For some, the only way to possess magic is to steal it from others.
Born without magic, Davis is an outcast in his own shapeshifter family. Yearning for his father’s approval, he sets down a path that intertwines with Iris, a girl whose own ambitions are hindered by a mysterious illness.
Their quest leads to Yuras, one of California’s smallest towns, unremarkable until they discover a cave of magic-transferring stones. Now they have a chance to change their fates. But they’re not alone.
When Nivi, a Yuras local, stumbles upon the cave, she unknowingly sets into motion a series of events that threatens to expose Davis’s past as well as her own.
As dark truths surface, one question endures: How much are they willing to take in their quest for power?
A multigenerational mystery told across converging timelines and from multiple points of view, full of adventure and political intrigue.
Extract from Of Mountains and Seas by Emily Renk Hawthorne
PROLOGUE
Winter 1935
The first glimmers of consciousness seeped in, and with a start, Randall Sun realized he couldn’t see. At first, he thought it was a moonless night and he was at home in bed. But the feel of his hot breath against a cloth, the binds around his wrists and ankles, and the whirring of the car beneath him proved otherwise. He pulled against the restraints. They must be magic. Like all magic things, he could feel their power, whether it was the warm glow of another Shifter or the hum of the restraints that tingled against his skin at that moment. He doubted either of his powers would affect magical restraints, but he would try.
The car rumbled to a stop. Voices murmured to each other from the front seat. Doors opened, and the crunch of footsteps came to his door.
A vague, recent memory surfaced in Randall’s mind. He had been leaving the casino when a woman and a man approached him, but that was all he could remember. Based on the situation he was currently in, one of them must have the power of magical binding, and the other must have some sort of sleep-inducing power. Randall sighed. Alcoholic fumes accumulated beneath the cloth and burned his nostrils and eyes. Maybe that second part was his own doing.
The door next to Randall opened. Hands yanked him out onto the ground and dragged him a few feet before forcing him onto his knees. A sharp pain shot through his left leg, and something clattered next to him; most likely his cane. At least they hadn’t thrown it away. One of the people removed the cloth sack from his head, and he was momentarily blinded by the car headlights. He squinted and turned his head. Past the glare of the headlights, vague outlines of trees towered around them. Aromas of pine and dirt blended with the alcohol on his breath and the gasoline from the car. The man and woman approached from each side, becoming looming silhouettes in front of the car. Randall took his chance and transformed.
His bones and joints cracked as they lengthened and spread, a sensation that was second nature for him. Thick, coarse fur sprouted from his skin, absorbing his clothing. His nails elongated into long, yellow claws, murderous yet useless against the magical restraints. He glared at the two silhouettes that looked half their size before his growing body while snapping at the binds and bellowing to no avail.
The woman laughed. In an instant, her body elongated from her neck down, her arms and legs fusing into a serpentine body. A monstrous human-headed snake stood before him, scales glistening in the headlights. The tip of her tail lashed out, smacking Randall across the face.
“Even a grizzly won’t be able to break those.”
Randall huffed from the blow. He knew that voice and that Shifter form. Susan Bai. But who was the man with her? He almost laughed when he realized. How cute, Mrs. and Mr. Bai, a wife and husband gangster duo. What was his name again? It didn’t matter. Susan was the one in charge. The humor faded. They wouldn’t get away with this.
He shrunk back to his human form. His bones realigned and his fur resorbed into his skin as his clothes reformed. He looked down at his hands. White cords twisted around his wrists, shimmering like snakes coiling around and around. He couldn’t break through the binds with sheer strength, but maybe he could burn through them or at least hurtle a fireball at his captors. A tingling sensation arose from his inner core and intensified as it moved toward his hands. In less than a second, sparks leaped from his palms, burst into flames, and coalesced into a bright, burning ball. The restraints remained intact, so he prepared to shoot the fireball at one of the silhouetted figures. At that moment, a ball of water struck the fire. Steam sizzled into the air until both elements were nullified.
This time, Mr. Bai laughed. “Did you think we didn’t do our homework on you, Randall?”
That was right. Susan could summon and manipulate water. So that must mean Mr. Bai had the power of magical binding, and the somnolence had been his own fault, after all. Randall swore under his breath and made a half-hearted promise not to drink as much. He thought about forming another fireball but knew that even in a best-case scenario, that would only lead to a standoff of fire against water, and he was outnumbered here. But he had a secret weapon that most other Shifters did not, another secondary power. Thrusting his hands down onto the ground, he simultaneously melted the ground in front of him and built it back up. He intended to build a wall and then tunnel himself to safety, but suddenly his arms were jerked up from the ground. Another white rope had formed from between his wrists to a branch overhead. It pulled his arms up and away from the ground. His stonemasonry was useless if he couldn’t touch the ground.
“As I said, we did our homework on you.”
Randall cleared his throat. “What do you want?”
“The same thing as you,” Susan said. “Purity of our kind. To remove the weaknesses of the Statics from the Shifters.”
“No one wants that more than me,” Randall said.
“Yet you have done little to change the situation,” Mr. Bai said. “Even in your position of power and influence, your promises remain empty.”
She grew up in Southern California and now calls the Central Coast her home.
She's always loved reading fantasy and wanted to reflect her Chinese heritage and California home in her own writing.
Of Mountains And Seas is her debut novel.
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