Crown of Ash and Cowries

They sent Princess Adunni of Ile Omi to her wedding in a boat of black wood, with seventy-seven cowrie shells sewn into the hem of her gown, and not one person on the river wished her well.

She stood at the prow as the barge slid between the mangroves. Mist lay on the water like milk. Behind her, the white towers of her father's city dwindled, and ahead, where the river widened, a dark shape began to rise out of the haze. A mountain of grey stone, ringed with smoke. The Ashen Kingdom of Eru Ina.

"You can still turn back, my lady," said Morenike, her maid, a stout woman with a face like a closed door. "The captain says the river is high. We could say there was a storm."

"We could."

"The king would understand."

"The king would not." Adunni did not turn around. Her voice was steady, though her hands, hidden in her sleeves, were not. "My father has waited a hundred years to end this war. He has buried three sons and a wife. If marrying a prince will stop the burning, then I will marry a prince. Even if he has the teeth of a leopard."