The sand along the shoreline was soft and cool, soothing to bare feet. It shaped itself around Marizah's as she walked across it, recording the vague imprint of toes, of heel, of arch and callous... only to have the memory erased by the next touch of water and crash of wave.

As it should be. Marizah had no real will to leave traces of this trip behind. It was not the first time she'd stolen out to the ocean that lay so close to her home, that lulled her to sleep every night with its roaring and rumbling music. And it would not, she was sure, be the last. But she didn't need her brothers to know of what she was going to try tonight--to tease her if she failed; to scoff and disbelieve if she met with success. They would dismiss it all as a dream, just as they'd dismissed her pipes and her tunes all her life.