Countdown Fantasy Short Stories & Novels

The night Ronan Blackwood's hunting ships set White Reef ablaze, I took off my royal crown and boarded the Black Sail alone. If he spared the merfolk still alive, he could keep me. The human boy who'd been promising to marry me since we were children now commanded the most ruthless pirate fleet in Grayhaven. In his cabin, he seized me by the waist and kissed me hard, leaving me breathless. He claimed me with such desperation that it was clear the years apart had only made him crave me more. We spent three days in his cabin. At dawn on the fourth, I stirred as he slipped his arm out from beneath my head. I was still lying on my side when he emptied a basin of scale-eating brine over my back. I screamed and fell from the bed, curling up on the floor. He stood over me with the empty basin, his knuckles white. “Ready to tell me where you've hidden my parents?” He blamed me for his parents' disappearance. After that, he made me take out my tideheart to heal Vivian, who was carrying his child. He made me dance for her in shackles, barefoot on a deck strewn with broken shells. Whenever I came close to dying, he'd gather me into his arms, call me by the name he'd used when we were children, and feed me the most expensive medicine a sea witch could brew. “Lila, don't make me hate you.” I no longer had the strength to ask which of us was forcing the other. He'd told me merfolk couldn't die. But a mermaid kept captive, cut off from the sea's free currents for three years, would dissolve into foam until nothing remained of her, not even her name. I had three days left. Then, at last, I wouldn't have to love him anymore.

The night I was born, every window in the kingdom of Astraea burned with candlelight for its newborn princess. Then black mist smashed through the palace doors. Morvena, the witch my family had banished years ago, strode across the shattered stained glass with thorns curling around her fingers. "You denied me mercy when I begged for it," she said. "So I will make you lose what you love most." She leaned over my cradle and gave me a cold smile. "When this child turns eighteen, death will begin to follow her. By your own hands, you will lose what you love most, and regret will haunt you for the rest of your lives." From that night on, I became the most precious person in Rose Palace. Father set moonstones in my crown. Mother sewed every gown I wore. Even after my little brother, Rowan, was born, the best of everything still came to me first. They always told him, "Let your sister have it. She won't be with us much longer." So I learned not to argue, not to make plans, and never to speak about the future. I simply waited for my eighteenth birthday the way other girls waited for a wedding. On that night, I blew out my candles beneath the tolling bells and hugged my parents and brother goodbye. The next morning, they entered my chamber dressed in mourning black. I sat up in bed and smiled. "Good morning." Their grief turned to shock. Then the shock hardened into something colder than hatred. That was when I understood. They had loved the princess who was supposed to die. They had never learned how to love the girl who lived. But they misunderstood the witch’s curse. Eighteen was never the end. The curse would follow me for an entire year… and by the time they realized the truth, it was already too late.

I was a fallen angel with broken wings. A vampire count imprisoned me because my celestial light was the only power that could suppress his childhood sweetheart’s curse. Then Cassian Vale, the Lycan King, slaughtered his way into the fortress and carried me out. He crowned me his Luna and cherished me for three years. I thought he was my salvation, until I overheard him speaking to the vampire count. “Evelyne’s curse is returning,” the count said. “If Seraphina goes back to Heaven, Evelyne will die.” “She won’t leave,” Cassian replied. “Why do you think I made her my mate?” “The chains in your dungeon could only hold her for so long. Love will bind her to me, and keep her from ever returning to Heaven.” Only then did I understand. They had always loved the same woman.  My salvation had been a lie. So I sent one final prayer to Heaven. In three days, I would return to where I belonged. And he would never see me again, not in this life, nor in any other.

After the Intermediate Mage Examination, I stood outside the door and overheard my mother tell a relative, "The Royal Academy's tuition is too expensive. We can't afford to send both daughters." The relative tried to reason with her. "They're both your daughters. You can't send one and leave the other behind." My brother cut in. "Liana can't even cast a basic light spell. She's the one who needs the extra help. Ella's talented enough to manage on her own. Send her with Liana as a maid. She can sit in on classes whenever she's free." Then came the voice of Caden Vale, the boy I had grown up with. "That's fair." Standing outside the door, I finally understood what fair meant to them. Liana got the place at the academy. I got to save them the extra tuition and wait on her as a maid. When we were kids learning the levitation spell, the only cushion in the house always went under Liana. Once, I fell and cracked my head open. Even then, I made excuses for them. I told myself Liana needed more protection than I did. But as I listened to them laugh, something inside me finally snapped. This time, I would not let Liana use me as her stepping-stone.

I was a runaway mermaid princess. To break the curse on a pirate captain's two sons, I sacrificed my radiant tail and the voice I treasured above all to a witch. I was left crippled and confined to a wheelchair, and whenever I opened my mouth, my voice came out in an ugly, breathy rasp. But they swore that one of them would marry me and the other would guard me for the rest of my life. Then, during a clash at sea, they rescued a human woman and kept her aboard as a maid. From that day on, everything changed. They were both addicted to the maid's body and could not tear themselves away from her. The younger one said, "You're so beautiful. Far more beautiful than Heloise, that fish with no legs..." The older one said, "If we didn't owe her our lives, neither of us would ever marry her." I wheeled myself onto the deck and released a raven with a letter tied to its leg. I had accepted the proposal of the most terrifying overlord of the oceans. The Basque brothers still didn't know that the witch's contract spelled out one condition: the moment they betrayed me, the curse would return. One would turn back into a toad, the other into an octopus.

Everyone thought my sister, Nyssa, was the cursed one, except me. I knew that on my eighteenth birthday, Death would come to claim me for the Underworld. I was the Dark Elf Death had chosen. But to protect my sister, my family chose to sacrifice me. My parents abandoned me, my kin reviled me, and Caelum, the elven prince I had loved for centuries, chose to stand by Nyssa's side. They said I was a harbinger of disaster. They told me to offer Nyssa my blessing. Little did they know, they were pushing Death's true acolyte toward her awakening. When the Night of the Shattered Moon arrived, I finally met my fate. I died in the mortal realm and was reborn as the Underworld's new emissary. And those who once hurt me would come to pray for my forgiveness, trapped in the eternal punishment I had wrought. I was no longer a girl who waited for love.