Ariel Slick writes original fiction including short stories, novels, and memoirs to spread the joy of imagination and creativity. She also helps clients achieve their fiction writing goals with her ghostwriting skills on Upwork.com and Guru.com. Although she has  worked as a freelancer for three years, she has been dedicated to the craft all her life. Her fiction focuses on themes of love, justice, and magic, and her most popular works include romance and fantasy romance. 

What would make a girl, terrified of everything, go into the woods? Knights chasing after her, for starters. All Elaine wants is to stay in her small village forever, baking bread with her family. All that changes when she discovers that she is one of seven girls with the gift of magic. Elaine must leave behind her family and flee into the deep, dark woods where anything and everything can happen. Only guided by a talking fox, who may not be who he says on the surface, Elaine battles thieves, murderous plants, and magical creatures of all sorts. She will discover her powers and why they matter: to dethrone the evil king.  Will she be brave enough to embrace her powers?

Valient

I am older than I appear. I know that I look young, but mermaids actually age slower than humans. And that is what I ama mermaid. 


I first came from the ocean; I was part of a beautiful tribe of mermaids and mermen. Our scales and our hair color matched, and we were all colors of the rainbow: lavender hair, deep purple eyes, green as emeralds, or yellow as lemons, with eyes so bright you would have thought the sun was shining out from them. 


As a mermaid, I am able to speak the tongues of all creatures; we naturally can speak with fish, but this gift translated itself when I became human. It was one of the things that I was able to keep of my true nature, and I love it and cherish it that much more. I adapted to the forest very well. The birds and beasts of the air became my friends in a way that people never could. 


Chapter 40