Life ended quietly. Rebirth? Not so much. I'd lived a perfectly normal nerd-life: a family, a career, too many hobbies, and a purse full of "just-in-case" items. Gardening, old crafting techniques, reading, manga, animé-especially the alternate-world kind. If I had one regret, it was not traveling as much as I'd wanted. But all things end eventually. I expected nothingness... or whatever reward awaited after a long, fulfilling life. Instead, I woke up to the very real problem of a massive creature trying to eat me. I'd been reborn into another world. I should have been thrilled, right? With very little to go on-aside from the fact that magic existed here-I decided the smartest approach was to keep a low profile and train like crazy. Survive first. Explore later. My new family seemed pleasantly surprised (and occasionally alarmed) by my dedication to both physical and magical training. And once I started attending school, I made fast friends... then accidentally convinced them to apprentice under my father. The more the merrier, I figured. But hiding my abilities is proving harder than expected, and the more I grow, the more certain people seem unsettled by my existence. Surviving to adulthood may be the real challenge. *This is a slow-burn, coming-of-age story with early magic training. It is not a romance-yet. **This series is marked Mature not for explicit content in this volume, but because later books will include heavier themes. I prefer to err on the side of caution. ***I am a Canadian author. English spelling follows Canadian usage. ****Note about the cover image and banners: The cover and banners were created with AI assistance in Canva.

She didn't know him. Had never seen him before. And yet... somehow, she had been the center of his world for years before she even knew his first name. Tulia Tacitus just wants a quiet life. Obsessed with books, music and all things art, she moves through life with quiet self assurance. Something she was never quite given from her parents. Convinced that they'd always just been... busy. To her, they're nothing more than the quintessential workaholic family, distant and professional. She has no idea that the "business" they conduct in the shadows is anything but normal. Lucius is not a man ruled by impulse, which is exactly why he himself is as shocked as anyone to discover his obsession with the daughter of the family that cost him his world. He didn't start watching her out of curiosity, though his lines quickly blurred. He started because he was looking for answers-for leverage, or anything he could get his hands on to settle an old score. But as the lines between a cold-blooded mission and a dangerously real attraction begin to blur, Lucius realizes he's made a fatal error. He didn't come to fall for the girl he was supposed to exploit. He came to watch her, not to want her. Because Lucius doesn't chase, he claims. And Tulia? She has no idea that the man who's intertwined himself so intricately into her life, is the same man who sent out to ruin her.

***working on line editing, you aren't missing anything new if you've read ahead of the chapter that I'm updating and releasing again.*** Curses and monsters abound in a sea full of secrets and dark temptations. A war of the gods leaves mortals and hunters at their command in a small port town of Maine. Lulled to the sea by a curse that killed her mother and has haunted her since birth, Ceria longs to change her fate. Felix is the coward of his kind and a disgrace as future king. He longs to be up on the surface. To be with the mortals and away from his destiny.