Of Sea and
Stone
Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: February 2014
Summary:
Aemi lives in a village carved from stones and
surrounded by sea. She wins spear-throwing competitions in disguise and earns
slaps from her spoiled mistress by talking back. She hates being a slave. She
survives by remembering her mother's tales of home, a paradise called Perilous.
Aemi intends to find it.
But then, black ships rise from the sea in the night. Aemi is captured and
taken to Itlantis, an underwater world of cities and gardens encased in glass,
dazzling technology. and a centuries-long war.
She is determined to escape, even if it means conspiring with fellow prisoner
Nol, who fills her with equal parts anger and desire. Even if it means
impersonating her mistress.Even if it means fleeing into the territory of the
Dron, the bloodthirsty barbarians of the deep.
But when Aemi witnesses firsthand an attack by the Dron, she realizes not all
is as it seems below the sea.
And Perilous might be closer than she thinks.
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Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Making Friends in Itlantis
In this excerpt, Aemi and Nol have just
been assigned to a master and given their duties as slaves in the city beneath
the sea. Aemi is already trying to figure out a way to escape.
I
fell into step beside Nol as we headed down the long hall toward a door marked
with the words INDENTUREDS’ DINING ROOM. Some of the letters were strange, but
I could still read it. The written language was not too different from what I
was familiar with.
Nearly
a dozen servants sat at tables around the room, some eating stew from metal
bowls, some talking, some half-dozing with their heads propped on one hand. The
hum of voices died down as soon as we stepped into the room. All eyes fastened
on us, and I felt the heat of their curiosity in their stares.
We
stopped.
After
a few seconds of silent staring, everyone returned to his or her tasks, and we
were forgotten. I followed Nol to the stew pot. He dumped the watery meat soup
into a bowl, his eyes fixed on the food. We didn’t speak, but I noticed the way
his hand shook on the ladle. When he’d gotten his food, he went and sat alone
at the far end of one of the tables. I went to the opposite side of the room
and sank down into the first empty chair I found.
“You
and the other new one don’t seem to like each other too much,” someone
commented.
I
looked up to see a thin-faced, brown-skinned young man with thick black hair
and a scar down one cheek watching me over his bowl of food. He spooned some
stew into his mouth and chewed, waiting for my response. A honey-complexioned
girl with large, dark eyes and full lips sat beside him. She offered me a small
smile.
“No,”
I said, looking down at my bowl.
“I
heard you arrived together. Do you know each other?”
“Don’t
ask so many questions, Tob,” the girl beside him said. “It’s rude.”
Tob
grinned. “Sorry. I had a bad fall a year ago and damaged my head, and now I can
be a bit rash with my words. I don’t mean any harm. Mella here usually tells me
when I’m being offensive.”
The
girl, Mella, nodded at me in greeting. Her gaze flicked over me, and I had the
feeling that she missed no details.
“Didn’t
you arrive today?” Tob asked. He took another bite of his stew.
“Tob,”
Mella said again. “Rude.”
“It’s
all right. Yes, I arrived today.” I struggled to keep my voice stoic, but the words
wobbled on my tongue.
“You
sound sad. But don’t worry,” Tob said. “You’ll get the hang of things quickly.”
I
sighed and tasted the stew. It was plain but filling, much tastier than the
cubes from the ship, and I ate quickly.
“Don’t
mind that mess,” Tob said as he watched me eat. “The cooks here have no
finesse. They burn everything, and they’ve no imagination at all when it comes
to ingredients.”
“Tob
fancies himself to be a cook,” Mella said.
“Fancies?
I could make a lobster pastry that would make you weep with joy,” he said. “If
only they would let me touch the food.”
“I’ve
heard some of your ideas,” Mella said. “Perhaps the cooks are wise to keep you
away from it?”
“It’s
called a shock cook,” he said. “They are popular in Primus. They make the strangest
things delicious. It’s an art.”
Mella
made a face. “I don’t want the word shocking used to describe my dinner, thank
you very much.”
“You’d
be shocked at how much you loved it,” Tob promised.
“Is
Merelus a good master?” I needed to learn my place, my lines. I needed to know
the lay of this land if I wanted to escape. If I wanted to find Perilous.
Tob
shrugged. “He has his quirks, but he’s one of the better ones. We don’t see him
much. He spends most of his time with his books.”
“He’s
a scholar,” Mella said.
I
wondered if Merelus was considered rich in this society, or if houses like this
one were the usual fair in Celestrus. I wondered how the people of this place
had come to live this way. How had they built such cities? Why did they live
below the sea? But I dared not ask. I was supposed to be from this world.
“I
heard you were from far away,” Tob said. “And you have an accent I’ve never
heard before. Are you from one of the new colonies?”
“Something
like that,” I said. “It was very remote.”
His
expression sagged with disappointment as he realized I wasn’t going to chatter
about the details. “Not even a hint?”
Mella
poked him. “Every Indentured has the right to keep quiet about his or her past.
You know that.”
Tob
sighed. “True. But consider that decision carefully,” he said to me, grinning
in a way that told me he was teasing now. “If you continue to be so
tight-lipped about your accent, people are going to think you’re a spy for the
Dron.”
“The
Dron?” I shook my head in confusion.
Tob
looked as if I’d just asked him what a fish was. “What clamshell have you been
living in?” he demanded.
“Tob,”
Mella said.
He
ignored her. “The Dron.Our enemies.Blood, tears, endless promises of
dismemberment? You know, those people?”
“Remote
colony dweller, remember? I’ve been reclusive.”
“The
Thousand Year War?”Tob tried, as if that would jog my memory.
I
shook my head.
“The
Itlanteans and the Dron have been enemies for centuries,” he said. “Enough
blood has been spilled between Itlantis’s cities and theirs to fill an ocean.”
“Why
are they at war?” A shiver trickled through my stomach at the thought of all
those armies and men fighting below the surface of the ocean, unbeknownst to
the rest of the world.
Tob
shrugged. “Does anybody even remember? I don’t. I don’t think those bigheads in
Primus do, either.”
“Tob
sees little value in discussing politics,” Mella said to me.
“I’m
capable of a discussion,” Tob protested. “I just have no desire for one.
Besides, that’s what you’re here for.” To me, he whispered, “She wants to be a
scholar just like the master.”
Mella
elbowed him. He yelped and shot me a grin.
About the
Author:
I'm the author of the Frost Chronicles, an Amazon bestselling
series and source material for the adventure app game Frost by Delight Games,
as well as numerous other fantasy and science fiction novels. I love putting a
dash of mystery in everything I write, an ode to a childhood spent reading
Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie, and Sherlock Holmes. I can’t resist adding a good
twist in the story wherever I can.
I wish I could live in a place where it’s always October, but until that’s
possible, I make my home in humid Atlanta with my husband, children, and two
spoiled cats.
Author
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