Tales from the Asylum – Aisha Urooj

Tales from the Asylum is a feature in which authors put their characters (an already existing one or a completely new one) in an asylum room of their choosing, with a task/duty of their choosing to see how they would deal with the situation. A lot can happen in a magically warded building…

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For SPFBO 9 I’m returning to my old tradition, where I offer to the authors in our batch a spotlight on Queen’s Book Asylum. While in previous years I created a new feature, this year I let them choose between all of my available ones: What the Hungarian?!, Tales from the Asylum, Stuck in the Pages, Party with the Stars, To Be Continued…, as well as the regular author spotlight options of an interview, and a guest post.

Aisha Urooj, the author of The Stone Mermaid, chose Tales from the Asylum, so let’s see how she imagines our home!

Aisha Urooj lives in Ontario, Canada and is a multi-genre writer who writes fiction and fantasy.

Connect with Aisha Urooj

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He will give up everything for love.

As dark prince of the dark seas, Victor has everything. Everything except Ariana’s love. Victor is Ursula’s son, so he can’t blame Ariana for not trusting him.

He will do anything for her, but she is falling for a mortal prince. Can Ariana see that Victor’s heart is true, or is it too late?

With his mother, Ursula, against the sea king’s daughter, will Victor’s love cost him everything?

The Stone Mermaid is a mythical tale of mermaids and other legendary sea creatures and monsters. This is an epic story of love and betrayal, involving Ariana, the sea king’s daughter, Ivan, a human prince, and Victor, the sea witch’s son.

Love has the power to change destinies in this ravishing new take on a classic tale.

Victor was in his mother’s garden. The place was as macabre as her heart. 

“Hello, family,” Victor said. “What are you up to today? Oh, right… nothing.” 

His quip was met with crickets. 

Victor sighed. He should really stop talking to the stone statues, but they were the only company he had here, unless he counted the whale. Victor wisely excluded his mother because any conversation with Ursula wasn’t a conversation at all. It was an order. 

“How’s the back pain?” Victor asked the statue in front of him. It was an old merman who had made a deal with Ursula to protect his daughter, and lost. Now, he was a pile of stone until the end of time… or until the statue crumbled. It was Victor’s job to make sure it didn’t happen… well, it wasn’t his job, per se. He just took it on to avoid mind-numbing boredom in this asylum. 

“What’s the latest in fashion?” Victor asked the statue of the selkie. He had traded his soul for the most luxurious fur coat… too bad he never got to wear it. 

“Seen any sailors lately?” Victor asked the siren next. Her face was contorted into an endless scream. “All right… All right… forgot I asked,” Victor said to her. 

There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of statues of all kinds of sea creatures… and the sea witch added more daily. 

Victor missed his friends, but not so much that he wanted to see them as ornaments in Ursula’s garden. He especially missed the siren sisters, Amber, Onyx, and Scarlet. He wondered if they were still fighting over him. 

He could almost hear their voices… 

“I miss Victor so much… I haven’t been able to sing in days!” Amber will lament. 

“I miss Victor more than you! I haven’t snatched a soul in weeks! I am withering away in mourning,” Scarlet will say, wiping a tear. 

“I miss Victor the most,” Onyx, the oldest siren sister, will claim. “I will never look at another merman again! No one will compare to my dear Victor.” 

The three sisters will sigh together. 

Victor felt slightly better. He could imagine the siren sisters pining away for him, but he could never dream of one sea creature the same way. A certain unobtainable mermaid, who would never fall for him despite him being who he was, the most eligible dark prince… 

Ariana. 

Victor shook his head to keep the sea king’s daughter out of his mind, but he couldn’t stop his heart from beating faster. Ursula would have a fit knowing he was dreaming about his enemy’s daughter. 

Victor wondered who would be the next addition? He would place his bets on Brutus, the sea king. He would be his mother’s most prized ornament… but what of his daughter? 

Victor longed to see her, even more to hear Ariana’s voice. Would he lose his mind seeing her here? Would he spend an eternity protecting her statue, hoping to one day bring her back? 

Yes. Yes, he would. 

A whale’s cry jolts him out of his reverie. 

“You are here, my old friend… and just in time. I was losing myself again,” Victor said with a grin. He swam the short distance to lie on the whale’s back and then folded his arms behind his head.

“Take me for a ride, won’t you? Let me clear my head,” he asked the whale. The creature grunts back.

Victor looked down at the grim statues and said, “I will be back soon. It is not like you have anywhere else to go… but neither do I… so I am just like you.” 

Just another ornament in my mother’s collection. 

Victor whistled, and the whale started swimming around the garden, taking in the view of Ursula’s victims. 

All the poor lost souls of the dark seas… including his.

Grab a copy of The Stone Mermaid by Aisha Urooj!

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