Stone Heart (The Cursed Seas Collection)

by Pauline Creeden

  Stone Heart

  The Cursed Seas Collection

  Catherine Banks

  &

  Pauline Creeden

  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

  USA Today Bestselling Author Catherine Banks

  USA Today Bestselling Author Pauline Creeden

  Stone Heart © 2018 Catherine Banks & Pauline Creeden

  Cover by Bewitching Book Covers by Rebecca Frank

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Looking for more dystopian paranormal romance and urban fantasy siren tales? Read more standalone novels from the Cursed Seas Collection at charmedlegacy.com

  Chapter One

  The elders had summoned me once again to appear before them for punishment. This couldn’t be good. They’d sent a guard to escort me this time, as if I was prone to running away. Okay, maybe I was just a little bit. I cleared my throat and looked up at his muscular back and the silver triton he held. “It was only a minor prank, and no one was injured.”

  Tomlin, the guard, huffed, but didn’t answer. He hated my pranks and probably didn’t like me much, either.

  It had to be the noodle thing… or maybe the eels. Whichever. I thought I’d covered my tracks well, but apparently, I was wrong.

  I floated after the guard, letting the current push me along the walkway. Walkway. I found it hilarious that it was called that, since we didn’t walk on it. We could walk, but being underwater made walking a bit difficult, unless you were weighed down. At least the current was going the right direction for us to be carried without swimming toward the elders.

  Late afternoon sunlight filtered down through the surface of water overhead, well past the zenith of the day. People milled about, heading to and from the different buildings of our underwater city. None of them spared a glance in our direction. Grandma had told me that when we used to live on dry land, there were shops for everything. She said you could walk down a street for miles and each store would have different things. She said the buildings would stand hundreds of feet tall and block out the sun.

  I wished I could see the world as it was before. Before we were forced to live in the depths of the ocean. It would have been nice if we could have been like the fictional mermaid stories that had been written about them and showed drawings of people with fins from the waist down. I wished we had fins. It would make swimming so much easier.

  Two children zoomed towards me and I quickly spun away from them. “Watch it!” I snapped, but the two giggling girls didn’t even hear me.

  The guard eyed me with a lifted brow.

  I shrugged at him. “What?”

  He rolled his eyes and gestured me toward the main building.

  Standing before the doors that led into the hearing room, I couldn’t stop my shaking hands. Had I totally screwed up this time? Were they going to banish me? I had ventured farther than most others and seen a few of the terrifying beasts that ruled the seas past our clan’s limits. Alone, I didn’t stand a chance.

  “You’re just delaying the inevitable,” the guard said with a sigh.

  I bit down on the quip that jumped to the tip of my tongue and turned my head away from him. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of making me upset. Taking one more deep breath, I pushed open the doors and walked in. Half of the city sat in pews, looking at the elders who were murmuring to each other quietly.

  All eyes turned to me, making me come to a full stop. Why were they all here? What was going on? When I’d been to the elders in the past, it didn’t look like this. The men were more solemn, and the pews sat empty.

  “There you are,” Sampson, the middle elder said, his thin grey hair swaying in the slight current. He was typically the one bright spot on the council, but his normally jovial expression was tinged with sadness, making just the edges of his eyes turn down. The others, who never seemed to be able to crack a smile in the past, were grinning. Strange.

  I took my place before them, in the center of the room and looked to my right, finding the disapproving but frightened eyes of my mother. She looked weary and older than usual.

  Crap. She’d never been sober enough to be here in the past.

  “Today is a day for joy,” Sampson said, and the other two elders nodded their silver covered heads.

  I highly doubted that.

  “We have chosen Ivy as our candidate. She will journey to land and meet up with the mage who will accompany her on this journey. We thank you, Ivy, for your brave soul and willingness to journey beyond our lands to search for the stone. We put together a pack full of essential items and bid you good luck on your quest.”

  All in attendance cheered and clapped. Everyone smiled, except me.

  Dumbfounded. I had never truly understood what dumbfounded meant until that moment. They were sending me away, most likely to my death. They told everyone it was an honor, but the truth was, it was a death sentence.

  My mother’s sad eyes fixed on me, they were red around the edges. This was another loss for her. She’d already been shattered by the loss of my father, who had volunteered to search for the stone when we’d first received word of it. But he never returned. I was only eight when he left. It had been twelve years, and the council had sent another person out every spring. I’d never thought for a moment they’d send me. In the beginning someone volunteered for this position or more recently, they sent out a criminal with promise of freedom if they returned with the stone.

  Sure, I pulled a few pranks, but I wasn’t a criminal.

  They’d sent out a girl who’d volunteered a few years ago and she never returned. They also never spoke about her. She’d been the only female sent, until now. Were they really going to force this fool’s errand on me? I swallowed and looked at the crowd.

  I knew that I couldn’t decline. No one ever did. I couldn’t try to stay, because they wouldn’t let me. They would force me to go no matter what and trying to stay would just make me look like a coward. I was a lot of things, but I was not a coward.

  “When will I leave?” I managed to ask in a steady voice.

  My mother wailed.

  “Tomorrow,” Sampson said, the sadness in his eyes returning full force as he looked toward my mother.

  I nodded and turned, walking back out of the hearing room alone.

  Chances were that even if I waited for my mother, she
wouldn’t have anything to do with me. She would only want one thing right now, the right potion to make her forget me, just like she drank to forget my father.

  My feet barely touched the ocean floor as I floated in a shell of shock back to my house. House was a generous term. The one room building was little more than a shack. I had tried to spruce it up by adding shells to the exterior and interior, but now it all looked bland to me. My mother would live here alone because I’d be gone.

  Exiled. They were basically exiling me to my death.

  I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling and the dead starfish I had glued there. I had never traveled away from our settlement. Though my curiosity had sent me out to the borders to see. The waters beyond were dangerous, filled with monstrous sea creatures, and the dry land wasn’t much better from what I’d heard.

  Could I even survive and make it to land? It would be an adventure like I’d never experience there in the confines of our clan’s territory. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would give me a chance to learn about the world and explore it. And I’d get a chance to meet the mages. It had been the mages who had given us the ability to breathe underwater. In my head I imagined them all as old creaky men with long white beards who held magic staffs.

  Would one of them join me on the quest? Everyone knew the legend said both a siren and a mage had to be sent to find the stone.

  Someone knocked on my door.

  Mother? No, it wouldn’t be.

  I sat up and stared at the stone door as though I could see through it. With a frown, I answered, “Enter.”

  “Here’s your pack from the Elders,” Alexander said and set a bag against the inside wall of my house. He was one of our warriors, a handsome siren with piercing blue eyes and broad shoulders.

  “Thanks,” I said, flopping back down. Why should I bother getting up? If I weren’t getting banished, I might have taken the time to talk to him and flirt. What was the point now?

  “You’ll do great,” he told me and smiled. “You’re our most adventurous inhabitant. I have faith you’ll be the one to return with the stone.”

  “If there is a stone. Some of the elders doubt it even exists. I’ve heard the rumors.”

  Alexander nodded. “I believe it exists. We weren’t meant to live like this. We were all meant to be on land and take control back from the jungle and the desert. The stone is said to heal the land.”

  I put my elbow over my eyes. Even though what he said was making me feel better, his optimistic outlook still turned my stomach a little.

  “I know you can do it, Ivy. I believe in you.”

  I was glad my face was already covered, as heat rose to my cheeks. I heard my door shut as he left. I pulled my elbow from my face and stared again at the dead starfish on the ceiling. “What do you think?” I asked it. “Will I really be the one that actually returns, or will I disappear like the rest?”

  Of course, the starfish didn’t so much as move an appendage.

  I let out a long sigh, pushing the water around me in a whirlpool. Alexander’s short visit really did lift my spirits a little. And besides, wallowing wasn’t going to magically fix my situation either. Taking a deep breath, I sat up and started packing. I didn’t own much, so it didn’t take me very long. I opted for leaving most of my things behind for my mother. Sadness gripped my heart again. Would she remember me when I returned, or would she forget, like she forgot my father?

  I supposed I was being unfair to her. She did remember him on occasion. When things would go badly for her and she didn’t have enough credits to get her hands on the elixirs that helped her forget for a while. Then she’d remember and wail and wallow along the floor. Sometimes I wasn’t sure which was worse—the woman with the vacant stare who almost couldn’t even remember my name, or the one who was so miserable she couldn’t take care of herself, much less her own daughter.

  Shaking my head and pushing those thoughts aside, I picked up the pack they had given me and shoved in the few belongings I wanted to take. Inside I found clothing to wear once I hit land since land walkers had this thing called “modesty,” several food rations, and emergency supplies. Much of the pack was devoted for treating injuries. My heart picked up pace a bit, and fear began rising as a lump in my throat. I swallowed it down, blinking hard. I couldn’t dwell on that and let fear take control. Only cowards let fear take control. The brave felt fear the same as cowards did but didn’t let it control them.

  I sighed. My father had told me that. But I could no longer remember what his voice sounded like when he’d said those words.

  After setting the pack to the side for the morning, I headed to the nearby café to get some food for dinner. It was already dark, but with the help of bioluminescence, we had lanterns that provided enough light to see. They had also put the bioluminescence on the rocks that lined the pathways.

  Once, I had smeared the goo on my face and scared people by popping up out of nowhere in the dark. The others didn’t appreciate my humor, but I thought it had been hilarious. One woman had farted in her shock and I’d collapsed in a fit of laughter.

  Looking around the place I had grown up, I recalled all of my mischievous plans and the results. I would miss this place, but I wouldn’t miss their uptight, judgmental attitudes. Blah. Who was I trying to kid? I just didn’t want to let them ignore me, like they wanted to… like my mother did. They couldn’t ignore me as long as I kept pulling the pranks. I knew that was my reason, even if they just thought I was a troublemaker who deserved to be locked up. Now they were offering me a new kind of freedom instead.

  Freedom. Yes, I had to look at the journey like it was my chance at freedom. A way for me to be who I really was. To be my true self. To get past the image of prankster and troublemaker and become the hero my father had wanted to be. He’d have been proud to see me in that light, too. Maybe if I returned with the stone, my mother would come out of her stupor and be proud of me, too.

  “Good luck,” Tara said as I walked by her close to the end of our neighborhood street.

  “Thanks,” I replied and smiled. She was an okay girl, a few years younger than me, but very soft spoken. We were neighbors and had spoken a few times over the years, but not about anything substantial. She had lost both her parents in the whale attack ten years ago. It made me sympathize with her since we both suffered that kind of loss.

  I continued forward in the darkness. There was less bioluminescence on the rocks between here and the town center. Waves rippled against my side. I stopped and looked around, but it was too dark to see. Waves rippled against my back, and I squeaked in fear. Something large swam around me.

  Diving forward, I swam as fast as I could to my house. I passed Tara, yelling, “Flee!”

  I didn’t check to see what was following me, or if Tara had made it to her house. I just darted into my house, slammed the door closed, and locked it.

  I pulled out the knife the elders had given me from my pack and gripped it tightly. Its solid mass was reassuring. What could possibly have been that big in our territory?

  Maybe I had imagined it. My heart leapt to my throat at the thought. Maybe Tara would think I was crazy now because I’d told her to flee, too.

  Blood rushed to my cheeks. Maybe I’d overreacted.

  Someone screamed and loud crashing ensued.

  Maybe not.

  I opened my window a crack and gasped. Three sharks circled the house across from mine. Tara’s house. But there was no blood in the water. Good. She’d made it. But the sharks were huge, twice as big as the Great Whites I had seen at the border last summer. They had bioluminescent ridges along their backs and tails, which was the only reason I could see them.

  Suddenly, the bioluminescent glow disappeared, and I couldn’t see the sharks anymore. They had control over their light? Is that why I could see them now but couldn’t earlier? I closed my window and crouched low, clutching the knife. My heart slammed against my rib cage.

  What should I do?


  Something bumped against my door, and I jumped, but thankfully didn’t make a sound.

  The windows rattled as the sharks made waves while swimming nearby.

  Maybe if we all stayed inside, protected, they would give up and leave.

  They had never come this close before. The elders said they had devices that forced sharks and other large predators to stay away.

  Was one of those down?

  I peeked out my window, opening it a crack, and immediately regretted my decision. One of the sharks rammed into the window, breaking it, and got half of his huge head into my house.

  I screamed and leapt back from his snapping jaws. He thrashed and tried to get closer to me. If he kept it up, he’d break my wall and make it inside, trapping me.

  With a mighty scream, I charged forward and stabbed into the shark’s nose. Red blood gushed out, and he thrashed harder.

  I stabbed again and again. And again. Finally, he backed out of the window and swam off. I lay on the ground by my door, out of sight of anything that might be swimming past my now open window.

  A male voice shouted, and I felt the electric sizzle in the current. Our fighters had finally arrived with their electric tritons. Whoever arrived must have turned it to the highest setting.

  Several males yelled, and the water rippled faster. Were they winning? The yells grew distant, and then stopped. Curiosity, one of my biggest downfalls, got the better of me and I crawled to my window, knife firmly gripped in my right hand. Slowly, I rose up until I could see out of the window.

  Alexander’s angry face was there, and I screamed and scrambled back.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.