The Many Crowns of Saniya

The direction of the tide

They say "hurt people hurt people". It takes an especially strong person to not let their pain hurt others. I'm not that strong.

My story starts out in the water. A fitting place I suppose. My name is Saniya, I am the daughter of King Kov and his second wife, Queen Consort Sashi. Together they ruled Kisima, an underwater kingdom of mermaids hosting some of the finest water mages the world had ever seen. The most powerful of them could take the water in your body and drown you from the inside out. Someone of that skill is very rare these days in that kingdom.

My mother wasn't originally part of this underwater kingdom. She grew up as an aristocrat in the land kingdom of  Yindi. This kingdom is incredibly diverse, if it wasn't for the our monarch's humility it would've been declared an empire long ago. Just a hundred years ago the kingdom was multiple little kingdoms filled with many different kinds of magic users. Each kingdom had its own language, culture, and a type of magic a majority of its citizens used. For example many people of the costal kingdom of Suna had some version of water magic. Their abilities were usually limited to water bending and some other small uses. Occasionally multiple villages would get together to pool their magic together to shift the tides. My father always respected them, but was very skeptical of their magic. He firmly believed that in order to unlock your full potential as a water mage, you should live in the water. Be one with it I suppose. My mother is a different story.

She comes from the south west of the Chaya kingdom, what used to be known as the shadow kingdom. I'm sure you can guess why, it had the highest rate of shadow magic users in all the kingdoms. Unfortunately for them, being from the west meant they'd be the first to encounter the Lucerna Soldiers. You see, around 200 miles off our coasts there was another kingdom called Lucerna who most of the kingdoms here had known about and been in some sort of contact with for centuries. During this time their king Lucus claimed to have seen god in a dream. Not just any god, but a new god that told him that his kingdom shall thrive, and to save the other kingdoms from poverty buy absorbing them into his.

That dream was all it took to start nearly seventy straight years of conflict.

Since the shadow kingdom was the first obstacle in their path to reaching and eventually converting all the other kingdoms most of the Lucerna soldiers focused all their military effort on defeating the shadow kingdom. At the time Lucerna soldiers were strong users of fire and light magic. The shadow kingdom taught tirelessly to keep them at bay, and slowly but surely the other kingdoms either merged with the kingdom to provide military support or joined in exchange for military protection.

After King Lucus of Lucerna died around 67 years into the war, his son King Leo was crowned and received his own dream from god. His dream was much different, his god called upon him to stop the most evil and cheroot thing in this world: the use of magic. The remaining three years of the war was fought with swords from their side and magic from the now united Yindi kingdom. With heavy losses on their side, the Lucernas had to call off the war and cut their losses.

My mother had been born 53 years into the war and with its conclusion her family saw it fit to marry her off to the best possible suitor that could keep her safe. My father had recently divorced his first wife and requested my mother's hand. She spent the next year of her life learning just enough water magic to breathe underwater and create a mermaid form before being married off. Within a year I was born. Their only child.

When I was five years old a new queen of the shadow kingdom had been crowned. She renovated the military academy built during the war and made it a training base for her own private military and spies. My mother had grown to resent her life in the water kingdom. She appreciated my father and his countrymen but she did not see this life for her only child. I was fourth in-line for the throne anyway, behind the three children my father had with his first wife. My life would've been the same as a my mother's. Married off to whoever sounded the best on paper.

It took months of convincing my father but my mother got her wish and I was enrolled in the Queen's Academy just after my sixth birthday. That would be the last time I saw my parents for nearly a decade. I suppose the tides never aligned for a visit.