PRISONER OF THE DEEP

Sixteen-year-old Henry Drake watches his father murdered by the one‑eyed pirate Crow and is blasted into the deep sea. The sea‑queen Serena saves him — but awakens an ancient curse: scales crawl over his skin, gills split open behind his ears. She gives him a mermaid’s tear, which can suppress the curse for one year. The price: if he doesn’t find the lost rune stone within a year, he will lose himself and become a monster roaming the sea. Resurrected, Henry washes ashore on a deserted island. A primitive tribe worships him as a sea god. Two young girls cling to him day and night, but an old man secretly warns him: never let them get pregnant — or he will be sacrificed and devoured. Worse still, Crow’s pirates have already infiltrated the tribe’s ritual, waiting for the full moon to close in. The curse ticks inside him. Pirates lurk outside. The girls wait by his tent. And legend says his ancestor, Francis Drake, is still alive, trapped somewhere in the ocean. Henry has less than a year. Flee or die?