Secrets Submerged: The Isla Emerged Series

By Deidre Sequeira

Pain. Deception. Family.

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Eleven months ago, Isla became the matriarch of her merfolk kingdom. Unfortunately, transitioning from being an exiled princess to being a queen is tougher than she anticipated. Isla is haunted by the trauma her mistakes have left behind, the sacrifice her father made, and the glimpse Anita gave her at a secret that had been buried for nearly thirty years.

 

Only Anita and the secret she holds close to her heart can give Isla any measure of closure and make the road ahead clearer for Isla to grow as Queen. But, much like the young mermaid, Anita is wracked by guilt because of her past complacency, the lies she believed, and the damage that was done.

Do they dare risk their friendship—and Isla's fragile sanity—by exposing a truth that could change everything?

This novella bridges the gap between the series' first book, Isla Emerged, and the full length sequel, Currents Converged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Deidre Sequeira
• Release date: Jun 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393514657

Deidre Sequeira

Deidre Sequeira is resident of and teacher in San Antonio, TX. She enjoys reading, karaoke, and late night dinners and coffee at Jim's diners. She has her B.A. in English with a Concentration in Teaching Certification and is a great proponent of education, especially of the arts and humanities. 

Book preview

1

Isla - Present

There was a nervous flutter in Isla’s belly, a ripple that forewarned her of her own intentions for the day before she knew she had them. She’d been tending to her queenly duties all morning but was unable to focus her full attention on them. She’d even embarrassed herself earlier by zoning out during a meeting with the chancellor. Once the meeting had ended, she’d quickly excused herself, finding a corner to hole up in and curse her incompetence. 

Alistair, perceptive as he was, noticed her distraction and embarrassment and followed when she attempted to make her escape. The general caught her and coaxed her out of hiding, offering to have Maryn, her best friend, move her schedule around and give her some time to rest. Translation: to give her time to get herself together. As much as she wanted to refuse him, she’d taken her friend up on his offer because she knew she’d be more of a detriment to the work if she tried to muddle through it as distracted as she was. 

And that’s how she ended up sitting at the top of a guyot—what had once been an active volcano that had been eroded away by waves and wind and was now nothing more than a tall, flat-topped stub of land under the sea. The sad truth about its formation rang with a painful familiarity for Isla. Fear ate at her daily that the kingdom that had flourished and stood as a powerful entity under her parents’ reign would crumble within her hands. Even her sleep was plagued by nightmares of her failings, past and possible.

This particular guyot, at least, offered a nice view of her kingdom’s capital city and the palace gleaming in all its glory at the center of it. Isla, Maryn, and Alistair had often sat at its top as children, playing, studying, helping Isla ignore her duties as princess. One could say old habits die hard. The compacted soil of the seamount scratched against her scales as she sat with her tail folded up, arms curled around it and chin resting on top. Her hair flowed around her in a lively ring, a complete contrast to the blank expression on her face and the dullness of her green eyes. 

What was more tiring than being Queen was pretending to be Queen. Pretending to be what a queen should: happy, confident, reassuring. She didn’t feel any of those things. But how could she let anyone else know that? How could she allow them to see that all she really felt was insecurity and, quite frankly, stark terror? That wasn’t what her people expected of her, and it sure as hell wasn’t what they needed. 

It had been nearly a year since her coronation, yet she still struggled balancing all her responsibilities as Queen with the emotions warring inside her. Everywhere she turned, it seemed as though there was someone new standing before her, goading her in a new direction, toward different—but no less important—tasks, each with deadlines that made her head spin, all the while having to stuff down her emotions and paint on a look of self-assuredness. A queen didn’t have time for the thoughts and feelings that threatened to crush her. There were meetings to be had, decisions to be made, merpeople to help. 

Was this what her father, King Ezekiel, had gone through on a daily basis as he navigated running a country without her mother, Queen Eira, by his side? This exhausting, ever-present conflict between what was required of him and the emotional and mental strain of putting up the pretense of being… okay? The thought made her sick to her stomach, bile churning and burning its way up her throat. 

She still flinched as she remembered the hell she put him through during the last months of his life. Stupidly. Selfishly. While her anger had been righteous and the circumstances truly unfair, she would always regret not handling things with more grace and empathy. Guilt would always lay on her shoulders because she didn’t find a way to resolve the issue of her ascension into power before things went so horribly wrong. And she would forever bear the weight of knowing that her own obstinacy and immaturity brought so much pain and suffering to her father and her people.

But she knew—thanks mostly to Maryn’s comforting nature and repeated words of encouragement—that the best way to make up for it now was to not dwell on what she should have done, but what she could and would do going forward. Mermaids, especially, needed her to act as a pillar of strength. They needed someone they could look up to as they worked to heal from the trauma they’d experienced at the hands of The Order—mermaid hunters who’d attempted to forcefully breed the mermaids in order to harness their powers by the creation of hybrids that they could use for their dark purposes. And while her own troubles felt like they would consume her, for those mermaids, she would push ahead. She would persevere. She would grow and be what her people needed her to be, no matter how difficult.

 Already, they’d made strides as a society. The newfound knowledge that the manifestation of a mermaid’s powers resulted, not from the consummation of a marriage, but from intense love for others, had aided in bettering their way of life. The change in mindset that this revelation brought meant that mermaids reaching maturity no longer had to worry about being forced to marry to protect their family. Love became the prevailing factor in matches, not power. Perhaps best of all was that the mermaids who had been victims of the hunters didn’t feel the pressure to mate in order to feel protected. Their genuine love for their families gave them all they needed to protect themselves and those they held close to their hearts.

Isla was tenacious in her conviction to do right by her parents and the kingdom. There was nothing more important to her than the positive growth of her kingdom and the merpeople who relied on her. Not her emotions. Not her stresses. Not the doubt that threatened to cripple her. She would do what needed to be done, push down whatever undesirable feelings needed to be pushed down, in order to bring peace of mind to her people. No matter what. 

She only hoped that keeping the kingdom afloat hadn’t been as tough for her father as she now found it. King Ezekiel had Queen Eira by his side, after all, a mermaid more capable than any Isla had ever met. She was more patient, kind, and intelligent than Isla could ever hope to be. Their people adored Eira, and the power she’d held beneath her smooth, delicate skin was revered from sea to sea. Before, it was thought that her immense power resulted from having a strong husband in King Ezekiel, but now, Isla understood that it was her mother’s deep-seated, pure love for her family and kingdom that gave Eira her strength. 

Isla strived to be like her mother in all ways. It was why, even when she was overwhelmed, even when Alistair or Maryn offered to share some of the load weighing on her shoulders, she never gave in. She would conquer this role. She would be the best queen she could, and then she’d be better. So many people were counting on her, and she couldn’t live with herself if she ever let them down again. 

But another weight, one her friends had no notion of, threatened the tenuous control she had over her emotions. It was this burden, this secret which burned in her mind like fire, that had her so distracted lately. This was what consumed her thoughts as she sat upon her lonely guyot. It had nothing to do with her queenly responsibilities or the many lives dependent on her. It did, however, have everything to do with her mother. 

Even before you were born, Eira had faith in you. 

At the end of their battle with The Order, Anita, the woman who had given her a home and support when she was exiled to the surface and who had helped her save her people, had revealed something that tilted Isla’s world on its axis. Somehow, Anita had known her mother. Before Isla even existed. How was this possible? Eleven months after that bomb was dropped, Isla still hadn’t found the strength to come out and ask. 

But today, she was meant to return to the surface. And the flutter in her belly that she’d felt all day told her this visit would be different. Every month, she traveled to her little home away from home, Isla de los Salvadores, the island where her entire life changed irreparably, and her family circle extended past Alistair and Maryn. Kaya and Anita would be waiting for her tonight, as they always were. Once a month was all the time she could afford to escape her bubble of royal craziness and return to where things seemed simpler, where her troubles seemed a world away. Ironic, considering that the island had housed the source of her troubles not too long ago. Now, though, she could return with a lightened heart to the women who had taken her in and shown her the love and acceptance she hadn’t felt in a long time. Since her mother’s death, really. 

She loved her visits to the surface, more than she’d ever imagined she could. But thinking of today’s trip caused her stomach to seize and her heart to attempt to beat its way out of her chest. Until now, despite the fact that Anita’s secret haunted her dreams, the hustle and breakneck pace of Isla’s transition into her new role had enabled her to ignore the trepidation that the news had stirred in her. But the longer she attempted to avoid bringing it up to assuage her curiosity, the stronger the gnawing feeling of desperation became.  

She had