Prologue
My mother's voice was the first place I ever felt safe.
I remember how her voice moved, slow and low like the tide at night, curling around the edges of my name as she sang in Marazé. I did not understand all the words then. I only knew the way they filled my chest, as if something ancient had reached inside me and chosen me to endure.
"Sel'ara ven sahra," she whispered between verses.
Little tide. Endure.
At ten, I curled beneath silk sheets scented with salt and citrus oil, feigning sleep just to feel her hand pause in my hair when she believed I had drifted off.
My father stood in the doorway. I could see him even with my eyes closed.
He cradled Tharno against his chest, my brother's small body limp with sleep, his curls pressed to our father's neck. Tharno was six then, still soft, still unburdened by the weight of names and expectation. My father watched us both, as if he were trying to memorize the moment.
As if he sensed it could not last.
My mother finished the lullaby softly, the last notes settling into the room like a promise she intended to keep. Her voice never wavered. Even then, she sang as if sheer steadiness could hold the world together.
When she rose, she pressed a warm, lingering kiss to my forehead and smoothed the sheets around my shoulders as if tucking me into something greater than sleep. I felt her hesitate, just for a breath, before she turned to the door. My father stepped back to make room for her, careful not to wake Tharno. Their eyes met in the quiet, and something passed between them that I did not yet have a name for.
The door closed softly behind them, leaving only the hush of the sea beyond the windows and the steady rhythm of my breath. I lay awake long after the room stilled, clutching the echo of her song, certain that if I remembered it well enough, nothing bad could touch us.I did not know then that safety could be temporary.
Those songs could become memories.
That love could outlive the people who gave it.
And even as sleep finally claimed me, with my brother dreaming down the hall and my parents still in the world, the words remained curled in my chest, quiet and unyielding, waiting.
Sel'ara ven sahra.
Little tide. Endure.
