Stranded: Ancient Realms, #6

By A.J. Flowers

Not my fault I found a shiny bauble that gave me legs

Amber isn't like her sisters. She dreams of the world above the waves even if it's forbidden. When she finds an ancient artifact that allows her to explore the world of man, she discovers that a local sea witch has been waiting for a red-haired mermaid to make the mistake of walking among humans.

Now she's stranded.

Amber will go on an epic adventure to discover the truth of her people, the power of her own heart, and a sacrifice that only love can bring.

"Stranded" is an Ancient Realms novelette and a tragic Little Mermaid retelling.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.J. Flowers
• Release date: Aug 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393344292

A.J. Flowers

A.J. Flowers is a fantasy author, book blogger, and automotive engineer in Detroit. She loves her writing, her work, and above all, her faith and family. When not writing or designing, you can find her saving the world from annihilation on her favorite video games side-by-side with her Dutch husband and princess Blue Russian kitty named Mina. To follow AJ's blog for new writing tips, head on over to https://ajflowers.wordpress.com

Book preview

Amber

My sixteenth birthday. I should have been with my sisters roaming the sea gathering baubles and shells to put in our hair. But I couldn’t pretend with them any longer to be an oblivious child. Ever since our mother had disappeared, the entire clan went on with their lives as if nothing had happened and I was left heartbroken and confused. Whenever I asked of her, I was hushed and told it didn’t matter, she was gone, and I had a life to live.

Life wasn’t about to get any better. Sixteen was the age of fertility and my father had already begun to entertain the candidates who expressed interest in my fin. I flicked the gold jewel of the muscular appendage and propelled myself further into the deep.

I’d never been down this way. I’d been told to always stay within the confines of the village where the sea witches cloaked us from mankind. But I didn’t want to be under their thumbs any longer. I wanted to do what I’d never been brave enough to do. I wanted to find out what happened to my mother.

I hadn’t been looking for baubles, but an unmistakable golden glimmer caught my eye in the scratchy folds of obsidian sand that covered this side of the outskirts of my clan. It was in my nature to be attracted to shiny things. I couldn’t help it when I delved deeper to investigate until sand kicked up at my momentum. When I rolled my fingers through the soft mush of the seafloor, my eyes widened to find a ring with unmistakable runes. Perhaps my sisters wouldn’t have known what it was, but unlike them, I listened when the sea witches talked. They whispered in places where mermaids didn’t often go, such as the kelp forests or jellyfish swarms. They liked to think that they knew everything, but I’d mastered a little bit of magic of my own. Perhaps it was something that came with being an amber. It was hard to know, when I was the only one of my kind—except for my mother. She’d been an amber, too.

My sisters all had emerald or turquoise fins, the lot of them already mated and paired except for my single younger sister, Gina.

The sea witches would have us all believe that our world was meant to be separate from the humans who breathed the air above our waters.

There’s one last relic that evades us, she’d said when I’d been eavesdropping hoping to hear some scrap of information of what had happened to my mother.

A ring that would bond to a mermaid who longed for land and give her the power to resume a life take from her. Had my mother found such a ring?

I’d never particularly counted myself as a land-lover. I’d never even seen it, only heard about it from the mermen who’d surfaced to battle sailors and conquer their ships, or to rescue the rare mermaid who’d been taken. Anyone who saw one of our kind must die. That had been ingrained into me since I was a child.

But when my fingers grazed the metal that was surprisingly warm, magic wrapped itself around my heart and I sucked in a gulp of water, my vision blurring when my lungs suddenly rejected the liquid.

If I hadn’t paid attention to those sea witches, I likely would have died.

No magic comes without a