Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
I didn’t understand English at the time, but I eventually realized they addressed him as “Prince Aerik.”
What I did understand was that I needed him to be mine. Something I could finally call my own. All my life I had felt so fractured and lonely, my father kind but firm and distant, my sisters the light of his life after mother disappeared. But me, I was left with Nill and that was that. No one ever glanced my way or wondered how I was. I was just the third sister taking up too much space in the sea. Even the other Syrens in the kingdom ignored me. Though I was no one within my own family, I was also too different and regal for those outside of it to befriend me.
And so I thought, foolishly, that if I could get this human, this Prince Aerik, to become mine, then I wouldn’t have to be alone. But he lived on land and would never survive more than a few minutes below the surface of the sea. He would never be a part of my world.
That’s when I knew I would have to become part of his.
As a child, I was warned about the sea witches, beings that possessed magic that let them shapeshift at will, enabling them to live both above the water and below it. Though Syrens were the ones humans feared, us Syrens feared the sea witches. They had the ability to grant us wishes, yet none of their gifts came without a price.
But I was young and headstrong and imprudent. I wanted adventure, I wanted to see what life was like above the sea, I wanted to become something more than I was. I wanted love.
And so I set about calling forth a sea witch. My sisters had told me that they liked shiny things as offerings and that they would respond to my Syren call. I spent the evening darting about, finding things that caught my eye like brightly colored coral in saturated hues of red, orange, and yellow, tiny purple starfish, rare glowing azure seaweed and pearls I coaxed from the reluctant mouths of oysters.
Once I had gathered these shiny pieces of the sea, I swam down to a canyon with walls of rock and coral rising up around me, a place with fantastic acoustics. Then I began to sing.
As far as I knew there was no specific song that conjured the sea witches, it was just our voices in general that might draw them to us. All Syrens had enchanting and beautiful singing voices and mine was no exception. I just didn’t like to sing since it made me the center of attention (unless either of my sisters were signing, then no one would even hear me).
But there I sang. I sang for the sea witch, I sang about wanting to make a bargain, about wanting a life on land, to win a man’s heart, and after what seemed like forever, Nill started doing protective circles around me, signifying that a sea witch was coming.
The first thing to appear were the tentacles. They were giant, slithering ropes with suction ends and puckered purple skin. They didn’t belong to the sea witch, but instead to one of the Kraken, the giant sea monsters that the witches controlled.
The rest of the Kraken was hidden in the murky blue depths of the ocean, though I could faintly make out small glowing yellow eyes.
Then Edonia came forward, walking toward me on two legs along the sea floor, completely nude.
She was stunning. I had heard sea witches were ugly hags, but this wasn’t the case at all. She was soft and pale, with long flowing white hair that moved around her head like sea snakes. She looked human more than anything and I was immediately jealous of her.
“Sweetheart,” she said to me, her voice melodic but low. “Tell me what ails you?”
I was so dumbfounded by her that I couldn’t speak.
“You have made a call for assistance from a sea witch, have you not?”
I nodded and she approached. Nill started to come in between us but before I could tell him to stay back, a tentacle whipped toward him, grabbing him. Nill cried out, a sharp sound that very few creatures could hear, and the Kraken wrapped itself around his middle, squeezing him tight.
“No, stop!” I cried out. “Don’t hurt him!”
Edonia smirked at me and suddenly all her beauty seemed to vanish. She may have been pretty, but she was cold and ruthless and I immediately knew I couldn’t trust her. “A precautionary measure. Depending on how this goes, I’ll have him set free. Otherwise…”
I understood the threat. I had called her forth for a favor and now she was the one in control.
“Tell me what you want, sweetheart,” she said, sounding bored. “So that we make this deal in haste. I don’t have all night.”