Sildroher

Sildroher are a magical race of sea folk who inhabit the waters off the coast of Fjerda. They are featured in the short story When Water Sang Fire from the book The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo.

Characteristics
The sildroher are an aquatic race who dwell beneath the waves, out of the reach of humans. The sildroher fear humans and try to stay out of sight. Their laws forbid them to go near land and they cower beneath the waves, terrified of being spotted. The sildroher looked down on humans and saw them as lesser beings and the mating of a mermaid with a mortal was considered impossible. Despite their fear, the sildroher are drawn to mortals, to their solid forms, short lives, the way they strive, toil and quiver with endeavor. The Sildroher possess beautiful voices. According to The Language of Thorns, the sildroher use their beautiful songs to entertain and to lure sailors to their doom.

However, once upon a time, the sildroher weren't afraid of humans. They were a strong and powerful people who lived in magnificent palaces of shell and coral that sprawled along the seabed. The royal children and their friends even shed their tails and mingled with humans for three months to toy with mortals, learn their ways and steal their secrets. Song was more than just a frivolity back then, it was an intrinsic part of their culture and through song they wielded their magic. They sang songs to summon storms to keep their waters safe, create their homes and tell their histories.

Before they cut themselves off from humans and forgot the power in their voices, the sildroher held an easy alliance with the Hedjut; fishermen of the north. The sea folk held storms at bay for Hedjut boats, kept their nets full of mussels and crabs and drove whales into their waters. In return, the Hedjut kept sildroher secrets, provided them with horses and fetched them clothes. From the Hedjut, the sea folk learned human language and custom.

Appearance
The sildroher are beautiful merfolk with a human head, arms and torso and a slippery, sinuous fish-like tail in place of legs and gills on their necks. Their bodies are smooth and covered in shimmering silver scales but other colours exist like the choirmaster's orange tail. They are a graceful people, strong from years keeping steady against the tides. Even on land their lithe bodies move with liquid grace.

Powers and Abilities
The sea folk wield power in their song. They have no words for witch as magic exists in all sildroher and the strength of this magic varies from mermaid to mermaid.
 * Through song, the sildroher can create objects of great beauty, wonder and value, summon wealth, move objects without touching them, protect objects from the water, summon sea creatures, from whales to moon jellyfish, and create shelters. Some of the most powerful magic includes creating the grand sildroher palace and allowing a tiger to live and breathe below the waves as easily as the sea folk.
 * The sildroher can use powerful magic when they sing together. Many of their magic needs more than one sildroher in order to work such as storm summoning and spells of healing. One of the most difficult magic is creating life for the magic had to teach it to understand its own needs, to take sustenance and survive. With human lungs, Ulla and Signy, two exceptionally powerful singers, created a fire that could burn underwater, a feat thought impossible.
 * Storm magic is the easiest of sildroher magic but even that requires more than one sildroher. With a song, sildroher can summon wind, clouds, mist, rain, thunder and lightning. The sea folk can summon storms capable of sinking any ship but they are also capable of calming and holding back bad weather. Using a magic mirror that echoed her voice, and a second mirror to create multiple reflections, Ulla combined her voice with the many voices of her reflections to summon a terrible tempest, a storm so big and powerful it destroyed the human and sildroher palaces and dragged the cliff into the sea, turned the sands black and froze the sea.
 * A mermaid can transform her fish tail into legs and gain human form. It is a painful transformation that clefts a mermaid's body in two and carves her tail into human legs. The metamorphosis requires the song of transformation and a sykurn blade, a knife carved from a narwhal tusk and bound with enchantments. The song is of the deepest magic, music of rending and healing and it required great will. New cuts must be made in three months to restore a mermaid's tail. If they stay longer than three months, the harder it is to become a sildroher again. The sildroher must also take care of their knives. If the knives come in contact with anything from the land, the mermaid will no longer be able to regain her tail and will be land bound forever.