Shattered Sea Novels & Stories

it tastes like old spells. It’s a ward, she explained. To keep the Empire out. We are almost through. Suddenly, the mist thinned. They burst out of the gray and into a world of jagged black rock and stormy skies. The Shattered Isles. It looked like a mountain range that had been smashed by a giant’s hammer and left to drown in the sea. Hundreds of islands, some no bigger than a house, others miles wide, jutted out of the dark water. They were connected by precarious rope bridges and zip-lines.

The boat cut violently through the storm. Black waves slammed against the hull hard enough to shake every bone in Aria’s body while freezing rain whipped across the deck like needles. Behind them, the cliffs of Blackwater burned against the night. Even from miles away, the mansion still looked unreal. Flames consuming windows. Smoke curling into thunderclouds. An entire empire collapsing into the sea. And somewhere within those ruins, Richard Thorne had either died… or disappeared again. Aria didn’t know which possibility unsettled her more.

“That’s right. Keep fighting. You know I don’t mind hurting you. You’re nothing but some dirty whore who can’t even fuck right.” I can’t scream because of his hands. I can’t fight because of his weight. I can’t do anything to stop him. Maybe, just maybe, this time he’ll kill me, and it will be over. No, I can’t let him win. I bite down on his hands hard, and he pulls back. “HELP, HELP. SOMEBODY HELP ME. HELP ME! “SAM, WAKE UP.” Somebody’s shaking me, but I can’t escape.

“You will lose, Hunter. You will rot in hell.” Ezra stepped on Hunter's injured arm and kicked the gun away. The gun slid sideways as the ship rocked violently and plunged into the sea. Hunter growled loudly as he watched the gun drop as he could have actually caught the gun to kill Ezra. With the last of his strength, Hunter pushed Ezra's leg away and slid backwards to his feet. Hunter pushed hard on Ezra's chest, cornering Ezra's body until his back hit the deck guardrail. The ship rocked violently as strong winds came and brought even more ferocious waves to crash against the ship's hull. The sound of the waves crashing beneath them was very boisterous. White foam floating on the surface

Rock. Selah lunged off the bottom, breaking into the air with a ragged cough. She spat out the bitter water, her body trembling with exhaustion. The next wave caught us, a forceful shove that threw us forward. We tumbled through the surf, our skin scraping against the jagged floor until the water receded. I reached deep into the void of my mind, grabbing every scrap of will I had left. I forced my lifeless limbs to move. We dragged our heavy, wet bodies out of the reach of the tide.

The storm had been sudden, a brutal, Biblical fury that ripped their small missionary boat from its moorings and flung it into the raging sea. Father Marcus, a man of faith but not of the sea, had clung to Sister Clara as the world turned to violent, salted chaos. When the dawn broke calm and cruel, they were alone on a crescent of sand, their vessel shattered against black rocks, their supplies gone, their world reduced to this: two souls, soaked and shivering, clad in the heavy, salt-stiffened wool of their vows.

The crisp morning air filled Elara’s lungs as she stood on the terrace of her new estate, watching the ocean’s steady waves crash against the cliffs below. The dawn light cast a golden hue over the water, and for a moment, everything seemed peaceful—serene, even. But inside, Elara’s mind was a whirlwind. She had faced Cassia, heard her tearful apologies, and glimpsed the cracks in her sister’s once impenetrable facade.

I quickly tried to grab it back from him, but to him, this was proof of my guilty conscience. The smile on his face grew, and he threw the necklace down on the ground hard. When the pendant on the necklace shattered, my heart broke into a million pieces along with it. I didn't care that my legs were still healing. I lunged to the ground and tried to gather up the ashes that had spilled from the broken pendant. When Steven saw what had fallen out of the pendant, he was clearly stunned.

Beneath it, the waves crashed against the rocks, a deadly abyss waiting to swallow me whole. As I dropped towards the water, Lyrien's parting words echoed in my mind. Tears fell, but it was too late. They won. My body splashed into the sea, and the torrent swept me away while Lyrien's triumphant grin etched in my memory forever.

She lets her feet guide her as Vanessa walks aimlessly. The swarm of people became a sea to be swum through, her mind adrift. She couldn't displace the events of the past few days from her thoughts: the release of Stephanie, the friction between her and Rachel, the possibility still of being found out. It had been a risk; now they were left dealing with the aftermath.