Story from the sea...
Excerpt: Queen of Atlantis by Sarah Rees Brennan
The poison tides came in one burnt evening in late summer, and everybody knew it was time for the princess to be sacrificed.
Princess Mede knew it as well. She had learned at her old Nurse’s knee to count the seconds of summer as they slipped by, to measure the growing chill in the air until the day arrived when the tide rushed on the shore like an invading army, black as ink and filled with stinking debris. Those who dared go down onto the black and ruined beach reported seeing things as strange and disparate as swathes of rotted silk, dead dogs with bloated bellies and dolls’ heads. The waters brought death to everything they touched.
The princess had to be sacrificed or the tides would keep coming and the harvest would be lost.
Mede was quite looking forward to it. She’d never been sacrificed before.
Read the rest.
My two-bits:
In-a-word(s): grace
Loved this short story fairy tale of a princess, monster and poison tides.
fyi: Sarah Rees Brennan is the author of The Demon's Lexicon
Description from the amazon:Nick and his brother, Alan, have spent their lives on the run from magic. Their father was murdered, and their mother was driven mad by magicians and the demons who give them power.
The magicians are hunting the Ryves family for a charm that Nick's mother stole -- a charm that keeps her alive -- and they want it badly enough to kill again.
Danger draws even closer when a brother and sister come to the Ryves family for help. The boy wears a demon's mark, a sign of death that almost nothing can erase...and when Alan also gets marked by a demon, Nick is des-perate to save him.
The only way to do that is to kill one of the magicians they have been hiding from for so long.
Ensnared in a deadly game of cat and mouse, Nick starts to suspect that his brother is telling him lie after lie about their past. As the magicians' Circle closes in on their family, Nick uncovers the secret that could destroy them all.
This is the Demon's Lexicon. Turn the page.
by Sarah Rees Brennan
part of Subterranean Press
Special YA issue - read more stories from YA authors
* image source princess
