recognize the wooden figure as his true bride-to-be, then the priest waiting nearby would say the benediction and read the vows.

The effigy's safe arrival on the beach was seen as an approval of both Kiritan and wedding from Tara, the sea-goddess. Smooth completion of the ritual was considered a guarantee that the new Kiritan's reign would be peaceful, and filled with continued prosperity. For just as relations between a husband and wife set the tone for the entire household, so did the relationship between the Kiritan and the sea set the tone for the kingdom. A husband who dishonored his sea-bride condemned his people to floods, illness and famine. The two shortest reigns in Sashidan history, in fact, had been held by Kiritani who had picked up odd ideas about religion, and had declared the sea-marriage barbaric. Both had died in unusual drowning accidents within a few years of assuming their respective thrones.

The custom of the sea-marriage had continued, unabated, ever since.

Once the ceremony was completed, the "bride" would be taken back to the Palace in a litter, and installed in her own room in the Palace. When the Kiritan died and was cremated, his sea-bride would burn with him. The bulk of their combined ashes would then be scattered into the sea from which they had both come.

Political necessity, of course, demanded that the Kiritan have the ability to take a flesh-and-blood wife as well. Religious law allowed for this, with the caveat that the human bride could only be addressed as Ishani, or consort. The title of Rana (queen) was forever reserved for the sea-bride.

And so it was that in the Nine Hundred and Thirtieth Year of the Kiritani, a (slightly damp) young man named Malajit, having undergone all of the other tests and trials of his inheritance, sat on the (slightly damp) sand of a sacred cove behind the Royal palace, awaiting the dawn and the arrival of his bride.

He was the fifty-third Kiritan (to be) of Sashida, and like fifty of his predecessors, he would be symbolically wedded to the sea. Having just reached his second decade, he was still young enough that the idea of marriage, even a symbolic one, did not hold substantial appeal. Any excitement he felt about the impending wedding was only in relation to its heralding his final succession to the throne.

He was tired of sitting on a damp beach, getting a correspondingly damp royal posterior as well as a certain amount of sand down the royal pants, and had developed a royal headache from squinting at the waterline--now a dark smudge in the brightening predawn light. Not to mention the small matter of having gone an Entire Night--he thought of it in capitals--without sleep.

Or, as he muttered to himself, "Let's get it over with, already."

As soon as the words were spoken, he clapped a beringed hand over his mouth. It wouldn't do to appear unappreciative of the honor, and the breadth of the ocean served as Tara's eyes and ears. The priests would have sixteen kinds of fits if he irritated the goddess in a fit of fatigued pique. Not that he completely believed the predicted consequences of Tara's ire, but he did believe in how hellish Tara's priests would make the next several months, if he provoked them. He'd certainly had enough experience with it as a youngster.

He dug his bare feet in the sand and tried very hard not to think about the grit chafing his buttocks, the water chilling the same region, and above all, he tried very hard not to say anything.

The lapping wavelets made a soft chuckling noise among the rocks and sand, like a child at play on the shore. He remembered wandering this same beach as a small boy, looking for water-smoothed rocks or--even more precious--sea-glass in all the colors of the rainbow. The small colored droplets sparkled in the sun, and had made a fabulous treasure when poured into the small gilded chest his father had commissioned, with great amusement, for his son's hoard. The Kiritan had tried to convince the boy that much greater wealth awaited him when he was older, but Malajit had never quite believed such a thing was possible, until he was ten and had been taken into the main vault of the treasury.

He still had a great deal of fondness for sea-glass.

The sound of coughing broke his reverie. Lost in memories of clambering over rocks as his father laughed at his antics, he had ceased watching the waterline. Now, with the sky blossoming pink and yellow from the sun breaching the horizon, he could see a form on the sand, still half-submerged.

He scrambled to his feet and ran the several yards to the waterline. Having not yet connected the cough with the arrival, he nearly bolted back up the beach when the figure moved, pushing itself up on its arms and dragging itself farther onto the sand.

It raised its head, and eyes of an amazing and unnameable shade of blue met his. At that moment, he could no more have fled than he could swim across the Bhaskar. The gaze drew him onward, down to the water's edge, down to the body shuddering with cold, down to the thing that was most certainly not a figure carved of wood.

It was a woman, and she was real.