Free The Selkie Sorceress (Seal Island Trilogy, Book 3) by Sophie Moss Page A

floor. Fish—the few who dared venture into this part of the sea—floated belly-up, their beady lifeless eyes warning her to turn back.
    She knew the risks of entering the sea witch’s lair without permission. But she could not let Moira win. Not when she—Nuala—was responsible for putting the selkies in this awful position. The rush of heat seared her seal-skin, but she pushed through the stunted black polyps.
    She’d been young and foolish when she’d turned her back on her fate. She’d been born a white selkie—destined to be queen. But instead of honoring tradition, and bringing a land-man into the sea to rule beside her, she’d chosen a selkie lover.
    When her lover had died only a few years later, she’d gone to the sea witch for help and she’d made a foolish trade that had cost her everything. She’d thought the sea witch would understand her, would sympathize with her. For there was a time, long ago, when Moira had also been willing to turn her back on her kingdom for love.
    Nuala skirted the splintered ruins of a ship. Algae dripped from the fractured wood and clung to the bones scattered over the black rocks. Eels slithered through the dark waters, snapping at her with sharp angry teeth. Nuala spun away from them, but the ocean grew thick, making it harder to swim. The heat was oppressive, almost too much to bear. But she kept going, swimming toward the black mountain rising up in the distance.
    Nuala and Moira had both lost the ones they loved. But while Nuala’s love had been returned, Moira’s had not. And the bitterness of that rejection had eaten away at Moira until there was nothing left but darkness inside her.
    There were few who knew the truth. But Moira had confided in her in a moment of weakness, when she had been desperate for a friend. And she had confided something else—something she should never have told anyone.
    Moira had kept an object that had belonged to her lover—something she’d never been able to part with. She’d hid it in her lair, and it had been safe there. Until now.
    No one would dare venture into these waters, except the desperate souls willing to make a trade. Entering the sea witch’s lair for any other reason was punishable by death.
    But Nuala had not come here to make a trade. And she was not afraid of death. Pockets of boiling lava bubbled up from the rocks and she swam faster, dodging the spitting fire pits. Everything and everyone in her life had been taken from her. Who would miss her when she was gone?
    It was up to her to right this terrible wrong. To make sure Moira never claimed the throne. Moira may have stolen her powers and her white pelt, but she had not taken what was inside her. She had survived for ten years outside the protected waters. She had raised Owen alone, with no help from anyone. And she would not let any more harm come to him—even if she was no longer his mother.
    She averted her eyes from the garden of ghostly black roses that undulated in the currents outside the gaping mouth of the sea witch’s cave. She swam inside, ignoring the scream of the eels behind her. A black cauldron bubbled and a pool of lava heated it from below. The gleaming ebony walls were covered in iron shelves filled with small glass vials. The vials held anemones, salmon scales, starfish tips, and squid ink—ingredients for her spells.
    The cave stretched into the mountain, the dark hallways lit by deep sea glow fish—frozen in glass jars that hung like sconces. She chose the path to the right, her heart beating wildly as every swish of her back fins led her deeper into the caves. There was no way out if Moira returned before she claimed her prize.
    A warm light radiated from the end of the hall and she followed it to a chamber of onyx and gold. Jewels from the shipwrecks—diamonds, rubies, sapphires and gold—sparkled from chests and long pearl necklaces dripped from the open drawers of Moira’s vanity. A bed carved from volcanic rock and encrusted with