Voice and ownership
The Tide King treats songs, passages and people as property; Ligeia’s refusal begins by using her voice for those he calls cargo.
In active revision
Claimed by Fate — in development
Heir to the Sea-Witch
The Tide King took her voice. He did not take the twenty-eight days she has left.
After rescuing trafficked children from a slaver ship, the siren Ligeia is stripped of her rank, voice and sea-born body. Cast onto land with twenty-eight days before she becomes foam, she meets privateer captain James Tregellis—and discovers that the sea has forgotten less than its rulers would prefer.
The book at a glance
Where this story lives
- Status
- In active author revision
- Series position
- Claimed by Fate novel in development
- Reading experience
- Romance-first mythic dark fantasy
- Central couple
- Ligeia and James Tregellis
- Mythic territory
- Sirens, sea witches, privateers and a king beneath the water
- Story clock
- Twenty-eight days
From sea to shore
A free song cannot be owned
Ligeia has served as First Voice of the deep court for two centuries. When she uses her song to wreck a protected slaver ship and carry thirty-one children to shore, the Tide King calls her mercy theft.
Her punishment is designed as a lesson: voice and rank seized, gills sealed, her body remade for land and twenty-eight days before she dissolves into foam. Those days are still hers—and she refuses to spend them demonstrating the King’s power.
James Tregellis is a privateer captain with an inherited feel for weather, an old grief and more connection to the vanished human sea-witch line than he understands. Their meeting draws hunger, choice, ownership and a buried history of the sea into the same dangerous current.
Inside the story
The threads beneath the plot
Hunger and choice
Predatory appetite does not erase compassion. The story asks what ethical choice looks like when hunger itself cannot simply disappear.
What the sea remembers
Lost names and buried inheritance return through salt-women, sirens and the histories power tried to make unaskable.
This tide may be yours if…
You want sirens, privateers and a romance that refuses ownership
- A formidable siren forced to learn the hostile physics of life on land
- A warm, restless privateer captain whose inheritance is stranger than luck
- Sea magic built from voice, rain, hunger, bargains and remembered history
- A power struggle centred on ownership, consent and the price placed on lives
- Mythic romance in which compassion and predatory nature are allowed to coexist
Clear answers
Before you begin
Is Heir to the Sea-Witch published?
Not yet. It is currently in active revision, and this page describes the work in development rather than announcing a release date.
Does it continue Sacrificed to the Wolf God?
It belongs to the same Claimed by Fate series, but it is a standalone story in a separate world with its own central couple.
Who are the central characters?
Ligeia is a siren and former First Voice of the deep court. James Tregellis is a privateer captain with a buried connection to the human sea-witch line.
Where can I hear about its progress?
The Story-Forge Dispatch is where Dana shares works in progress, mythology, creative experiments and the imperfect business of making books.