The silent screams of th.., p.1
The Silent Screams of the Sea, page 1
The Silent Screams of the Sea
Abigail G. Thompson
Content Guidelines:
Non-graphic, implied mentions of rape.
Non-graphic mentions of physical abuse.
Non-graphic mentions of human trafficking.
Mentions blood, non-graphic wounds.
Mentions of dark magic, spirits, and possession. (All used and portrayed in a negative manner)
Mentions of poverty.
Copyright © 2024 Abigail G. Thompson.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
ISBN Paperback: 9781088244968
ISBN Hardcover: 978-1-0882-4093-9
Library of Congress Control Number:
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Front cover image by Abigail G. Thompson.
Book design by Abigail G. Thompson.
Printed by Ingramspark
First printing edition 2024.
Ingram Content Group
1 Ingram Blvd.
La Vergne
Also By Abigail G. Thompsom
The Halcyon Epics
The Whispers of the Wind
Other books
Scrawled Out Timeline (Poetry Collection)
This one is for you dad. You’re the only reason I believe I can write kings accurately always leading our family with respect, courage, sacrifice, and love. Thank you for teaching me how to write about noble men, and an even greater God.
Contents
Colossians 1:13-14
A Diary Entry of an Exiled Gypsy...
Fullpage Image
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
Part Two
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
40. Chapter 40
41. Chapter 41
42. Chapter 42
43. Chapter 43
44. Chapter 44
45. Chapter 45
46. Chapter 46
47. Chapter 47
48. Chapter 48
49. Chapter 49
50. Chapter 50
51. Chapter 51
52. Chapter 52
53. Chapter 53
54. Chapter 54
55. Chapter 55
56. Chapter 56
57. Chapter 57
Ending Bible Verse
Author's Note
Suicide Hotline
Scripture References
Acknowledgements
#ProtectCleanFiction Information
About the Author
“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.”
- Colossians 1:13-14 ESV
A Diary Entry of an Exiled Gypsy...
Once upon a time, there lived a special young maiden who had the unique talent of seeing the potential in people. Because of this, she was known for her great kindness throughout the land.
She fell in love with a reckless young Clan Leader who could control the seas with the wave of his hand. She could see that he could become a fantastic leader, bringing his people to greatness. Though, the dangerous game of potential is that anyone has the potential to be very good… or very wicked.
Not long after they married, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. As days passed, they realized he had great magic, but their elation was quickly cut short when the boy died in his sleep.
Soon after, the young Clan Leader became terrified of losing his wife and became very controlling of her every action. A few years later she became pregnant again and gave birth to a little girl. The woman and the Clan Leader loved the girl greatly, but she became deathly ill, and the gifted young woman feared the child would die if they did nothing. Months passed and in desperation, the worried mother called doctor after doctor, but none could help the ailing girl. Not until one day a doctor from deep within the mountains of Aiyana camp and explained that the little girl’s magic had gone rogue and was eating her alive from inside her soul. To save her, she had to be stripped of her magic. The Clan Leader did not want to believe the doctor, but the little girl became sicker and sicker every day until her irises were black as night, and her mouth a yawning expanse of pain and anguish. The mother couldn’t stand by and let her child suffer, so she went behind her husband’s back and ordered the procedure to be done. The doctor warned the woman that the child would have no recollection of her magic, and that if by chance her powers were ever restored to the girl, she would surely die. The mother anxiously agreed, simply wanting her daughter to live, for she couldn’t bear the thought of losing another from her womb.
The child was saved, but when the Clan Leader learned of what his wife had done, he was furious! He branded her as an exile for her disobedience, and publicly shamed her. Casting her from the land only weeks after the girl was healed. Never to return.
Yet the mother could not bear to leave her child unprotected, so before the woman left, while the child was asleep, she blessed her daughter. Praying that Yahweh, the God of her people, would bless the child with the gift of the sea. Whenever she was with the water, she would be at peace and in no danger. The mother knew a secret about her child, one that she never told anyone: her daughter would fulfill a great prophecy of old.
She also knew that those who fulfilled prophecies never led quiet, peaceful lives. Instead, burdens were cast upon their backs, and their skin became scarred by many whips. The mother wept for her child because she was still young and a burden was being placed on her small back. The burden of growing up without a mother, and that of growing up with a controlling father.
The mother wept continuously, but with no choice, she left.
The doctor had been right, for as the girl grew, she had no recollection of ever possessing magic. All memories dealing with her powers were stripped from her mind. As she grew, she never knew the prophecy that was whispered by the desperate Sotarians would be fulfilled by her hands. She never knew her burdens would push her into greatness. That one day her mother would return from exile. And that one day her gift would be revealed.
The girl’s name: Emma Ambrose.
Chapter 1
There was a ghost. The ghost had the face of her mother with a dress that was the same color of pale pink. Except, there was no rip. And when Emma looked for mud, there was none. In fact, the ghost wore dainty little boots that seemed perfectly polished.
Emma gripped the edges of her tunic because her hands shook as her heart thrashed in her chest as she stared, her eyes not blinking.
“Hello Emma,” said the ghost.
It even sounded like her mother.
Emma shuddered; my mother is dead. Or at least that was what her father had always told her, but as her thoughts twirled as bile rose in her throat. Her father had lied to her multiple times over the last months. Why should she trust him now?
“Are you alive?” she asked.
If her mother happened to be living, then it was quite an inane question. But Emma wasn’t so certain. Perhaps her anxiety had overwhelmed all her good sense, and she was beginning to hallucinate.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m very much alive,” the ghost answered.
And with that one statement, her fear wrapped inside denial cracked open and revealed anger, bitterness, and betrayal only a child could feel against a parent who left. Her stomach roiled when her mother stepped forward with her arms outstretched and tried hugging her. The paralysis wore off, and Emma dodged the woman, running outside while she emptied her stomach contents into the grass. The snow had melted for the brief summer The Plains had every year, but Emma noticed none of it as she continued to be ill. She was overcome with a pinwheel of emotions that rocketed through her inspired by the ghost from her past. Shortly after, she stepped back into the Clan Leader’s tent after heaving her insides onto the ground for the second time that year. She came back insi
“Stop playing games with me! I’m not a puppet! You want to starve people out; you better have a bloody good reason!” Emma knew she was ignoring the problem at hand, but her mind was stuck on how any of this made sense. How did her father’s Blood Bonds play into her mother, and why did Summer Eyes care at all?
Calmly, the Clan Leader replied, “You know the story; I’ve woven it before,”
“Sure, but how is my father involved beyond his debts? I’ve paid them; I am no longer your slave!”
“Time tells the story better than me,” the woman said sagely, as though her cryptic words were answer enough.
Emma hissed out a breath in frustration, “You’re a coward. You know that?” She hollered while her face turned all shades of crimson.
For the first time in a long time, Emma wanted answers and didn’t care what kind of pain they may inflict upon her body and soul. She was tired of being kept in the dark. If Cupala, the capital of the Forest, had taught her anything it was the fact that there were worlds of ideas she didn’t understand about people, culture, and diplomacy. These were the very things she was supposed to be good at.
If her father’s letter taught her anything, it was that there were worlds of her personal life she knew nothing about, and her mother being one of those mysteries. Emma’s soul was plagued by questions more than she would like to admit. Marina Ambrose showing up in a cursed pink dress didn’t solve any of the questions that impressed themselves upon her consciousness.
“Your anger will get you where I am, full of bitterness and revenge,” the Clan Leader replied.
Emma sniped, “Why is she here?” while flinging out her arm toward her mother who stood off to the side.
“Emma, I can talk,” her mother said.
Emma just grunted and turned to look at her, “Then tell me, why, today of all days out of the hundreds, probably thousands of days, did you show up?”
“Because it was time for you to know the truth of your past.” Her mother looked so confident as she squared her shoulders and said, “To know I’m not the villain,”
“So, it wasn’t before I risked my life to pay the Blood Bonds thinking that my only parent would disown me!” Emma was screeching, but she couldn’t care.
It seemed her life was one big game to these people! She could be tossed around and manipulated to fit their games of truth.
“You needed to grow before you were ready. There are many things you do not know. And some things have to be waited on,”
Emma laughed, but it was dry and broken, “That is the worst excuse I’ve ever heard in my life,”
“What would you have done if I showed up a couple of months ago?” her mother asked knowingly.
“I would have told Father.”
Her mother nodded, “Exactly. What are you going to do now?”
“Probably throw up again and then go tell Liam,”
Her mothers’ lips twitched, and she looked to Summer Eyes, “Is that the warrior you sent with her?”
How dare she smile! Her heart seethed. Was this not serious to her? Did she not care how deeply this impacted Emma?
But as her mother and the Clan Leader shared a knowing look, Emma wanted to run far from the tent, fling herself into the nearest body of water, and let it consume her while soothing the broken, aching parts of her at this revelation. But she wouldn’t do anything of the sort for that was childish.
The Clan Leader replied, “Yes, it seems after their great adventures through the land they have created a bond only discourse could sever,”
“How do you know about Liam?” Emma wondered to her mother.
“Summer has kept me well informed of the goings on recently, and through the years in general,”
Emma swallowed thickly, “You knew she was alive!”
The Clan Leader simply nodded, and Emma let out a raunchy curse. After a minute of settling into the reality of what was going on, Emma turned back to the women, “I think it’s time you explain,”
She felt like a stumbling child, demanding answers while trying to grasp some semblance of control in a situation she knew nothing of.
Her mother clasped her hands in front of herself and began, “I never wanted to leave Emma, but I was left with no choice. Your father exiled me, banished me from Soter and from ever seeing you.”
The words came at her like fists, punching her in the stomach, in the head, in her heart. Her body felt pained by her mother’s words. If her mother was telling the truth, it was her father’s fault, all her father’s fault. Emma forced herself to say something, anything.
“Why?” her question a mere breath of the wind.
Her mother let out a long sigh, as though preparing herself to put down some great burden, “I suppose we should start at the beginning,” and she did.
She spun a tale of a young woman marrying for love, having a son who died and then having a daughter. This Emma all knew. But soon the events she knew started to differ. Her mother detailed Emma having a gift and told her that she’d been an ill child. She explained the only way to save her was to strip her of all power and leave her with nothing or she would be consumed by a gift gone rogue.
And the father that had come and soothed her those months after her mother left had been a farce. He saw her sorrow; he saw how she blamed herself for her mother’s disappearance and he’d known that he had ripped her from Emma’s grasp. For what? Emma’s lack of magic? She wished to puke again, as though emptying her stomach would erase the disgusting taste of the revelation. But her body could not even seem to manage that. It just took the beating of the implications of her mother’s words.
“Your father exiled me for having the procedure done, but I didn’t leave you without a blessing. I made sure you had the sea. If nothing else, it would protect you from his rough hand.”
Quickly, the numbness wore off and what replaced it was volatile, untamable, and gross. The emotions gurgled in a rise of hatefulness, anger, and bitter goo.
Emma snarled, “Liar!” and tumbled towards the woman with limbs outstretched ready to pummel her. She was unable to control her fury any longer.
Fury that her mother left for years. Fury that she came waltzing back into her life, telling tall tales of her possessing a gift. Halfway, toward the woman, all air in her lungs left and her limbs froze as though the air solid. And in those moments hefted in the air, while oxygen-deprived, she saw past the gurgling emotions to how she acted. The fury must resemble that of her father, and that terrified her. She made a gasping sound, trying to refill her lungs with oxygen, but nothing came. Summer Eyes walked in front of Emma, her expression serene as always.
“Control yourself, child; she speaks the truth.”
And with that, all air returned to Emma’s lungs and she crumbled headfirst toward the rugs beneath her feet with a hardy thud. She lay gasping at the precious oxygen while seeing her mother’s expression which seemed troubled, but not surprised. Collecting her breath, Emma heard shuffling and shouts coming from outside the tent before a man with wind-blown hair rushed in panting. After him tumbled a haggard, bleeding Liam as the strange man declared, “I’m Igor Ahelkin and I’m here to see Lea Bendoza on behalf of the Vechnyy Tsvetkov!”
Chapter 2
Before another word could be uttered, the man was across the tent. With a nasty thwack, the man’s head hit the wooden table. Emma winced for him and sat up from her current position on the floor.
“He wasn’t a vagabond?” she asked wryly to Liam, looking up at the warrior where blood trickled from his nose.
He grunted, and touched his bloody appendage, “He fights with his fists and not just his words,”
Marina, Emma’s mother, rushed to the man’s side and looked with a scowl at the Clan Leader, “That was uncalled for.”
“Never is my enemies’ pain pointless,” The Clan Leader seethed, and shook her head vehemently.
Marina rolled her eyes, “Lea, grow-up.”
The Clan Leader’s eyes bulged, and Emma sat with her head swinging between the woman and the man stumbling to sit up rubbing the back of his head.
