Mage’s Legacy: Cursed Seas Read online

  Mage’s Legacy

  Cursed Seas

  Rebecca Hamilton

  Jade Kerrion

  Copyright © 2018 by Rebecca Hamilton and Jade Kerrion

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Mage’s Legacy / Rebecca Hamilton and Jade Kerrion—1st ed.

  Cover Design by Rebecca Frank

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Rebecca Hamilton

  Jade Kerrion

  Mage’s Legacy

  He's desperate. She’s a fraud.

  Together…they’re a disaster.

  To save his siren clan from the ravaging sea serpents, Gabriel must seek the help of a mage to recover the Legacy Stone and heal the oceans. That’s how he finds himself at Kerina’s doorstep, begging for her aid, and grateful when she reluctantly agrees.

  Now Gabriel and Kerina must survive the perils of the cursed seas and challenge the demonic Tua and his seven monstrous children for control of the Legacy Stone—a difficult enough task for a lone siren warrior and a powerful mage…

  Except, Kerina’s not really a mage. The real mage died weeks before and hadn’t even been cold in her grave when Gabriel arrived desperate for her help. Kerina hadn’t exactly been eager to correct his mistake then, and now her lie of omission could leave the world in danger of complete extinction.

  Kerina’s not sure how long she can keep up the ruse, and she’s running out of time to confess.

  Fans of Kiera Cass, Neil Gaiman, and Faith Hunter will find this dystopian-fantasy siren adventure intensely addicting.

  Chapter 1

  The siren was dying. His mind accepted it, but his heart denied it. His mission was not yet complete.

  His hand broke the surface of the water, fingers tensed into a claw, veins protruding. His face followed, and blood spilled from his mouth, the crimson color scarcely visible against the blackness of the sea if not for the lightning that split the night sky, gleaming upon the tossing waves. The ocean churned; its turmoil frothed the seafoam pink, then red.

  His legs, reduced to bleeding stumps, were useless. His right arm was torn beyond function. With his left arm, he flailed, fighting against the ocean that once used to offer life, sanctuary. The water rippled around him; the infinite depths of the sea concealed the vast horror that lurked beneath.

  That horror, with its quick, slashing mouth and endless rows of jagged teeth, had ripped him apart.

  The creature was turning around for another attack. The water parted before it, like a finely woven veil of ocean grass slowly pulled back. Behind the veil was a gargantuan serpentine head, slitted eyes glittering with keen intelligence and pure malice.

  Every stuttering heartbeat narrowed the distance between him and death.

  He dipped his head beneath the surface to search for the underwater city that he knew had to be near. His eyes narrowed as he tried to focus beyond his pain.

  So close…can’t give up…can’t die now.

  The currents twisted around him, much too quick and too confusing for his addled senses to decipher. Something was moving toward him. But what? Surely not the sea serpent. It was behind him, wasn’t it?

  Was there something else in the water?

  Was he safer above it?

  He broke the surface, gasping in pain. The water behind him split apart. He twisted around as the sea serpent reared up like a king surveying its domain. The black and green frills on its neck flared to surround its head. Its mouth opened slowly, revealing glittering fangs. Its eyes gleamed in anticipation of the kill.

  The ocean trembled. He glanced over his shoulder as a male siren warrior leapt from the water, soaring high over his head to land on the serpent’s head. The warrior stabbed his spear into the monster’s mouth. The creature reared back. Its roar drowned out the rumble of thunder.

  From the surface of the water, the injured siren gaped at the sight of the spear’s tip protruding from the underside of the monster’s mouth. The sea serpent thrashed, churning up the waves. They swept over him, pushing him under water.

  No!

  His useless limbs flailed against the current. He had to get back to the surface…had to attract the siren warrior’s attention…had to pass on the message—

  Strong arms caught him, supported him. He blinked blearily as his hazy vision focused on eyes as green as seagrass. He recognized the face of the siren warrior who had attacked the sea serpent.

  “You’re safe now,” the warrior murmured. “You’ll be all right.”

  Yet in the warrior’s voice, he heard the tremble of a lie.

  He did not flinch. He knew he was too badly wounded. He would not survive his injuries. But he had carried the message across half the breadth of the world, from the thirteenth region to the southern reaches of the Atlantic Ocean.

  He had almost succeeded in the mission entrusted to him. Now, he only had to pass the message on.

  He fumbled with his remaining hand and grasped the siren warrior’s arm as the siren summoned two other warriors to his side. “Take him back to the clan. Tend his wounds.”

  They carried him away from the battle. Through his fading vision, he saw the siren warrior, surrounded by his clan, reach for another spear to take on the sea serpent. The darkness of the water soon erased them from his sight, but the battle continued to churn the currents. He smelled blood—yet more siren blood spilled, defending their homes from monsters. The terror had to end, and he held the key.

  “I must…” His words emerged with a bloody gurgle. “I must speak to your clan chief.”

  The two sirens carrying him to safety exchanged startled glances. Then one said, “You just did.”

  * * *

  Gabriel tightened his grip on his borrowed spear. He tested its weight in his hand. Its balance was off. It would veer to the left if he hurled it; the small shift could mean the difference between hitting the sea serpent in the eye or hitting nothing.

  The monstrous creature writhed, its throes tossing the water into thirty-foot high waves. Siren warriors darted out of the way of its whipping coils. One siren was not quick enough. The serpent’s scales raked across his abdomen, abrading skin and shredding flesh. He curled over in pain. The serpent’s tongue darted from its mouth to taste the blood in the water. Its eyes narrowed upon the injured siren. It pulled back slightly, building momentum for its strike.

  It lunged at the wounded siren.

  A streak of shadows beneath the sea serpent blurred into a flur
ry of motion. The siren warlord, Raphael, and a quad of his best warriors surged up. Their body weight slammed into the serpent’s lower jaw. The impact threw the serpent off its attack arc, and their joint momentum pushed the serpent’s jaw close. The tip of Gabriel’s spear, still stuck in the serpent’s upper palate, pierced its lower mouth.

  The monster convulsed, churning the water. Its jaws twisted from side to side, then snapped open, shattering the weapon that had pinned its mouth. The pieces of Gabriel’s broken spear drifted toward the bottom of the ocean. The siren warriors fanned around the serpent and surged in to attack, but the sea serpent turned and swam away, its lean form slithering into the darkness.

  Raphael’s warriors were the first to raise the chant of victory. The other warriors exchanged uncertain glances before adding their voices to the congratulations.

  Gabriel ground his teeth in frustration. Did they think he begrudged Raphael the credit for that victory? These days, their celebrations were hard-won. Their clan had been devastated, first by the loss of their fishing grounds, then decimated by the predation of the sea serpent and other monsters that ventured up from the deep. There was no place, in their increasingly desperate state, for political mechanisms.

  Now if only Raphael shared his view.

  He swam up to the siren warlord. “Well done,” he said. “It was brilliantly executed.”

  Raphael smirked. “It’s all about teamwork, not the individual.”

  A muscle twitched in Gabriel’s cheek, but he refused to interpret Raphael’s comment as a personal insult. Their people had enough real issues. They did not need a personal feud between the clan chief and the clan warlord escalating into a political division.

  “Let’s get back to the caves. Our people are waiting for us.”

  Raphael and his warriors led the way. Gabriel brought up the rear, glancing over his shoulder even though the gentle currents brushing against his skin confirmed that the sea serpent had given up on the hunt, at least for now.

  As he approached the underwater grotto, he realized that the two warriors protecting the entrance of the grotto were the ones he had sent back with the injured siren. His thoughts flashed to the stranger. “How is he?”

  “Your sister is tending him,” the warrior told him.

  Gabriel nodded as he entered the grotto, its rocky walls lit by phosphorescent algae. The light glowed in beautiful shades of blue and green, but as always, his stomach pitched, sickened by the knowledge of why his clan hid in caves. Their homes on the shallow sea shelves, where they once enjoyed the sun’s light and warmth while basking in the surf, were no longer safe. The monsters rising from the deep had forced his people into darkness, crouching in shadows, hoping the leviathans passed them by.

  Sometimes they did.

  Often, they did not.

  And today, that lone siren, that stranger, had paid the price.

  Gabriel passed through the network of caves, sections of it partitioned off with rock walls for privacy. The low murmur of conversations from behind those walls, however, was impossible to block out. He heard them all: the voice of a child pleading for more food; the plaintive, frantic wail of an infant rising above a mother’s quiet sobs.

  His people were dying.

  And he could do nothing to save them.

  He entered the farthest section of the cave. His twin sister, Sofia, with several other siren women, clustered around a bed of seagrass. They looked up as he entered, and then made way for him.

  “How is he?” Gabriel asked.

  Sofia shook her head. “He’s still alive. We’ve done everything we can, but I don’t think…”

  He stared down at the injured siren, his mangled limbs covered with layers of kelp.

  “Keep him comfortable,” Gabriel ordered.

  He turned away. The siren’s hand shot out and latched onto his wrist with surprising strength.

  Gabriel froze.

  The siren tried to raise himself to a sitting position but hacked out blood clots, his shoulders heaving, chest trembling.

  “You must rest,” Gabriel insisted, turning to him.

  “No time…” The siren wheezed. “I bring a message…from the thirteenth region.”

  Gabriel paused. That wasn’t possible. The thirteenth region was a myth, wasn’t it? He focused his attention on the dying siren. The least he could do was hear his final words.

  “What is your message?”

  “We found a priceless stone…” the dying man said. “A legacy from the meteor that plummeted to Earth. A mage told us to return it to the sacred place…”

  Gabriel leaned down to listen to the siren’s fading voice. The currents shifted around him; the murmur of familiar voices told him that Raphael and his warriors had entered the cave behind him. He held up his hand for quiet as the siren continued.

  “Many died trying to return the stone…” the siren whispered. “But the Legacy Stone, once restored to the holy place, saved us all. The creatures of the deep retreated.” The siren’s grip tightened on Gabriel’s hand. “Seek out a mage. Find the stone and return it. Heal the ocean.”

  The siren collapsed against the softness of his makeshift bed. The tightness flowed out of his shoulders, as if the compulsion to deliver his message had been the only force keeping him alive. His eyes fluttered closed.

  Gabriel did not think they would ever reopen.

  Heartsick, he straightened and left the cave. The currents flurried behind him. He glanced back as Sofia caught up with him.

  Her eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. “Do you think it’s true?”

  “He traveled half the breadth of the earth and sacrificed his life to bring us this message.” Gabriel’s fingers curled into fists. “Yes, it’s true.”

  The restoration of the Legacy Stone was perhaps the only chance they had. The man certainly hadn’t risked his life for nothing.

  “We’re going to find it, aren’t we? The stone.” Sofia clasped her hands. Her thin face appeared radiant in the dim light. “We’ll return it to its sacred place and heal the ocean!”

  “We don’t even know where to find the stone. And this ‘sacred place’—it could be anywhere.”

  “A mage would know. They possess magic...power...that no one else does. They would know.”

  “There are no mages alive anywhere near here.”

  Sofia looked stricken, and for an instant, Gabriel cursed himself for uttering the truth so bluntly. But then again, there was no point in lying. Lies wasted precious time and energy on false hopes, and his siren clan was out of both time and energy.

  “There is a mage that we know of,” Raphael said, inserting himself into the conversation. “Out by the coast of what used to be southern Africa.”

  “Those rumors are decades old,” Gabriel snapped. “And Africa is on the other side of the Atlantic.”

  Their clan, nestled against the southern reaches of South America, was separated from Africa by an ocean filled with uncountable, nameless horrors.

  Raphael thumped his chest. “I can do it. My warriors and I—we can survive the Atlantic and Southern Oceans.”

  “It’s four thousand miles across,” Gabriel told him.

  Raphael shrugged as if the number meant nothing. “We’ll seek out the mage, find the Legacy Stone, and then restore it.” He smiled, already relishing triumph.

  Sofia pressed her lips together, her gaze fixed on Raphael, but she said nothing. Gabriel, however, did not miss his sister’s immediate fear for Raphael’s safety.

  The currents rippled a moment before voices raised in alarm. “Sharks! A frenzy of sharks.”

  Gabriel and Raphael raced to the exit, swimming past mothers and children scurrying for safety deeper in the caves. Raphael’s four warriors, as strong and well-trained as he, waited at the entrance of the grotto. Their faces broke into broad smiles at Raphael’s approach. They rallied to him and together—without waiting for Gabriel—hurled themselves into the school of tiger sharks swimming in tight
circles outside the grotto.

  The sharks turned on the sirens, tails flicking, teeth flashing. Gabriel was as capable a fighter as Raphael or any of his four warriors, but had to acknowledge that as a team, Raphael and his warriors formed an exquisite fighting unit. Moving in perfect coordination, they left no flank uncovered as they killed two sharks easily and drove the others away.

  Raphael raised his fist in victory. “We’ll have fresh food tonight.”

  Gratitude and relief rippled through the caves. Mothers, cradling their too-thin children, gathered to press kisses onto Raphael’s hands. The sharks were carted away to be filleted, and the meal prepared.

  The mood that night was almost festive as the clan, their numbers far fewer than at the height of their power, gathered in the largest of the caves to share in the meal. There was not enough food to fill all bellies, but everyone ate something. Mothers concealed shreds of shark meat for their children’s future meals; everyone else pretended not to notice.

  “There will be much more of this!” Raphael’s voice raised above the low murmur of conversation. He stood, and his warriors with him. “There is hope now. We know how we can restore the oceans and drive the monsters back to the depths. We will no longer have to live in darkness, cowering in caves. Our fishing grounds will be renewed, and we’ll reclaim our homes in the reef when I return the Legacy Stone to its sacred home.”

  The excitement was louder than a whisper. Hope trembled across the cave. Only Sofia sat upright, stiff and silent.