POV: Liora
They wrapped Grandmother in white cloth and salt flowers and carried her to the shore at dawn. The village came because custom required it, not because they mourned.
She had died in the night with my hand in hers, her breath thinning to nothing between one hum and the next.
My father walked at the front with his eyes dry. My mother held Calla's arm, and Calla wore grief the way she wore everything else — beautifully, for an audience.
I walked behind them all, and no one turned to see if I was keeping up.
The fishermen laid her body in the small boat and pushed it into the surf. The tide caught it and pulled it seaward, slow and steady, as though the water had been waiting for her.
"She lived well," my father said to the gathered crowd, his voice carrying that grave authority he mistook for feeling. "She is at peace now."
I wanted to scream that he had not visited her in months, that he had pushed her into that cottage and sealed the door, that peace was a word people used when they did not want to say they were relieved.
"She was ready," my mother added, her hand on Calla's shoulder. "It was her time."
"It was not her time." The words cut across the murmur of the crowd, and faces turned. "She died in a cottage you put her in because she embarrassed you."
"Liora." My father's warning carried the weight of a closed fist. "This is not the place."
"There is never a place," I said. "Not for her and not for me."
The boat grew small against the grey water, and I watched it until my eyes burned and the shape of it dissolved into the line where the sea met the sky. The medallion hung against my chest beneath my dress, the last thing she had touched.
The days that followed were hollow. I cleaned the cottage because no one else would, folding her blankets, sweeping the floor she would never cross again. Her chair by the window still held the shape of her.
Then matchmaking day arrived, and the village dressed itself in garlands and expectation.
I stood at the window of my father's house from first light, watching the road. The tradition was simple — young men came to a girl's door and asked her parents for her hand. Those not chosen stood in the Offering line.
Families arrived for Calla before the sun had fully risen. The Harren boy came first, then a merchant's son from the eastern quarter, then a fisherman with silver at his collar. My mother received each one glowing, and my father weighed their offerings.
"Three already," my mother said, passing my doorway without stopping. "Calla will have her pick."
I said nothing and watched the road. Jorin had promised. He had cupped my jaw in his rough palm and said he would be here before sunrise, and I had believed him because I was hungry and he was bread.
By midday the road was empty. By afternoon the sun had crossed the roof and the shadow of the house stretched long across the yard, and no one had come to my father's door for me.
"Still waiting?" Calla paused in the corridor, her arms full of flowers from her suitors. "You should come help me sort these. There are so many I cannot carry them all."
"Someone is coming," I said without turning from the window. "He told me he would."
Calla softened into the one thing worse than cruelty — pity. "Oh, Liora. Who would come for you? Honestly. Think about it."
The sun set nd the road stayed empty. I pressed my hand flat over the medallion and felt only metal, cool against my skin.
That evening, my father called the village to the square. Torches burned along the perimeter, and the crowd gathered with the restless energy of people expecting an announcement. I stayed at the edge, my fists clenched at my sides.
I saw Jorin before I understood what I was seeing. He stood near the front beside my father, his broad shoulders straight, his face carrying the careful blankness of a man who had made a decision and sealed it shut.
Calla stepped forward and slid her arm through his, and my breath left me before my mind caught up.
"Jorin." His name left me broken. "You promised me."
He glanced up, and his expression was polite, distant, scrubbed clean of everything we had shared on the rocks. "Liora," he said, and the way he said it — flat, careful, finished — told me everything.
"Oh, Liora, did you not hear?" Calla turned to me, and her smile held the quiet satisfaction of someone placing the final stone on a wall. "Father and the blacksmith settled this days ago. Jorin agreed before matchmaking day was even announced."
Days ago. Before the rocks. Before his hand on my wrist and his voice in the dark telling me he would choose me every single night. He had already chosen, and still he held me and let me believe.
"You cannot." The words shook and my nails cut crescents into my palms. "He was mine. He told me he was mine."
"Yours?" Calla echoed with a soft laugh, her fingers tracing Jorin's arm. "Did you really believe the blacksmith's son would choose you when he could have me?"
My father's voice rolled across the square. "As you all know, we have been blessed with two daughters. Tonight I am proud to announce that Calla is betrothed to Jorin, son of the blacksmith. This union strengthens our family and honors our village."
The crowd broke into approval — murmurs, nods, a few raised cups. I forced my way forward, cracking across the silence.
"Father, I am the eldest." My eyes searched the torchlit faces for a single person who would speak. "I should have been given this choice."
My father's gaze hardened beneath the torchlight. "Calla is better suited. She is respected, capable, and brings no trouble to this family."
"I have done everything." The words climbed and I could not pull them back. "I have worked, I have kept quiet, I have —"
"Enough." His hand cut the air between us. "Do not embarrass yourself and this family."
"It is not personal, Liora." Calla's tone rang out, sweet and lethal. "Some of us were simply meant for more."
Jorin looked down at my sister and pressed his lips to her forehead, and the tenderness of it destroyed a part of me that would not grow back. Three nights ago those lips had been against my skin, and his voice had been saying my name in the dark.
I turned from the square, my shoulders rigid, my vision blurring. The crowd parted without effort, because making room for me to leave was the one thing this village had always done well.
My mother caught my arm at the edge of the torchlight. She leaned close, and her whisper landed where no one else could hear.
"We only ever needed one daughter to matter," she said. "Do not make this harder than it has to be."
I pulled free and kept walking, past the houses, past the cottage that still smelled of my grandmother, past everything that had ever pretended to be mine. The medallion pressed cold over my chest and the sea roared black and vast beyond the cliffs.
The Offering was tomorrow, and there was no one left to lose me.