Rogue Waves: The Kraken's Curse, #1

By Stephanie M. Jones

What good is a fisherman's daughter who can no longer sail? After nearly getting eaten by a kraken, Solstice Lemayne has sworn off going anywhere near the sea.

 

Nobody knows that the kraken left her with a curse; a power over the sea in a land where magic is kept behind locked doors. Her parent's livelihood and her brother's military career would be in jeopardy if she didn't hide her new ability.

 

Under her mother's thumb, Solstice agrees to an arranged marriage with the town's blacksmith, a middle aged widower with several children. She'd rather go back to the kraken than have to go through with it. Especially once she meets a handsome stranger who's new in town, a mercenary captain with a ship who's living the kind of life Solstice had always wanted for herself.

 

But once foreigners invade their town, rebels from a kingdom that hates magic much more than her own, she has to flee for her life. The mercenary captain kidnaps her onto his ship, presumably for her own safety, but she isn't sure she can trust him. Leaving her family breaks her heart, but she knows they're safer if she's far away.

 

If only the family heirloom she guards—a dangerous talisman with great power—could be left behind, too. It will be much harder protecting the secret her family has kept for centuries while out in the big world, away from the anonymity of her hometown.

 

Solstice can't let herself enjoy being out at sea, using her magic, and developing feelings for a certain mercenary captain. She has to find a way to get back home, protect her family, and keep her family's talisman from falling into the wrong hands.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephanie M. Jones
• Release date: Jan 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9780993857867

Book preview

PROLOGUE

A black and white image of a steering wheel Description automatically generated

A few months ago...

Sparkling blue waters tossed Solstice Lemane’s little boat as she paddled further out to sea and away from the bay. Today was a fine day for a little sailing, and she’d sneaked away without telling her parents where she was. If they couldn’t find her, they couldn’t arrange a meeting with the man they wanted her to marry.

She already knew of him, of course. The village where her family lived wasn’t so large that anybody had a strange face, though not small enough that she knew each one personally. Sadly, she already knew more than she wanted to about her betrothed, Taldos Virro, the village blacksmith.

He wasn’t a bad person, but no woman wanted to marry a man nearly twice her twenty-five years who had just lost his wife last month. They had had three children before she passed, and Solstice didn’t fancy becoming a stepmother. Plus, there was the fact that she didn’t want to be weighed down, to marry and stay here in this sleepy fishing town for the rest of her life. Her dreams were so much bigger than that, and she refused to be trapped by a life not of her own choosing. Her parents meant well. They were looking for someone to run the fishery after they could not, as Solstice’s older brother Nias was away serving in the king’s navy. Since they had had only two children, she was their last hope.

When she noticed how far out she was—the curve of land that housed the village only a blur on the horizon—she also realized how choppy the waters had become. It wasn’t like her to be so unaware of her surroundings. Being lost in thought about something as unpleasant as an arranged marriage would do that to a person.

The salty humidity of the sea reached her nose and Solstice breathed in deeply, enjoying where she was and not worried yet about the turbulent waters. Her father’s larger fishing boat had been through much worse, and though she was no expert sailor, she’d had her share of lessons on it.

This little thing, almost a safety raft size, was nothing too difficult to steer.

A dark shape rose out of the water briefly about twenty feet ahead of her. She squinted at it, but it was gone as soon as it had come, preventing her from identifying it.

A shark? They usually kept away from boats, and there had not been an attack here for many years.

Her instincts told her it was bigger than a shark, but she had no idea what. The waters here were darker than the bay, and she couldn’t see the bottom, let alone the edge of the reef. She let her fingers trail in the water alongside the boat, wondering at the mysteries below. Its cool, wet touch sent a thrill through her. Solstice had always wanted this: a life at sea, her freedom, being available for any adventure that might come her way.

The shape appeared again, closer this time, and seemed to wave at her a moment before ducking back below the sea. Her thoughts turned to the pirate stories she’d read, the books her father would have forbidden if he knew she had them. Tales of krakens, of magic older than the land itself. The magic of the sea.

She wasn’t sure she believed in it, despite spending much time in her fantasies of pirates, sea monsters and cursed treasure. There hadn’t been anything exciting in her small village during Solstice’s entire lifetime.

Two dark shapes this time, growing longer out of the water like...tentacles?

If her heart wasn’t already pounding, it definitely was now. Fear gripped her as she tried to think about what those stories had said. If this really was a sea monster from an ancient tale, then did she have any chance of getting away from it alive?

The sky had gone darker by then, approaching dusk as she faced her doom. She pushed herself back in the little boat, knuckles scraping against the rough wood, probably leaving at least one sliver. There were no other boats around, a fact which she had liked only a few minutes ago. Now she wished with all her heart that someone would pass by and chase away the creature that Solstice still wasn’t sure was real.

It completely dashed any doubts she had when a tentacle lashed out. It quickly wrapped around her middle with her arms pinned to her side and pulled her into the water with a splash.

She had no time to react, to take a breath or even see her life flash before her eyes. The monster was a huge dark mass below her, dozens of tentacles surrounding her like bars of a jail cell up to the surface of the sea. If she’d had any breath in her lungs before being pulled under the sea, it had been squeezed out of her now. Her arms were losing their feeling already, though that could have been partly contributed to the freezing waters.

Blinking salty water from her eyes, her mouth clamped shut to hold in what little air she seemed to have kept in her body, Solstice’s mind raced. Her lungs burned. It was pointless to struggle against such a tight grip from...what was it that held her?

Kraken, a part of her mind whispered, though she didn’t want to believe it. Those sea monsters didn’t exist.

But what else could explain this? It wasn’t a dream; she knew that much.

Kicking her legs weakly, she seemed to move a little closer to the surface. Though if the kraken had wanted to, it could easily pull her further under. It must not be paying close attention to its prey. Perhaps she was not the only one?

Before she could try twisting out of its grip again, blackness darker than the sea tinged her vision and a moment later, everything went dark.

A black and white octopus tentacles Description automatically generated

Sometime later, she woke, adrift underwater, body weightless and at the mercy of the sea. The chill that had entered her very bones felt almost like an old friend, the pressure of the surrounding water a familiar embrace.

Her arms were no longer bound to her sides; she moved one limb outward experimentally, trying to reach for...anything. But there was nothing solid around, and when she realized her eyes were closed, opened them to a vast and endless blue.

It was clear which way was to the surface: below her numb toes the water got darker,