HI.  My new novelette, Undersea, is what I like to call a "bridge book."  It's a story of the lost years of Loris Atharian, to be read after Book 1, In the Shadows of Gods, but before Book 2, Mountains of the Sea, of the Crone Chronicles.  It's a young adult fantasy that I hope adults will enjoy, too. 

I've set forth two chapters to whet your appetite.  Needless to say, I can't say much more about the novelette without spoiling a lot of reading for you in Book 1.  I'll release more of Undersea after I publish In the Shadows of Gods.

Any feedback you have is most appreciated even--in fact especially--criticism/critques.  

You can see updates at www.akcunningham.com, and follow me on twitter at @adinalisa.

Thank you!

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Dear Reader,

You are about to read a story about Loris Atharian and the five years she lost while all Etheria thought she had drowned at sea.  Loris still cannot remember those years—she has not, in fact, remembered that she has forgotten them.

Loris is twenty-five years old, as the Etherians count, and eighteen years old, as you and I would.  She spent fifteen years supposedly with her mother in either Soltoria or Viscand.  She remembers ten of those years.  She does not remember the last five, just before she was taken to the Orphanage.

This novelette recalls those years.  It's not meant to be a stand alone story; it's meant to act as a filigreed bridge from my mind to yours, between In the Shadows of Gods and Mountains of the Sea.

Can you feel it?  The stonework beneath your bare feet and the cold steel of the railing in your hand?  You’re on a bridge to a land mass you can see on the horizon, salty ocean spray in your face with birds circling and crying above.  That land mass is Mountains of the Sea.  Below you is the Azure Ocean, deep blue and teeming with colorful fish and sea sprites.  It slowly begins to circle, circle, and pull you down.  Be careful it does not pull you too far under, or you may not come back up.

-  A.K. Cunningham

The ship rocks as the sea slaps against its sides. I am reading in a sky-lit silk loft, high up one of the great masts, with my young wolf Neverfund sleeping below me on deck. A large cushion is under me and soft silk quilts surround me, while the bubbled silk makes shadows in the wind.

My book is spread out over my lap. It's called Lives Under the Sea and explains the different types of sea creatures, including sirens, sea sprites, and mermaids, who live in the Azure Ocean. It is beautifully illustrated. I wasn’t supposed to take it from the royal library in Soltoria, but have become adept at slipping things out under the voluminous robes my father makes me wear “so that I may look like a true cievallia.”

My mother despises him and I’ve grown curious about that, now that I’m ten years old. She reserves spite for hateful people. Is my father hateful? Is it simply because he is king of Soltoria? I know so little about him except that he makes me wear long, complicated clothing and doesn’t like for me to spar. While it’s warm in Soltoria and the palace is beautiful, I like it better in Viscand, where I can wear whatever I please—usually hunting leathers—and my uncle encourages me to fight. Also, my wolves are not looked down on there. Everyone loves them.

“Loris, are you up there?” Tach Han calls. I shift deeper into my quilts and stifle a smile. I am silent. Loris, he says, mindspeaking, I know you’re up there. Neverfund is right under you. You’ll have to try harder than that. Dinner’s being served.

At that I scramble out of my blankets and the round silk loft, with its views of the ocean and the sky, and down the pole. On ship I wear simple cotton pants and a long silk shirt, embroidered with roses. I’m getting sick of roses and I’m only ten. Why must that insipid flower be my sigil? I would prefer a wolf’s head, like my uncle Kane’s.

“Come on, Neverfund,” I say. “Let’s find some trouble in the kitchens.” My white wolf whines and pushes at my hand. I pet his face and ears. I have two other wolves in Viscand, a grey one and a black one, but Neverfund is my favorite. He goes with me everywhere.

“Hurry up, Little Loris, or that beast of a captain will eat all the food again,” Tach Han says. He’s tall, with black hair and green eyes, Viscand to his blood, as they say. He is my uncle and sometimes-caretaker, as well as my mother’s most trusted adviser and head of her security. He takes my hand and pulls me along. The captain is quite a beast, old and haggard looking. Tach Han says it’s because he’s half human.

We’re on an intercontinental skiff that’s small for its make, I’m told. It has four catamaran hulls that skim through the water, and what seem like a hundred sets of sails, some high in the sky for the sky sailors to use. I can’t wait to see them in action; I’ve never seen a sky sailor except in practice. The day has been bright with a brisk wind, though it’s died down with evening. Our twin moons, Molif and Lina, are just beginning to rise together in the twilight. There’s a story about those two moons and how they came to be together. My mother will not let me read it.

“How was your first day at sea?” Tach Han asks. He’s been running errands and sending messages for mother, as usual, and didn’t have time to spar with me. I found my own things with which to amuse myself. We’re setting sail for my first time to the human continent. The Western Continent, they call it. Mother tells me this will be the first of several trips we’ll make before I turn fifteen. Goodwill trips, she calls them.

“This ship is amazing. Did you know that the sailors use magic every day to strengthen the masts, because the sails are so numerous? And the sky sailors practiced without sails today. I watched them most of the morning. They’re as good as warriors.”

“No, I did not know that,” Tach Han says. He is always patient with me. It’s something I value in him.

“I value you, Tach Han,” I say. “When we will continue our lessons?”

He laughs. “Perhaps your mother will give me some time tomorrow.”

“I’ll insist,” I say.

We approach wide stairs that wind up around a main mast that looks as large as a tree, with symbols written on it as far up as I can see. Not far above us is the Ellipse, or the elliptical canister of rooms that includes the dining hall, captain’s offices, and living quarters. The captain said that if the ship breaks apart, the Ellipse will become its own ship. One of the sailors told me the Ellipse can move around in a storm and keeps the ship’s equilibrium. Equilibrium means balance, he said, though I knew that.

“The illusionist for the dining hall is good,” I say. “Is it Herin, our royal aide? It has the same feel.”

“Very astute,” says Tach Han. “But no, it’s one of his students. He’s on board. He’s the Soltorian with the moustache.”

“Hair? On his face? Yuck,” I mumble. Viscands don’t grow hair on their faces. I'm intrigued by it, though. My skin tingles as we walk through the shield that protects the Ellipse from the wind and sea.

A servant opens the main door and we walk into a broad, well-lit hallway with high ceilings and large, globulous lanterns hanging down, looking like one of the smaller sea creatures in my book. The corridor is covered in heavy silk carpets. To the left is an archway into the dining hall. My mother is seated at the head of the table.

She looks like a faery queen, with the last of the light from outside slanting over her face from the high-set windows. Her black and gold hair is twisted up with several gilded pins through it. She wears no circlet or crown, here. She has on a dark, tight-fitting dress that looks like it’s made for hunting, and which I know has split pants. Mother does not wear anything without split pants and she always carries at least three weapons on her. Even I have a small emerald-crusted dagger strapped to my hip. I carry it because it is my favorite dagger. My uncle Rougar gave it to me when I turned eight. I haven’t seen him since, and wonder about him often. Mother says he’s going to meet us on the Continent.

One of mother’s ladies, Essendria, is sitting next to her, talking in a low voice. Four of our Viscand soldiers stand behind her. One of them, Hiran, winks at me as I climb up to the table and sit next to mother. Tach Han sits next to me, then the four nobles who are travelling with us seat themselves. They are all men. Two Soltorian and two Viscand.  One of them is the illusionist who wears a blonde mustache. I can’t help but stare at it.

“Are you the illusionist?” I say.

“Yes, cievallia, I am,” he says.

“Thank you for your beautiful mind!” I say. “I am very much enjoying your work on the ship. Can you tell me—“

“Loris, not now,” Mother says, and the table immediately falls quiet. “You can talk with Sir Ekson after dinner. Too much chatter, I have much on my mind, and much to discuss with our friends.”

As if on queue, the servants arrive with food. They give me my favorite vegetable tarts, sea vegetables, and hot noodles in sweet broth. That’s all they serve me, knowing my preferences, while the adults are served something else.

I look around our table. Our ladies in waiting sit further to the end.  I know most of them prefer this, but two of them think it’s a snub, as they are nobility. Everyone here is, though, and they have to sit somewhere. The captain and his sailors eat at different times, on different shifts. Tonight the captain and some of his people are eating with us, across the room. They look like they’re having more fun than our cold, calculated table of nobles. Perhaps I can talk Tach Han into letting me eat with them tomorrow.

Then I see something different. At the captain’s table sits a skinny Soltorian. He is of normal height, unlike me, and is probably around twelve years old. He’s wearing a sailor’s outfit and has dark brown hair, unusual among the light Soltorians. I did not see him last night, our first night at sea, or today.

Because my mother has scolded me for talking to Sir Ekson, none of the adults will talk to me during dinner. “Too precocious,” my mother has scolded me, before.  "It makes them feel uncomfortable."  I don't tell her that she makes them feel uncomfortable in a thousand different ways.  Of course.

Tach Han is talking to one of the Viscands, Sir Eldrake, about the weather and sea conditions. Most Viscand are sailors and fishermen, though they are warriors first. Sir Eldrake thinks the passage will take ten days and that the weather should be fair, but not a lot of wind. He has a talent for air and can read such things.

Still, I interrupt.

“Tach Han, who’s that boy?” I ask. “The one at the captain’s table?”

Tach Han casually looks over, making sure my mother is not watching us.

“I do not know, cievallia,” he says. “He must be someone’s son.”

“Didn’t you look at the list of shipboard members?” I ask, knowing he did. I spied on him.

“Yes, of course. He wasn’t on it. Thank you for noticing, I’ll make sure he is checked, cievallia. Clever girl.”

I can feel him mindspeaking with one of the guards, who nonchalantly leaves our side of the room and walks over to stand near the other table. This doesn’t alarm them. They notice him, but keep eating. Seamen and women are notoriously tough. In preparation for this trip, I’ve read several novels and other books about sailing, and they are always good fighters with secure minds.

Not always, always, my shadows say. I feel them wisping around my legs. Mother has told me that not everyone on board is comfortable with shadows, and so I told them to stay quiet. We’re eating dinner, stop that, I say, and they settle in my lap. Tach Han glances down and gives me an eye I know, meaning, Keep them in check. He is a master of shadow work, himself.

I burn my mouth as I slurp my hot noodles and eye the boy at the other table. There is something about him that doesn’t fit in. He doesn’t look treacherous and my shadows haven’t warned me about him. But he sits too stiff, eats too well, and looks too uncomfortable with his surroundings. He glances over at the guard near his table too often.

The ship creaks and breaks apart. “They’re sucking energy out of the canons! Abandon ship!” I’m thrown to the ground and scramble for the ship’s controls so the crew can make it to the return boats. By the gods, how did they do it? What new weapon is this? I’ll go down with the ship if I have to. A scream of light and energy throbs toward the captain’s swill and I am writhing on the ground in pain.

I am on the ground, writhing in pain.

“Make it stop! Tach Han, get us to the return boats, now! I have need of a medic.”

And I pass out.