Depths

by Jacque Stevens

  Depths

  A Tale of the Little Mermaid (Book One)

  Jacque Stevens

  DEPTHS

  © 2020 Jacque Stevens

  sjacquebooks.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission.

  The Team

  Cover Art: Clarissa Yeo

  Copy Edits: Suzi Retzlaff

  Final Proofreading: Judy Zweifel

  A special thank you to my Beta Readers: JoLyn, Rachel, Emily, Apryl, Katie, Courtney, Morgan, Cindy, & Alex.

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

  To receive a free short story, early review copies of upcoming novels, and other extras, please visit me at sjacquebooks.com and join my email list.

  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

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Author’s Note

  Cover Reveal

  What are HighTower Fairytales?

  About the Author

  Also by Jacque Stevens:

  Chapter 1

  A man stood in my garden.

  I looked back at the book of pictures on my lap, blinked, and looked up again. Usually, that was all it took to dispel illusions born of light hitting the nearby waves just right, allowing my idle mind to imagine for a moment that the figures in my storybook had come to life. Usually, the images faded long before they could open their mouths, telling me the rest of their stories or reassuring me that they would be thrilled to be the secret best friends I wished for. Usually.

  But this man was still there. Blinking, rubbing my eyes, squinting sideways did nothing to dissuade him from existing.

  A man stood in my garden, crushing my chickpea plant and pointing a spear in my face.

  I sprang from the grass into a crouch over my book like a mother bird defending her nest. The spear leveled with my eyes. I stared, and the man stared right back, as if I were as foreign to him as he was to me. As if he had never seen a barefoot girl in a short tunic before.

  The man lowered his spear. A cape hung over his leather tunic, but no crest I recognized. His tan skin seemed weathered, his beard held streaks of gray, but I hadn’t seen enough men up close to guess his age. The broad lines of his shoulders and lump in his throat were as foreign to me as a storybook beast.

  “Is this the isle of Lady Miranda?” His dark and coarse voice echoed through the wind whistling through the tall grass and stirring up the sand to scratch at my bare toes.

  Keeping my eyes trained on the man, I straightened and backstepped onto a rock. His ship had moored in the distance, and other men stood yards behind him. Their sandals marred the once clear sand. Not secret best friends. Invaders. Everything Mother taught me to hate and fear.

  My stare became a solemn accusation. “You’re a man.”

  His curt nod seemed to question my sanity. “Yes.”

  “Men aren’t allowed.”

  The man smiled. “Men come frequently, I’m told. The problem comes when they try to leave.” He looked around the island as though he didn’t have a thing to fear.

  I scanned the moving surf near the man’s ship. No break in the endless blue—no sign of my family, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close. “You should leave. Now, while you still can.”

  Harsh laughter shook the man’s chest. “If anything, you should be asking for our protection. Next sign of civilization is leagues out. You’ll find us very accommodating, for a price.”

  I didn’t have gold. I had nothing but my book and the clothes on my back, but I guessed the man knew this as his eyes wandered the length of my bare legs. He might think me naive, but if there was one thing Mother had taught me, it was the price men required.

  It would serve him right if he got just what he wanted.

  The man opened his mouth, but I missed his words in the crash of the waves and my own indecisive thoughts. “What?” I asked.

  “I said, do you have a name?”

  I nodded slowly, now decided. “Arianna, Princess of the Deep. You wish to see my mother?” No reason not to give him to her. He had ignored my previous warning, and his words proved he was the sort of monster my mother always said men were. I now only wanted him gone, and I certainly couldn’t get rid of him and the rest of his crew all by myself.

  The man jerked, his eyes searching my long strands of walnut brown hair as if he expected scales or horns to appear. “Your mother? You’re a siren? But you look . . . human.”

  I sighed. If he knew anything about my mother, he should know she was born a princess of Cypari—a perfect raven-haired beauty and perfectly human. The bond she made with the sea increased her magic, but it did not change the shape of her offspring. Not inherently. Not without making the bond ourselves.

  “Do you want to see my mother or not?” She would find out in any case. He was a man.

  The man hesitated. “Well, yes.”

  “Then come. But the rest of your men will have to stay on the ship. Only one may see her at a time.” I said it like a long-established rule, though as far as I knew, he was the first to come this far without falling under my family’s song.

  “And do you want me unarmed as well?” He shifted the spear in his hand.

  I shrugged. When Mother was here, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. I just wanted his men away from my garden and off my sand.

  The man turned to wave his crew away. I kicked my book of pictures under the weeds. I had kept it hidden from my family for years and certainly wouldn’t show it to this man now.

  Nor would I after Mother spilled his blood on the rocks.

  I led the man toward the cliffs on the western side of the island. I could have called Mother anywhere, but something about the rocks seemed appropriate. They formed a narrow channel between my island and the rocky tail end of the greater peninsula of Solis. My family took men off ships from Solis all the time, but the ships kept coming. They tried to avoid us by straying too close to Charybdis’s whirlpools, dashing themselves on the cliffs.

  Wood drifted onto this shore from countless shipwrecks. Sometimes bones.

  I stood over the sea. “What was your name?” The stretched-out silence compelled me to ask, though I would rather he stay a stranger, a nameless beast, a man.

  The man stood straighter. “Naman. Consul of Cypari.”

  Cypari. It was my mother’s island—the one where she had been raised as a princess so long ago—but I was determined not to show my surprise. He still was a man. “Well, go on and call her, Naman. She always hears.”

  The man’s jaw set; his shoulders squared. “Miranda, Lady of the Sea, I’ve come to parley with you.”

  Silence. Naman shifted his feet through the dust. He turned, a restless query printed on his brow, but my eyes stayed on the skyline.

  A thin cloud shrouded the rays of the sun. Shad
ows stretched over the rocks with the waning light. The breeze shifted. Water lapped, darkening the stone below us. White foam swirled into a funnel, the wind’s whistle building to a moan as it pulled my hair across my face.

  Mother. The weather, the tides, spoke more of her than the voice thundering over the waves.

  “And what interest would that have to me?” The mist and ocean spray cleared. Mother appeared, her tail wrapped around a stone spire isolated in the channel.

  I smiled as the man shook.

  My mother still had raven hair—falling past her waist, water dripping from the sharp ends. Her figure was still young and perfect, though fins and a tail had replaced her legs. Her pale skin held tinges of gray or blue. Visible veins twisted in patterns like a spider’s web across her skin, except where the dark tattoos of the God of the Deep stood for all to see. The dark marks were so numerous she almost seemed clothed—no more offensive than the naked skin of a dolphin or any other creature born to the waves.

  Two of my sisters bobbed up their heads in the water below her, Titera and Navina. Both seemed younger versions of Mother, though Vi had a thicker frame and darker hair. They stared with closed frowns and hungry eyes—the feral stare of a gull watching a crab crawl along the sand.

  Our visitor finally came to himself and went back to leaning on his spear. “Because we want the same thing. The death of the Sun Prince.”

  Mother laughed—a musical sound. “The prince is dead. If you know anything about me, then you must know this.” The Prince of Solis had been her betrothed, her first kill. She had been human then and sacrificed his heart to the God of the Deep.

  That was how she became a siren.

  Taking hearts was how all of my family members became sirens.

  The man dared shake his head. “That was many years ago, Your Greatness. Since then, war has wrecked the providences. A war your marriage with Solis was meant to prevent. A war we are losing. Their line continues, while we have been cursed with daughters.”

  My sisters glared, Vi licking her lips as if imagining his blood upon them.

  Mother only smiled. “Not such a curse. I have six daughters, and each is a joy.”

  “In this case, it has made the current succession uncertain,” the man said. “Just as before, the council’s only solution is a marriage alliance—our princess with the Sun Prince of Solis. Cypari has grown used to its independence. I will not have our country overrun by their kind.”

  Mother flicked the tip of her tail. “That is a tragedy, but I’m bound to the water now, as you can see. If you wish the prince’s death, you must bring him to me.”

  “That is what I wish to arrange.” He brought out some parchment wrapped in leather and tossed it near his feet. “The prince has spent the last two years as a foster of a conquered providence to the east. His father has called him home to wed and fulfill their contract with Cypari. He is to travel by boat in a fortnight. The route is written out for you, along with his description.”

  “Very well. Pick it up, Ari.”

  I crouched down and took the small bundle. I was curious enough to rip it open right then and there, but it wouldn’t have done me any good. None of our family knew how to read except Mother. We spoke or sang all of our lessons, as vellum or papyrus sheets were useless in the water. Even with my secret book, all I could do was look at the pictures and create the stories in my head.

  “If that is all you wanted, I trust you can find your way back to your ship on your own?” Mother’s finger tapped against her shoulder. “We are unused to being overrun by your kind and will not bear the insult for long.”

  The man hit his chest, a salute that was common in all the providences, then turned around. I watched him wind through the rocks and tall grass until he rounded a bend, out of sight.

  “You let him go.” Vi slashed her tongue on the words, surely nicking it on her pointed canines and tasting her own blood instead of the man she craved.

  Two more of my sisters thrust their heads from the waves—Catra and Corva, twins who always traveled together. Corva shook back her hair until enough water fell away to free her voice. “I don’t know why you care. We were watching the boat, and none of them were all that cute.”

  “All large and hairy. It would only make your stomach churn.” Catra heaved her torso in mock duress.

  Vi didn’t blink. “They are men. They trespassed. They should die.”

  Both of the twins twittered with laughter. Corva mimed a great yawn. “You make it sound like such a chore.”

  Mother held up her hand and my sisters fell silent. “Regardless, none of them would have made it here if I didn’t allow it. He is Cypari, so I let him come and let him leave. For now. He interests me. It has happened before, but it is rather rare.”

  My sisters exchanged dark looks, but none dared speak until the water rippled and the last of my sisters surfaced. “They’ve gone,” Serena said in way of greeting. Her skin held tinges of green instead of blue, and her hair came in a lighter shade than all my sisters. Her father was a pale-skinned sailor from the north. “I watched their ship leave.”

  My family must have been watching the whole thing from the beginning. I wanted to be outraged that they had all been better prepared than me, but that was nothing new. As the only one yet to make the change, I was the last to learn any piece of news.

  “How do you plan to do it, Mother?” Titera asked, her eyes cool and calculating. “A prince will not be traveling alone.”

  Mother focused on me, as I still stood near the cliffs. My weight shifted, and my toes sank deeper into the sand. “Many have let their guard down among us in the past,” she said. “Besides, Ari is still human. She is fifteen. This will be her task.”

  My heart skipped in my chest. Me? A prince?

  Titera’s frown deepened. “Is it . . . wise to trust Ari with this?” Without Mother here, she would have sworn. I knew exactly what my eldest sisters thought of my abilities—even Serena had a cynical expression. I would have hated them for it if I did not have my own doubts.

  I had never killed a man before. I had seen my family do it, but they had powers I did not.

  Powers I would not have until I found some way to kill a man without them.

  The thought of waking one day and hearing my mother declare me old enough to take the heart of a fishmonger had filled my nights with dread. Now I was supposed to take a prince’s heart?

  Mother bristled. “I don’t know what you girls think, but guards or not, a prince is just a man and will die like any other. If you cannot support your sister, then you may go about your own tasks.”

  My sisters dove beneath the waves, one by one. I wished a curtain of water would hide me too, but I couldn’t speak to the elements as well as my mother, even when she was human.

  Mother said calling to the elements was like an inner shout, when something inside you had to be communicated and done that there were no words for. Your soul called, beckoned, lured, bled out your heart’s desire and the storm answered as surely as a lusting sailor.

  I had called to the clouds and waves several times before, but they never answered. Perhaps I never wanted anything important enough for the elements to care.

  “Come here, Ari,” Mother said. “Let us see where you will meet your prince.”

  I walked down the cliff to a lower shore. Mother leapt from the rock spire and swam toward me. Her back straightened as she neared the coast, her fins splitting into legs in a fluid movement. Her skin lost some of its blue, reverting to soft caramel decorated with ink-black marks. She stood and walked the last few feet through the rocks and sand. Soon the parchment was in her outstretched hand. I rolled the frayed edges of my tunic as her gray eyes darted over the page.

  Mother nodded. “Yes, I see several parts of his route here that intersect the cliffs. This should work out quite well.”

  “Are you certain it should be me?” The words burst out as I gripped my hem tighter. “Titera has the most experience. Vi can
shake a mountain with her voice . . .” I might have listed every one of my sisters’ talents down through Serena and the twins, but my mother’s tired frown stopped me.

  “I know what your sisters can do,” she said, cross with impatience. “I trained them. Their fathers were sea captains and brutes. Being forceful comes easily to them. But your father was talented as well, not to mention your mother. You have all you need and more.”

  My hands went still. “My father wasn’t a sailor?”

  “No.” My mother’s laugh took a lighter pitch, giggling like a bubbling brook. “The man was so seasick he stumbled off the ship nearly on his own. But he was talented, for a human. A poet and a singer. Haven’t I mentioned it?”

  I shook my head. Mother hardly ever talked about our fathers except to curse them. She killed them long before her stomach swelled with child, threw each of their withered carcasses to the waves the moment the light faded from their eyes, same as any other man.

  “I let him entertain me for quite a while.” Her eyes glazed over, lost in her own vision. “He pleased me so much, I considered leaving him alive, but he was a man and betrayed me like the rest. When you were born, you were so weak Titera wanted to have you sacrificed like a male child, but I wouldn’t allow it. And that is why I think you should be the one to take the Sun Prince.”

  I waited. Nothing had inspired my confidence yet.

  Mother brimmed with impatience. “Don’t you see? This is your chance to prove to all of them that you belong with us. You will have sacrificed the heart of a Sun Prince, just as I have, and none of them will be able to doubt you again.”