Iloray: A Mermaid Story

Начало книги

It was a story Gryshen had heard a thousand times. Sometimes there were slight variations, depending on which tribe you heard it from, but the bones of it remained the same.

The first children grew from their mother’s belly, the Mother of all, deep within the water. She birthed them in the forms of sparkling shells, twelve great oysters, each one holding an iloray babe. They were raised inside a sacred cavern, a place of unparalleled magic and wonder. In this place was everything they needed to grow healthy, fat, and content. Each child, twelve total, was nourished by the abundance of plant life near the cave, nurtured by the powerful love of the Mother, and protected by the strongest gift She could give them, the greatest gift the sea had to give.

The great oysters cradled the babes as they slept and grew, alongside what is only created when sand gets trapped in the shell—a pearl.

The Sea Mother tucked a grain of sand into each shell as her babes formed, knowing that as her children grew, so would the pearls, knowing that they would nourish her young, and when her young were ready to come out, the gleaming orbs would be there to protect them, like an umbilical cord attached to a placenta.

Читать дальше →