Christopher Russell's Blog

Divinity's Twilight: Rebirth has a long, epic prologue. I should know, since I wrote the massive thing.

Some readers adore it. A few have even said things such as, "It's like the Battle of Helms Deep or Minis Tirith at the start of the series." Truly astounding praise, and I'm thankful to everyone who feels that way.

But if you were thinking of giving the series a go and wanted a, shall we say, jump start on the book, look no further than the new, improved, ABRIDGED version down below. I wrote this new incarnation of Rebirth's prologue after finishing book two, Remnant, and I think it really showcases how far I've come as an author. It still possesses all the heart-pounding action and intrigue of the original . . . but in a fraction (a quarter, to be exact) of the word count.

Whether you're an old fan or a new one, I think you'll love this chaotic glimpse at the origin of Divinity's Twilight. Some things have changed. Slightly. I leave it up to you to figure out what.

And when you finish, please, please, PLEASE leave a comment (or send me an email) saying which version you prefer - the old, or the new. It may become the start of a prequel project or a second edition . . .

Prologue: “At the Edge of Reason”

697 Years Ago . . .

The thing pinning Darmatus Aurelian to the ground had once been a man.

"Tarn!" Darmatus cried as he shoved against its shattered, warped breastplate. Gleaming red crystals thrust through it like splintered spears, reflecting the light of the forest around them. Fires greedily devouring ferns and trees. Flashing blades, crackling bolts of lightning, and the ebony radiance of a massive vortex spiraling out of control.

Darmatus tried again. "Tarn! This isn't you. Fight it, soldier. Come to your senses!"

The thing that had been Tarn spat its reply, cracked, bleeding gums pulled back in a snarl as it surged again and again and again at the throat of its former lord. More crystals lined its mouth, fangs that tore through flesh and sinew with no regard for what the Creator above had wrought. Tarn's left eye was gone, a blossom of crimson curling from the socket like rampant ivy. The skin of his cheeks sloughed southward, exposing milk-white bone and crystal seedbeds waiting their turn to sprout.

And beneath it all jangled a silver pendant, clasp broken, an ash-smeared portrait swaying back and forth right above Darmatus' drool-drenched nose. Alya, Tarn's wife, stared down at him, hawkish eyes boring through his dented plate armor, his gambeson, his soul.

You did this.

No. No, it was Sarcon, it was his greed, his—

Alya's son glanced up from his toy soldiers, pointing at Darmatus' guilty heart.

You let him go free. You didn't punish him for his crimes. You killed my father.

It was true. With a roar, Darmatus lunged forward, pushing through the drool and blood, the putrid breath of the corpse atop him.

For that was all that remained of Tarn.

All that the Red Plague, unleashed by his elder brother's treachery, had left of him.

The creature clawed at Darmatus' breastplate, gouging furrows in the muddy surface, scarring the silver underneath. Such a pitiful beast, retaining none of the intelligence the knight had once possessed. It came at him, again and again and again, crystal nails raking, jaw snapping like a ravenous drake. Only the light of madness still lit its solitary, bloodshot eye.

Raising a boot, Darmatus kicked the monster away. It tumbled through the muck, bounced off a blackened tree stump, and came to rest against a pile of bodies. Some were just like it, flesh riddled with grotesque growths, veins pulsing red instead of blue. Most wore Darmatus' livery—a lance laid atop a blue field—and screams forever frozen on twisted lips.

In an instant, the vile thing regained its balance, limbs cracking as it turned and charged on all fours. Yet an instant was all Darmatus needed. He reached within himself. Touched the men'ar flowing through his veins, the essence of the Creator this abomination sought to feast upon. Yanking a dagger from his belt, Darmatus jabbed it at Tarn, envisaging a torrent of flames as tears cut the soot clinging to his stubble.

"Spi'ferat," he sobbed.

An inferno gushed from the blade, men'ar crossing the boundary between spirit and the waking world. It wrapped Tarn in a column of dancing reds and oranges and yellows, rending what little skin remained from its bones, dragging animal screeches from its diseased gums. The stench of charred flesh filled Darmatus' nostrils, so familiar it failed to turn his stomach.

And then . . . silence.

No, not silence. The sounds of battle slammed into him like a wave. Dying screams. Shouts of triumph. Exploding spells, clanging swords, the otherworldly shrieks of beasts beyond mortal ken. One noise consumed them all—a whirring wail louder than all the fell spirits of the Afterplane singing in unison.

Darmatus knelt, ripped his lance free of the dirt, blood, and spilled innards, and stood to glare at the calamity his eldest brother had created. At the Oblivion Well Sarcon had summoned when he'd at last been cornered.

Up and up and up it stretched, out of the forest, into the storm-darkened heavens above. It was a vortex. No, not merely a vortex. Darmatus could feel it. Calling to the men'ar in his blood, the arcane energy that was him. Even as its crashing, coursing winds grated against his ears, willing him to curl up and shield his head, it hummed a haunting melody inside his mind.

Come.

Join us.

Be whole again.

"My Lord!"

The shout tore Darmatus from his reverie. Beckoned by that phantom whisper, he'd taken three steps toward the maelstrom—right into the path of a charging pyrevant. All five of its bleeding faces bellowed as it charged, flame-wreathed granite arms reaching to crush the life from Darmatus' lungs.

He pivoted, blocking with a wall of wind that streamed from his lance in either direction. Embers surged from the rock monster's fire-laced cracks as it galloped past, but the magic-infused gusts turned the heat away from Darmatus and the man cringing in his shadow.

"Jarrik, what are you doing here? It's safer at camp than—"

"Safe?" The man ran a hand along his graying widow's peak, wiping away sweat and flecks of mud and ash. "Nowhere's safe anymore, My Lord. More of those," he pointed at the pyrevant, which mindlessly dashed through a cordon of Darmatus' knights before bashing off two of its many arms on a tree, "are crawling out of the ground every minute. Ellara has abandoned her camp and is bringing the reserves forward."

Darmatus glanced past Jarrik, his eyes darting from melee to melee, trying to make sense of the chaos. Two more pyrevants rushed a phalanx of knights with heavy spears. The first spitted itself on the jagged weapons, rearing back as mages hurled bolts of lightning at its engorged torso. Most glanced harmlessly off its hardened flesh, but one punched through a red-hot vent and into its core.

Shrapnel exploded in all directions. Shards of granite, hunks of coal, gleaming yellow crystals. Cheers of victory instantly turned to shrieks of despair as a cloud of expanding steam melted knights within their armor, searing plate to flesh, cooking their eyes and organs. The second pyrevant bounded through the wreckage of the first, pounding bodies into the ground with its vicious hooves.

"She mustn't commit the reserves here." Darmatus grabbed Jarrik's leather-padded shoulder, preparing to send him somewhere—anywhere—but here. "This battle is lost. We need to withdraw to . . . to . . ."

He trailed off, and Jarrik nodded. "There's nowhere to retreat to. The Alliance wandered into your broth . . .'' Darmatus' eyes flashed fury, and Jarrik bit his tongue. ". . . Into Sarcon's trap. We thought he was weak, but this," he waved at the blood, the death, the carnage, "was clearly his plan all along."

The whistling winds grew louder, their gusts tugging at discarded banners, snapping the gilded tassels on fallen officers' cloaks. Darmatus and Jarrik rose from their huddle, eyes glued to the Well as its ebony wall crept forward in a circle. Trees burst to dust at its touch. A knight encased in scarlet crystal stumbled against it and disappeared without a shriek.

All life was its to claim.

"To what end?" Darmatus mumbled. "Would he let the Well destroy everything just to spite us? Consume Lozaria to spite me?"

Jarrik bowed his head. "I cannot say, My Lord."

My Lord. The title rankled Darmatus like nothing else. Those two words bound him. To the fate of this army, to the lives of his men, to the wellbeing of his people. And, more than anything else, they had bound him to the accursed choice that might cost him two brothers this day.

"I am lord of nothing now, Jarrik. Do not call me that." Darmatus stared at the mud gripping his boots, so soft, so welcoming. To curl up now and be rid of it all would be such sweet release.

Then give it to me. A velvet-soft finger caressed the inside of his temple, its soothing whisper rising from deep within. I can take your burden.

I can give you victory.

No, anything but that. If Sarcon would destroy the world to spite him, Darmatus would fight to his final breath to spite what lay within him—the curse of his power, another thing that should not be.

"Of course, My Lord," Jarrik replied, a smug smile splitting his wrinkle-carved cheeks.

Darmatus punched him in the shoulder. "Sycophant."

"Bumbler."

Reaching up with his free hand, Darmatus grabbed the thin plate welded over the center of his armor. A single men'ar-enhanced tug wrenched it free, exposing the bright, almost blinding green crystal beneath.

"Illyriite . . ." Jarrik breathed, shielding his eyes. "If you use that, My Lord, then—"

Darmatus nodded. "Emerald green from depths not seen, new life it gives to those unclean," he recited, brushing the legendary stone with his gauntlet. A children's nursery rhyme, one that grew grander with every retelling of how the Aurelian brothers had eradicated the Red Plague.

A plague his older brother had unleashed once more.

"What the stories leave out . . ." Darmatus paused, his smile soft, wistful. ". . . Is the cost. Tell Saris I love her and . . . to guide the boy well. Between the two of you, he will make a fine king."

Jarrik didn't try to stop him. Banging his fist to his chest in salute, he crouched and took off through the dying, smoke-choked forest.

May Sariel and the Veneer watch over you, Darmatus prayed, then thought better of it and spat in the bloody muck at his feet. Sariel cared not for their fates. None of the divine Veneer did.

Now . . .

"To me, knights of the Alliance!" Darmatus roared. Heads turned at his cry, some clad in silver helms that matched his own armor, others with pointed red ears or shaven blue heads. Once, the seven races of Lozaria had been enemies.

Today, over half of them stood on the plains of Har'muth as allies.

They would win.

The alternative wasn't even worth considering.

Wounded and weary, dragging bent swords, broken spears, and heavy shields, they formed around Darmatus. He held his lance in the air as a beacon, feeding men'ar into it until flames surged into the sky, bursting through the gnarled forest canopy, ascending to match the ebony wall across the clearing.

Draconic cries and the beating of leathery wings came from above as the Sylph readied their cavalry for one final charge. Along the line, gigantic Hues beat their four mighty fists against their tower shields, creating a din that shook the very ground. There was still hope in the hearts of mortals. Darmatus could sense it, as surely as he could sense the men'ar thrumming in his veins, begging to be used.

Opposite them, the ground split and trees fell as more pyrevants heaved themselves from the depths. Twisted limbs pounded the earth in a discordant rhythm. Steam jetted from molten seams along their misshapen bulks, and sightless eyes cried tears of blood.

Beneath them huddled hundreds of shambling corpses, their crystal-pocked skin glittering scarlet in the light of the flames. They were horrors one and all, their bellies bloated, heads malformed, and flesh mutilated by hideous crystal flowers. A soldier near Darmatus doubled over at the sight, spilling his morning gruel between his feet. Yet most stood firm, for the alternative was death.

"He . . . hehehe . . . he finally did it, he did," cackled a voice at Darmatus' shoulder. He fought back a fresh wave of tears. He couldn't falter. Not now.

"We will stop him, Rabban."

"Can we, can we?" his younger brother retorted, cocking his head to the side as his grin widened. Dark hair soaked with congealing blood dangled over his leather pauldrons, around his neck, and down his back. "This was his aim. I see-see it now. Good elder brother didn't mean to cure me, no-no, no-no. He wanted poison and antidote both. Control, control, CONTROL!"

It had been a mistake to bring Rabban to the battle. Darmatus glanced around at the soldiers near them, smiling as he dispelled his beacon, wrapped an arm around his brother, and leaned in close. Years had passed since madness had last taken Rabban's senses, but . . .

The corpses started advancing toward them, first at a shamble, then a run. Such a terror was enough to break any man, let alone his brother, who'd nearly died to the crimson scourge. It was Sarcon's ultimate betrayal. A sacrilege. Despicable, disgusting . . .

"We will kill him," Darmatus promised, surprised at the venom in his words. His blood raced. His heart pounded at his ribs like a battering ram. "Slowly, painfully, however you'd like, dear brother. But for now," he patted the glowing satchel tied to Rabban's belt, emerald light piercing the threadbare sack like the noonday sun, "I need you."

Wide eyes stared through him as Rabban tilted his head the opposite way. "Maim, kill, slay. This is good. Very good. We fight, we fight, WEFIGHT!"

Not waiting for an order, Rabban hefted his twin handheld crossbows and rushed their foes. It wasn't the signal Darmatus wanted, but it was good enough.

"CHARGE!"

They thundered across the ruined forest glade, leaping downed trees, skirting bodies and blood-filled holes dug out by rising pyrevants and exploding spells. Sylph astride vicious, scale-covered drakes swooped between the forest boughs. Blue Hue mouths belted war cries loud as any of Nemare's temple bells.

Temples that were now scorched rubble. Bells that would never again toll.

All because of Sarcon.

All because of his voided ambition.

Today, his butcher's bill comes due.

Snarling, Darmatus turned inward, directing his men'ar as a general commands his troops. Light and free, wind danced at his feet. Sturdy and firm, the power of earth formed in his lance hilt.

He shot into the air on springs of air. Higher, higher, until he was positioned directly over a brute of a pyrevant—a massive beast large as a blacksmith's furnace and twice as hot. Then he gathered an orb of flame against his back, a pinprick of chaotic energy small enough to hold in his hand.

Darmatus released it and exploded toward the ground. His lance cleaved the pyrevant in twain, wind rushing from him like wings, blowing its shredded carcass outward in a wave of destruction. Dozens of Red Plague mutants were felled like ripened wheat, their crystal-tortured flesh disintegrating beneath a hail of stone and steam.

But Darmatus wasn't done. He drove his lance into the cracked soil, feeding it his men'ar, willing it to listen. The men'ar that slept there stirred, slowly at first, then faster and faster as his power overwhelmed it.

He was the Triaron, master of the elements.

He would be obeyed.

The forest floor crumpled around him in expanding rings, thumping as it shifted, as it convulsed with each passing second. Then it ruptured. Titanic slabs swung upwards, crashing against each other and crushing whatever lay between them. Great earthen spears thrust skyward, skewering pyrevants and raising them into the air, impaling crystalline monstrosities in their scores.

Dark were Sarcon's magics. Ancient and powerful, not to be trifled with.

But Darmatus was the Triaron, and he would not—could not—lose this day.

The Alliance line closed and fell upon their disorganized foes. Drakes dove again and again, snatching abominations in wicked claws and flinging them toward the heavens. Faratul, Grand Magister of the Sylph, stood atop the black wyvern Khorrix, slashing apart pyrevants with searing beams of light. Kanar'kren, Regent-General of the Hues, shattered creature after creature with four bucklers larger than granary milling stones. Darmatus' own knights waded in with sword and spear, hacking down Sarcon's abominations and their own mutated comrades with tear-filled eyes.

For now, it was enough. Enough to hold the undying army at bay while he did what must be done.

Green light flared from his chest plate as Darmatus drew on the power of his Illyriite shard. Pure arcane energy flowed into him, banishing his aches and fatigue, making his skin tingle and his hair stand on end. It was like holding the sun in his hands, or standing in the middle of a raging storm. Brilliant and electric. A connection to all that was . . . and what would be.

Darmatus felt everything then. The breath fleeing a dying knight as a crystal blade took him through the ribs. Each wingbeat of the drakes above, each flutter of their slotted eyes. Blood trickled from open wounds, drop by drop by drop. Vibrations—stomping hooves, running feet, falling corpses—rushed up his legs like the tremors of earthquakes.

But . . . addicting as it was, Darmatus couldn't stay. He took what strength he needed, then severed the connection. For an instant, he was dead. Cold and empty.

Then he was running, acting and reacting faster than anyone but Rabban—likewise encased in an emerald aura—could see. Darmatus sent a cone of flame forward, scorching the diseased from existence with a hastily whispered prayer. A pyrevant rolled at him, legs and arms tucked against its bulbous body, but a crackling lightning barrier burst from his flesh and dashed it into a thousand fragments.

Until Darmatus ran dry, until he breathed his last, he

was

magic

incarnate.

Wind slashed from his lance. Fire leapt from his fingertips. He waltzed across the battlefield on wings of flame, gusts altering his course, pillars of earth erupting at a thought to give him hand and footholds. Nothing could stand in his path. Not the tortured souls Sarcon had corrupted to his bidding, not the aberrations he'd formed in the bowels of Lozaria.

This.

Darmatus landed at the edge of the Oblivion Well, its keening wails but a whisper compared to the whirlwind blowing inside him.

Ends.

Rabban appeared beside him, manic grin warping his face, not winded in the slightest.

Now.

As one, they grabbed their Illyriite shards.

As one, they thrust the emerald fragments into the seething wall of shadows. Into the coursing, twisting tendrils of ooze that obliterated everything they touched.

No pain lanced through Darmatus' arm. His fingers didn't turn to ash, nor was he swept away on its dark tides. Cracks sounded within their shards, sharp and piercing. Emerald fought shadow, one light devouring the other, then breaking free to consume the other in turn. Over and over again, a cycle that would end when their small pieces were overwhelmed by—

"Not enough, not enough," Rabban babbled.

He looked at the Illyriite in his hand, splinters flaking free, glowing-white fissures expanding across its surface with every passing second. A sad smile graced his lips—the same somber grin he'd worn when he'd told Darmatus and Sarcon to abandon him to the Plague so many years ago.

Straining, Darmatus stepped toward him. "No! You're not going to—"

"Win, brother."

Light erupted from Rabban, peeling open a gap in the Well even as it turned his flesh to ash.

"NO!" Darmatus screamed again.

Too late. He stumbled through the shadows, his last glimpse of Rabban a fading smile that came apart stitch by stitch as the Well closed behind him. Life was men'ar, but men'ar was also life. What was taken from the Veneer could always be returned.

His tears dried before they ever formed. Yes, Darmatus had lost one brother. But before he gave himself over to grief, before his own end, there remained one more brother to send to the Afterplane.

No, not the Afterplane, Darmatus decided, drawing himself up, stalking forward with lance extended. I'll kill Sarcon so thoroughly his soul goes straight to the Void.

The sounds of battle beyond the Well were absent, replaced by an eerie silence. Where churned mud and brittle grass lined the forest outside, the ground here was like glass or obsidian, dark and polished to the point Darmatus could see in it his haggard, blood-flecked reflection. What was this place? Was he still in Har'muth?

"Sarcon?" he called. The name tasted like bile, but he spat it anyway. "Enough games. Enough running. Let's end this."

His words and footsteps echoed about the space, bouncing up toward the bright heavens far above and off the stones below. There was nowhere to hide. No buildings, trees, or undergrowth. Just the obsidian floor, a slight basin at the Well's center, and . . .

Darmatus blinked.

. . . seven pedestals holding seven purple crystals. These were no rough hewn shards, not like the weak illyrium fragments that powered Sarcon's pyrevants or the almost divine Illyriite crumbling in Darmatus' left hand. They were perfectly formed, smooth without cut or blemish. And inside, deep within their ebony confines, floated an inky black fluid.

He stepped up to the nearest, an obelisk the size of his gauntlet-covered forearm. Others were larger, about the height of a man, while some were as small as his fist. What made them different? What . . .

The fluid within the shard moved, tendrils beckoning to Darmatus like a lover's fingers. Calling him closer, nearer. Whispering sweetly in his ear, asking what he—

"Entrancing, aren't they?" croaked a voice from the shadows.

Darmatus recognized that voice. He dropped into a fighting stance, teeth bared, breath coming in heaving grunts. "Show yourself, voidstain. Rabban's soul—the souls of all the comrades you've betrayed—hunger for your blood."

"Would that I could give it." Sarcon's voice was raspy. Weak and ragged. Was this some ploy? Another trick?

Shuffling came from behind the third pedestal to Darmatus' right. He spun, charged, and came to an abrupt halt when he saw Sarcon.

His elder brother was no more. Where once powerful muscles had filled out his tunic, dangling skin and withered bones sagged within a white robe that hung limp atop his shoulders. His long, flaxen hair—his pride and the envy of the kingdom—had been bleached like sand and was just as fragile, falling from his liver-spotted scalp in clumps. Sallow, pockmarked skin peeked through the gaps in his baggy vestments, and a trail of hair, skin flakes, and blood circled the pedestals behind him.

Sarcon's dark, sunken eyes roved the room, searching for him. Dear Veneer, he was blind—his milk-white pupils rheumy like some ancient crone decades older than he should be. "Where . . . where are you, brother?" Sarcon mumbled through pale, sore-coated gums.

This changed nothing. Darmatus strode forward, leveling his lance, gaining speed with each step. Whatever sorcery had cost Sarcon his youth, it couldn't placate the rage burning inside him. Couldn't turn back the clock and resurrect Nemare—raise its marble walls, rebuild its libraries, or revive the scholars that had choked on the fumes from their own books.

Darmatus reveled in the carnage he was about to unleash. He'd flay the skin from Sarcon's flesh, pull out his entrails, and stuff them so far down his throat he'd be—

NO.

Sighing, Darmatus stopped in front of Sarcon. Those were not his desires. It was the thing in his mind, the entity tied to his power.

Sarcon would die, but there was something he needed to know first.

"How do I stop the Oblivion Well?"

Sightless eyes swung toward him, and desiccated lips pulled back in a grin. "You don't."

"Wrong answer." Darmatus grabbed Sarcon's limp arm, snapping it as he shoved the living-corpse against the purple crystal. Shrieks shattered the silence as his brother tried, and failed, to break free of his grip. "Try again."

"You heard the Elysium," Sarcon said, blood dripping from his mouth to stain his robes. "It calls to you, asking your greatest desires. I made a wish. I gave it my soul, my youth, my time."

Reaching up, Sarcon wiped the blood from his lips, then let his remaining arm fall to his side. Would breaking that one make him more pliable?

"I can sense your fury, your rage," Sarcon continued. "But it's too late."

Darmatus brought his lance tip up until it touched the spot below Sarcon's heart. "I can still kill you. What was that advice you always gave me? 'Slay the mage, end the spell?'"

A mad, blood-flecked laugh answered him. "Ha! You are fighting against powers beyond your ken, brother. Forces you couldn't possibly comprehend. Kill me, and the Elysium will . . ."

Sarcon smiled, a manic, ear-to-ear grin.

". . . still . . ."

He swung his unbroken arm forward, then smashed it back against the obsidian shard, blood-smeared fingertips swiping along its gleaming surface.

". . . carry out . . ."

Darmatus flung Sarcon aside, his body cracking as it struck the stones. The whole space lit up with purple radiance, the stones on the pedestals glowing brighter and brighter. Above, the swirling winds redoubled in strength, the shadows within their walls darkening until they were black as pitch. No light shone through. Not a drop from the heavens, nor a flicker of flames from the forest outside.

". . . my . . . will . . ." Sarcon gasped, curling about his ruined body.

Men'ar raced to the tip of Darmatus' lance, expanding into an orb of violent lightning that scorched the ground beneath it. He stabbed it forward. Thrust it at the final obelisk, the one Sarcon had activated with his blood.

The tip bounced off the crystal. The lightning shot away, into the Well where it disappeared without a shred of smoke or fire.

Frantic, Darmatus glanced around. At the other six plinths, beaming forth rays of darkest light. At the trail of blood leading up to each of them, around and around the room, ending where Darmatus now stood.

And, last of all, he staggered backward and stared up at the wailing walls of the Oblivion Well as they shook, trembled, then surged outward with the speed of a rushing ocean wave. Death was coming for Lozaria, and he had failed to stop it.

He had lost.

"I've won."

The voice came from the other side of the Well, past the basin, beyond the seven plinths and their shards of crystal. Darmatus rounded the pedestals, lance pointed at the back of the tall, raven-haired man who stood there. A dark robe, its shadowy hem twisting and warping in the windless silence, cloaked him from head to boot, hiding whatever bulged between his shoulders.

How in the seven hells had Darmatus not seen him until now?

"Is it not beautiful?" the raven-haired man asked, clasping his arms behind him.

A meaningless question. Only one thing mattered now. "How do I stop it?" Darmatus growled, funneling men'ar into his lance.

The raven-haired man turned . . .

. . . and Darmatus' lance began to rattle in his hand.

Welcome back to Lozaria!

Yes, I'm alive. Yes, I'm plugging away at book three—REVELATIONS!!!! (another 'Re' word)—which I hope to have finished before the end of the year and out to you shortly after.

This is the big one. Halfway through, the end of the series' first arc, and the book that contains THE MOMENT I imagined when Divinity's Twilight originally popped into my head. I dearly hope you'll love it and that this prologue teaser will whet your appetite while you wait on the full release.

Like the title says, spoilers for Rebirth and Remnant abound, so steer clear if you haven't read the first two novels. ENJOY!

Prologue:

“To Kill a Mage”

Adamantele 18, 697 ABH

Resistance Base, Sarconian Province of Darmatia

Silence was a dreadful thing.

Corporal Laris Sayles could stomach the darkness, the cavern gloom broken only by the faintest glow of the illyrium panels on the ceiling high above her. She knew the path through the resistance camp like she knew her breath. Deep and labored when Laris lost track of her training, her punches, kicks, and strikes falling along with her blood and sweat. Calm and measured when repeating orders, short when dealing with fools, and completely erratic when Major Reev leaned over her shoulder to point out—

No.

Laris stopped midstride, boot raised above a puddle of brackish cave water. Twelve steps, she chided herself. Twelve steps to the puddle, not thirteen. She pulled her foot back, straightened her uniform, and clapped her cheeks. Major Reev might not be here, but void-be-damned if Laris was going to fail the Ice Queen.

She had a mission, and nothing less than absolute precision would see it through.

Five more steps brought Laris to the end of the path, an intersection formed by a crumpled sailcloth tent and a splintered driftwood bench. She counted the clicks of her heels on the stone, then turned right onto the camp's main street.

No guards met her at the camp entrance. No hands raised in salute, no raucous mealtime cries or shouts of anger. Gone were the greasy aromas of "toss-it-in" stew. Even the eye-watering reek of the latrine had faded to a nose-crinkling whiff, and the odor of hundreds of unwashed bodies had all but melted into the stones at her feet.

Plip-plip.

Laris glanced up as more water droplets fell, glimmering like tiny stars dropping from heaven to earth. Yes, she could stomach the darkness. To rely only on her sight was to invite failure, and Laris would never fail the Major.

Plip-plip.

But the silence? Laris winced as one drop struck her cheek, its frigid fragments coursing over her lips, chin, and down her neck. She tried to smile at the sensation—the cheerful, disarming smile she used with everyone, superiors and subordinates alike. The one that made her blue eyes twinkle and set her blonde curls alight like strands of fire.

The corners of Laris' mouth didn't so much as twitch. She hated silence. The silence before battle, the silence of disapproval, the silence born from one's final breath.

Yet this silence was worse. It spoke to Laris from cold charcoal cookfires. Glared at her from vacant tent maws, flickering lamps, and dozens of discarded cans, bottles, and blood-crusted bandages.

It was the silence of failure, and Laris despised it most of all.

They should have sent word by now, an empty wooden bowl accused.

No.

Laris walked on, counting her steps—three, four, five, six—and trying to ignore the voice. To ignore her own misgivings.

It's been a week. Whether the Ice Queen won or lost at Etrus, some news should have reached us. Unless, a smear of blood on a tent flap sneered at her, they all died. Every. Last. One of them.

"The Major wouldn't die," Laris whispered, too quiet for her words to echo.

A crooked bayonet pointed at her as she passed. Who are you trying to convince? Us . . . or yourself?

Laris smacked her cheeks again, letting the sting serve as her chastisement. Major Reev was alive. The Resistance had won the battle at Etrus, crossed into the Hue Ascendancy, and secured the alliance Darmatia so desperately needed. They would drive back the Sarconian Empire, reclaim their kingdom, and then . . . and then Major Reev would smile. Bright and warm and glowing, like the sun spreading its rays across a field of ice.

That was surely what had happened. What would happen. For now, Laris just needed to trust in the Major. Her strength. Her resolve.

Trust . . . and carry out her orders.

"Twenty," Laris counted. She climbed the stairs to the cavern's peak, each step creaking—jeering—at her as she ascended. Urging her to turn back, to reconsider.

She wouldn't.

The steps expired, and Laris marched forward. A water-slick wall rose to her left, while a rickety rail lined a ledge to her right. The path possessed but one destination: the marble-white pavilion at its far end.

Light streaked from the tent's seams, banishing the darkness, driving away the gloom. Where the rest of the cavern lay dead, here there was life—the clamor of clinking glasses and the cloying scent of too much incense. Two guards flanked the entrance, rifles on their shoulders, while another four sat around a nearby table.

Reaching behind her, Laris brushed her fingers along the sheathe hidden beneath her uniform. She smiled, her pulse quickening, her breath growing shorter. This mission was by Major Reev's order, but it would bring her immense joy all the same.

For today, General Hardwick Iolus, traitor to the kingdom, would die.

Draping her other hand at her side, Laris tapped each post of the sagging railing, counting them like she'd accounted for every possible outcome to the approaching execution. Slowly, carefully, she'd altered the guard rotations, sending Iolus loyalists to scout the coastline or watch the surface entrances. Now, all six of the general's guards belonged to her—no, to Major Reev.

She was the future of Darmatia, not this bloated drunkard who could no more master his swelling waistline than he could an army. Yet was Iolus truly a traitor? Was the Major's silence proof he'd sold them out?

Perhaps not, Laris thought, clenching her fist so tight she was sure she'd draw blood. But his incompetence has stolen more than enough lives to doom him.

Laris was the shadow to Major Reev's sun, and she would do what must be done.

Voices swelled as Laris neared the tent, leaking from the flap along with an almost blinding spray of lamplight. Two speakers, one loud and boisterous, the other curt and quiet. It was clear which was the general. He seemed to drone on, seconds stretching into years as he delighted at the squawking issuing forth from his own throat.

The other . . . was a whisper. Soft and sweet, yet strangely compelling all the same. Warmth flushed Laris' cheeks and neck, pulling her toward the sound, like an embrace wrapping her up and—

She shook her head, casting off the fog of contentment. Smoke seeped through the pavilion's seams, floating around the guards, curling up toward the cavern ceiling. Some sort of drug, surely, and yet another sign of Iolus' growing depravity.

Drawing within an arm's length of the soldiers flanking the entrance, Laris saluted. "Any changes since yesterday?" she asked. The general's barking laugh more than drowned her out.

The guard on the left, Dartyl, stared straight ahead as he answered. "Nothing to report, miss."

"How many are inside?" Laris glanced at the men gathered around the table. No cards littered the peeling wood. A full mug of thin ale sat in front of bearded Jas, and a pot of wild mushroom stew was hardening to grease between him and his best mate, Kreel.

"Nothing to report, miss."

Laris took a step back, hand drifting to her sheathe, legs bending into a crouch. "It's time," she hissed. "Grab your weapons. Let's finish this."

No one moved. Dartyl gazed past her—through her—his dark, clouded eyes fixed on some eternity deep within the cavern's darkness. No steam rose from the stew; their bowls and crooked utensils lay on the table, unused, unwanted. Not even their eyes twitched, tears welling in their corners as their chests rose just enough to draw in breath.

To keep them suspended in whatever mockery of life they'd been cursed into.

A single tear slipped down Dartyl's cheek. "Nothing to . . ." he wheezed, choking the words out through purpling lips, "report, miss."

Crack!

Blood spurted from the guard's mouth. He staggered forward—one step, two—then straightened up, clutched his rifle to his shoulder, and continued to stare into the abyss. So tight were his puppet strings that Dartyl wouldn't fall, even as crimson stained his uniform coat, even as what little light remained fled his eyes.

Laris didn't try to help him. Nor did she shriek or vow revenge. She simply acted, tucking and rolling forward. Two more cracks rang out, piercing the tent flap, slicing through the air where she'd just been.

Her roll carried her into the pavilion. Whipping her short dirk free, Laris rose to a crouch, eyes darting, seeking, counting. Six people. Four were clustered at this end of the tent, hands going for their weapons, one with a smoking rifle trained on the entrance. Though all were clad in gleaming black leathers, only one seemed a match for the menacing garb—a great bear of a man who leered at her from beneath a wild mane of hair.

"Finally, some fun!" he cackled, spreading his gauntlet-sheathed arms and charging her.

"Dar!"

The one in the middle tried to grab his companion, but it was too late. Grinning ear to ear, the brute closed the gap and started swinging, each blow so hard Laris felt the force of their passing. She ducked down, dodged left, then caught a chair leg with her foot and flipped it into Dar's path.

A moment to think. That was all the chair bought her. Laris couldn't fight them all. Even though the space was small, even though they risked hitting each other if they fired at her, Laris would lose this fight. She had counted her foes, weighed her odds, and they were not in her favor.

But dying and failing—those were two completely different things.

As Dar kicked the chair to pieces, Laris rushed the long table at the pavilion's center. Maps and tokens covered it from end to end. Tiny wooden airships, soldiers with rifles, mages with meticulously carved flames sprouting from their extended hands. It had to be an expensive set. Everything else in the tent screamed opulence, from the iron-wrought wine rack, to Iolus' Trillith-silk carpets, to his feather-mattress bed, so why wouldn't his toy soldiers also cost more than she made in a year?

Huh, Laris thought, grabbing the table's edge and heaving with all her might. Maybe killing the voided imbecile isn't just for Major Reev.

Lozaria went flying, overturned wine splashing across its kingdoms and empires, miniature airships shattering against the mahogany stained floorboards. Laris ignored it all. Her whole life consisted of a single tunnel, table on one side, blocking the three soldiers for a few precious seconds, and the tightly staked pavilion wall on the other.

And at the other end of that tunnel, his lips quivering, hands and rear pressed against his desk as if trying to melt into it, was General Hardwick Iolus.

"Corporal S-Sayles," he blubbered. "If this is a-about the Major, we can—"

Blade held before her, Laris charged.

One step, she counted.

Heavy footfalls pounded behind her. The demonic bear would catch her, but not soon enough.

Two steps.

Iolus shrieked and threw up his hands. Good. A cur like him should die without dignity.

Three steps.

The faintest hint of a whisper touched the smoke-choked air, cutting through it like a blade, slicing toward Laris' ears. She shifted her gaze. Beside Iolus stood a dagger of a woman, her black uniform crisp and pressed, her chestnut hair tucked up beneath her officer's cap until hardly a strand peaked through. Her eyes were cold—colder than Major Reev's ice, perhaps colder than the cutting gales of the Great Divide.

Four steps.

Crossed sabers emblazoned the patches on her arms, while a hooked claw emblem dug into the silver fabric of her collar and cap. A Rittermark, a high-ranking Sarconian officer. Iolus' treason was confirmed.

Five steps.

But none of that mattered. The woman inhaled, the sweet whisper of her breath tugging at Laris' eyes, turning her head to face her.

In that instant, Laris' objective changed. Killing Iolus was secondary. Right now, she

couldn't

let

that

woman

speak.

Laris flung her dirk straight and true, directly at the Sarc's sinful throat. Not a glint of panic marred her eyes. Up came her arms, crossing in an x before her. That would save her, but losing a limb would—

Clang!

The blade bounced off her wrists, struck the desk, then clattered away beneath the corner wine rack. Through the ripped fabric, Laris saw a glint of silver. Hidden gauntlets? A prosthetic of some kind?

Before the woman could open her mouth, Laris was on her. Shaking her sleeve, she dropped a hidden dagger into her hand and thrust it at the woman's belly.

Clang!

The Sarc blocked down, deflecting with her metal-clad wrist, shoving the strike wide. She countered with a hook to the ribs, which Laris caught in the crook of her arm. Latching down like a vice, she slid her right heel behind the woman's foot, ready to slam her head into Iolus' desk.

Grinning, the Sarc kicked backwards, rolling onto the desk and threatening to drag Laris with her. Metal scraped at her arm and ribs as they fought—the Sarc to escape, Laris to keep her trapped. The shards cut deep, tearing through her uniform, biting into her flesh. They felt like hundreds of little links, each bound to the next, each sharp as razors.

But Laris refused to let go. She stabbed at the Sarc as she twisted atop the desk, each strike closer than the last.

"Shoot her!" Iolus shouted.

Guns clicked, but no shots sounded. "Hold," the leader ordered. "We might hit the Rittermark."

How kind of them, Laris thought. Clamping down on the pain ravaging her arm, she drew back and rammed the dagger into the Sarc's side.

It never connected. The woman's boot found the side of Laris's head, knocking her to the side, loosening her grip. As her vision swam, the Sarc ripped her wrist free. Streaks of blood spattered the darkwood desk as searing agony blazed through Laris's side.

But she blinked aside the torment and dove back in. Chasing the woman across the desk, grabbing her collar and hanging on for dear life.

For as her master had taught her, there was but one way to kill a mage: don't let them speak.

Don't let her cast.

Laris swung wildly, carving a wicked gash across the woman's shoulder. She didn't scream, she didn't rage. Her cold eyes didn't so much as flinch, as if they'd long since suffered all the pain they could bear.

Don't let her think.

Their foreheads crashed together in a brilliant explosion of white, dashing Laris' thoughts to pieces. But she didn't need to think. She simply slashed and punched and bit. Somehow, some way, she knew that killing this one woman meant more than slaying a dozen tyrants like Iolus.

Snarling, the Rittermark lashed out with her right arm, silvery coils unwinding from beneath her tortured sleeve as she punched. Too slow. Laris jerked aside, the weapon—whatever it was—whipping harmlessly over her head.

Then she pounced on the opening, driving her blade at the Sarc's exposed throat.

Don't let her breathe.

Only . . . Laris was the one who couldn't breathe. Her hands leapt to her own throat, clawing, tearing at the force crushing her windpipe. Blood trickled over her fingers, down her neck. She couldn't get purchase. Couldn't get her nails beneath the hundreds of tightly bound links.

And finally, as she gasped for air, Laris understood what had been wrapped around the Sarc's wrists—what was now wrapped around her throat.

Chains. Thousands of chain links that would have torn and gouged and ripped at the Rittermark's pale flesh as surely as it was hers.

The pain spiked, and suddenly Laris was rolling across the floor. Tiny figurines and shards of broken glass dug into her stomach and legs, but those pinpricks were trivial compared to the fire choking away her life.

"You failed," the Rittermark said, voice seeming to come from all around.

Laris had, and somehow that hurt worse than any chain.

"But not to worry, my dear. You shall still serve. Just like Iolus, just like the rest of your comrades." The woman's words took on a melodic quality, falling not like a blade but like a spring rain. Soothing Laris' aches, removing the phantom needles lancing her skin one, by one, by one.

By the time she began to sing, Laris could scarce remember what pain was or what her mission had been in the first place. It was important, and it had been for an important person. Someone more precious to her than anyone else.

But . . . that could wait. Laris settled into the lullaby, letting it wrap her like a blanket. Letting it take away the pain and hardship and longing she'd known all her life.

"Sleep now, little one.

Sleep and forget.

The darkness can't claim you,

If it doesn't exist."

Laris counted the words. Then she counted the beats. And at last, as she drowned in the euphoric melody, she counted nothing at all.

Divinity's Twilight: Remnant paperbacks are ready for pre-order! These signed editions will ship after release day (Sept. 14) and should arrive within a week of shipment within the continental US. International shipping IS available.

TO ORDER: Click on the button below OR the paperback image.

Features:

Cover art by Chris McGrath New Lozaria world map depicting never before seen locations New Central Lozaria military campaign map annotated by an in-world character 10 interior illustrations, including those seen below 768 pages of EPIC ADVENTURE Signed by the author Includes series' bookmark

Teaser:

Power is a curse.

As Vallen and his fellow cadets flee fallen Darmatia, he is forced to confront the ghosts of his past. The friend who perished that he might live. The girl whose smile haunts his nightmares. Now, a third voice joins them—something dark, something ancient. And the more Vallen uses his magic, the stronger it becomes.

Tools exist to be used.

The flames of Sylette's vengeance are all but quenched. With each passing day, the dominion of the Sarconian Empire grows, and her treacherous father's throat drifts further from her reach. Sylette's last hope is a coded message, one that promises a growing resistance against the Empire. But even if she gains the means to avenge her mother's murder, one question remains: how many 'tools' is she willing to sacrifice to see her vengeance through?

What color is love?

Renar has learned to hide a great many things: his emotions, his art, and one truly devastating family secret. But when he must face the man who's controlled his life from the shadows, will he choose the family he's always known, or the dysfunctional crew he's been shackled with?

For every ending, a beginning.

Embers of conspiracy flare in Nemare and Sarconia. A resurrected Sarcon plots to reclaim his imprisoned flesh. As the winds of war swirl and forgotten myths rise, the choices these cadets make could save their country . . .

. . . or unleash something far, far worse.

Grab your copy and dive back into this multi-award-winning epic fantasy saga!

ARC READERS WANTED SIGN UP PAGE (Or click on the image to the right/above):

I'm looking to expand my ARC (advance reader copy) team for my upcoming sequel release, Divinity's Twilight: Remnant. I have unlimited E-book copies available and will be shipping a limited number of special edition physical ARCs internationally.

NOTE - If you have not read book one, Divinity's Twilight: Rebirth, I am happy to provide a free e-book copy for you to catch up on the series.

ARC distribution will take place the last week of August. Thanks for your interest!Genre: Epic Fantasy, Steampunk Fantasy, Military FantasyRelease Date: September 14, 2022

Length: 250k words

Special Features: Two full size maps, ten interior illustrationsBlurb:

Chapter 4:

“The Eastern Front”

Hetrachia 12, 697 ABH

Outskirts of Beiras, Rabban Imperium Industrial Megacity

Patience did not come easily to Rittermarschal Ober Valescar, especially with the wounds he suffered at Aldona Fortress gnawing at his flesh.

The aging commander now wore two suits of armor. The first was the full plate of his station, a burnished silver breastplate, taloned greaves, and heavy steel boots that always heralded his arrival with staccato claps. Mail and gambeson padding formed the next layer down, and a simple, sweat-stained tunic clung to his skin.

Skin that had itself become armor. Valescar shifted in the command chair of the Judicator, trying in vain to quell the itch spreading across his ravaged left side. Healing magic and the soothing waters of a Sarconian medical bed could only do so much. The burns—and the stench of his own cooked flesh—would never truly leave him.

Flaking scar tissue covered his body from scalp to toes, a sore reminder of the exploding airship he'd narrowly escaped. The plate he'd worn that day was seared into him, bits of charred alloy welded to his shoulder, chest, and flank. Molten drips from the patch covering his missing left eye dotted his cheek, leaving ragged gaps in the dignified grey beard he'd once cultivated. They looked a bit like tears, but not a single soldier dared to say so in his presence.

When Valescar had laid on the butcher's table, staring up at the blinding light the surgeons held over him, a mousy doctor with a hooked nose had informed him they could remove the fragments. Pockmarks—quite deep in some places—would be left behind, but their magtech researchers were making great strides in the synthesis of alchemical flesh. It would only cost Valescar a few unavoidable nerves and the men'ar vessels underneath.

He'd crushed the light with a single magnetism infused clench of his fist, brushed the doctor aside, and stormed from the facility. He was Rittermarschal Ober Valescar, commander of the seventh Sarconian airfleet, "Wall of the Empire," and staunch servant of His Majesty, Emperor Sychon Artorios. Death would claim him before he risked the power that protected the Imperial throne.

No metallic poison nor sliver of shrapnel would reach his heart—not with his magic keeping them at bay.

Which wasn't to say the wounds didn't irritate him. Valescar shifted again, his teeth set in a snarl, his eye narrowed in displeasure. Phantom flames licked at his left side, an agony made all the more aggravating by the simpering face of Lt. Colonel Stetson floating above the LDCT—Long Distance Communication Transceiver—projector in front of him.

"An' exactly what d'ya want me ta do 'bout it, Stetson?" Valescar growled, shaking his mailed fist. "This is yer mistake through and through."

The officer's cadaverous features tightened further, and his gaunt fingers twisted against each other as he spoke. "B-but sir, it was you who insisted I wait a week to pursue the girl despite the ironclad testimony I procured from the lizards. We knew where she was staying, but—"

"Need I remind ya who saved yer scrawny neck after the attempt on His Majesty's life?" Valescar half regretted that decision. One tug on Stetson's slicked-back mane would expose his weaselly throat for the executioner's axe, and his regret would be washed away. "An' even though I gave ya ample time ta cast a net ta catch 'er, ya still bungled the final stages. On top o' which ya lost a warehouse full o' supplies, a platoon o' soldiers, three panzcraft, and damaged two o' yer warships in the most inane manner possible."

"But, Rittermarschal—"

Valescar slammed the armrest of his chair, warping the thin metal. "I ain't finished, Stetson! Then—after wastin' all them resources—ya had the gall ta fire on a civilian settlement. An' at their church of all places." Valescar shook his head in disbelief. "As if the Darmatians needed any more reason ta hate us. Do ya know how hard it'll be ta protect ya from His Majesty's wrath after this debacle?"

"Please, Valescar. You have to—"

"Don't screw up again." Valescar cut Stetson off before the man resorted to unsightly begging. "My patience will only last so long. End transmission."

Valescar made a dismissive gesture at his communications officer, Annell, who flipped a switch at her station. The unctuous Stetson disintegrated into millions of tiny yellow globules, which floated back down into the rounded basin of the projector from which they'd come. Ripples danced across the pool, then stilled, waiting for another image to display.

If only the real Stetson could be so easily eliminated. Pinching the puckered skin of his nose, Valescar once again questioned why he suffered the former captain of the imperial guard to live. The axe that claimed poor Lanara's life—an axe he'd wielded himself—should have meted out justice to Stetson on its second swing.

Valescar had . . . come to terms with the fate of Sylette's mother. But he'd spared Stetson for a reason. The man owed him everything, and therefore couldn't refuse a single bizarre request—like waiting an extra week to pursue a certain exiled princess.

A warm grin split his deformed lips. Ah, lass. If only I could'a seen Stetson's face when ya gave him the slip. Ya outwitted me, ya foxed the bony weasel, an' all the Empire ain't gotta clue where've ya gone. Right proud, it makes me. How much like yer mother ye've—

No, that wasn't a sentiment the Rittermarschal could indulge in right now. Not while on campaign. Not while on the bridge of the Judicator, the flagship of his seventh fleet, minutes before she entered battle.

"Gadler!" Valescar called, rising to his feet without a groan. His body ached, but the men and women under his command wouldn't see his weakness. "What's the status o' our panickin' foe? Bring 'er up on the projector."

Captain Burntis Gadler, a lean man of middling years sporting a well-maintained chevron-shaped mustache, marched up the metal gantry from the bridge's lower deck and reactivated the projector. In place of Stetson's haggard form, a detailed three-dimensional portrayal of the landscape far below the Judicator sprang into existence.

Beiras' lofty skyscrapers dominated the far side of the image. In their shadow lay the hastily constructed Rabban Imperium defense works, the lower lip of Lake Lovare, and Valescar's own armada advancing across the Lozarian central plains.

Gadler drew a lacquered wooden baton from the belt binding his pristine uniform coat and used it to tap the far side of the yellow-tinted holograph. Valescar suppressed a chuckle. The baton was a relic, one belonging to the former war room era of muddy fields, staked down tents, and static maps littered with carved tokens denoting friend and foe.

Now the Judicator's contingent of sensory mages fed that data directly into the illyrium crystal lattice that formed the projector's core. Maps, tokens, and yes, even Gadler's prized baton, had been rendered obsolete by the march of magtech. A part of Valescar wondered when he would become a fossil of war himself.

"Imperium reinforcements are still a day or two out at best," Gadler said, circling the edge of the projection with his baton. His tone was as clipped and refined as his mustache. "Our sweep through Darmatia, coordinated with a renewed offensive against Varas Fortress, have caught Rabban completely by surprise. If we engage now, all we'll have to deal with is their local forces."

"Which are?" Valescar focused his attention on the beads of ooze coalescing into hovering warships above the fake Beiras.

"A mere dozen airships—one dreadnaught, four heavy cruisers, and a smattering of smaller frigates. We can smash right through them."

Valescar nodded. With forty warships in his fleet and two army groups containing three panzcraft divisions, five infantry divisions, four mage battalions, and numerous support units on the ground, there could be no doubt of the outcome of today's battle. There would be no siege, only a slaughter.

He pitied his opposite, the Rabbanite commander who'd been ordered to stand and die for Beiras. They'd been fools to leave their Darmatian border undefended. Fools to think the Kingdom's neutral buffer could protect their soft heartlands. They would pay the price for their naiveté.

"No need fer tricks; that's precisely what we'll do," Valescar said. "Comm, signal all ahead one third ta the fleet an' let's see what their response is. Also, tell General Schutte on the ground ta hold till we've mopped up those airships."

Heels clicked together. Gadler saluted, then marched back to his post beside the ship's wheel on the level below—the second of the bridge's three tiers. Rorck, the flint-faced, burly helmsman, offered the captain control of the ship, but Gadler waved him off and began issuing orders to a group of deck officers at the stations around him.

"Ahead one-third!" Rorck shouted. One of his bulging arms, barely hidden beneath his sweat-soaked sleeve, pressed forward on the waist-high lever beside the wheel.

"Ahead one-third!" Annell echoed, directing her cheery voice into a series of bronze voice-pipes surrounding her desk. At the same time, her deft hands tapped out a series of coded clicks on a brass knocker—a short range communication to the rest of the fleet to adjust speed.

A sharp whistle came from the ceiling. Illyrium had been fed into Judicator's engines, and she was ready to accelerate. Seconds later, a deep rumble vibrated through the dreadnaught. It quickly subsided into a quiet purr as the ship reached a third of its maximum velocity, but would return if they changed course or increased speed again.

An' now comes the fun part, Valescar thought. Judicator—her crew, not the ship—could all but operate without him. Technicians and engimages hastened hither and yon with resolute purpose. Hushed murmurs and energetic clacking came from the comm station. Bright lights flashed in the crew pits to either side of the bridge's central stairway as deck officers and mages pored over the data displayed on their instruments and crystals. The grating of boots on the metal gantries hung just below all the other sounds.

Each whisper, clatter, and hiss of steam added to the Judicator's symphony—the music of competence Valescar had cultivated over decades of military service. Gadler, Annell, Rorck, Hurgan, Ketric, Elias, Irine, and so many others he knew by name. He had followed their careers, plucked them from their units, and assembled them into the best crew the Empire over. They may not be his family, but their bonds were thicker than blood.

Valescar strode toward the front of the bridge, the crimson cloak of his rank trailing behind him. On his way, he complimented Ensign Annell on how swiftly she'd relayed his orders to the fleet. A clap on Helmsman Rorck's rock-firm shoulder brought a fierce grin to the man's scar slashed lips. Lieutenant-Commander Hurgan, straight-laced as ever, jumped to attention as Valescar passed the fire-control pit. While he returned the salute, two pages of atmospheric data readings materialized in his other hand, key points highlighted with red ink. Sensor Ketric was a silent ghost, but there was no one the Rittermarschal trusted more when his ship found herself in the middle of a storm.

Ensigns Elias and Irine, twin spotters, glanced up from their bronze spyglasses at Valescar's approach. Both women clutched their fists to their chests and inclined their heads. From their tied back blonde hair, to their freckled cheeks, to the aqua crescent-moon catalysts that dangled from their left ears, they were always in sync. Valescar tapped his own breastplate, then waved them from their post.

"But sir," Elias protested. "We've only just begun our shift." Irine shook her head in agreement.

"We're aboot ta enter combat," he replied. "The front's no place for a couple of unarmored lasses"—he clicked his gauntlet against his cuirass again for emphasis—"so why don't ya head topside an' join Lieutenant Yarric in the observation blister?" Valescar let a little iron creep into his tone, just enough to let Elias know his suggestion was really an order.

"Yes, sir!" they said, snapping their heels together, then departing for the sliding doors at the bridge's rear.

Truth be told, it wasn't a matter of lass or lad, noble or commoner with Valescar. In his mind, ability was the great equalizer. No, he simply hated seeing his subordinates die, and being near the bridge's massive glass viewport when shells started flying was a quick way to go.

He shaded his eye against the glare streaming through the steel-reinforced canopy. The morning sun was catching up to them from the west, its rays setting the hulls of his 7th fleet ablaze. Intermingled with the dawn were the bright flares cast by the Sarconian host. Orange and red blossoms sprouted from their engines. Protruding illyrium power cores radiated bright yellow light. Lume barriers of all sizes shone with dazzling rainbow hues as they shimmered to life in preparation for battle.

Forty warships, roughly a seventh of the Empire's martial might. All about the Judicator they flocked, not unlike birds of prey on hunt. Though Valescar had seen this display on countless occasions, he couldn't help marveling at the grace and precision with which they soared.

Harrier skimmers and lancerjets screened for the larger vessels, flying above, before, and between them. Light cruisers paraded behind them, their sleek forms ready to plug gaps in the formation as needed. On either side of Valescar's flagship was the main line. Stalwart, with thick armor and innumerable guns, these heavy cruisers would bear the brunt of the battle. Still further back were the reserves, freighters, and carriers. While the flattops were responsible for hauling and supplying their fighter-class craft, the lumbering transports kept the fleet afloat. Without their supplies, the illyrium and synth-oil that fed them, the warships would be nothing more than grounded hulks with guns.

Valescar's forces were reinforced today by one extra dreadnaught, the Vindicator. She was the sister ship of the Judicator—both were of the same design and were launched from drydock together—and was commanded by Vice Admiral Renfrow. Normally attached to the 1st fleet, the vessel had been released into his charge by Emperor Artorios for the campaign to subjugate the western reaches of the Imperium. Delighted at the reunion, Vindicator hung close to her sister's flank.

There ain't no way Beiras can resist all o' this, Valescar thought, shifting his gaze down. The Middenlane—the great highway that stretched from one end of the continent to the other—was a thin white line at this height. North of it was the great blue-green expanse of Lake Lovare, which bordered the Empire on its far banks, and to its south were the tiny bumps and stick thin trees that dotted the expansive Lozarian central plains.

The view would have been beautiful—if not for the blackened craters, smoking ruins, and churned up fields lining the approach to Beiras. Valescar's flesh itched anew, and a growl built in his throat. Scorched earth tactics. A smart move, from a military perspective. Absolutely disastrous for the ordinary people who called this land home.

Piles of charred white brick sat beside rain-filled shell holes up and down the highway. Little villages and hamlets, their tallest buildings two or three stories high, had been leveled, and what few thatch huts remained were being devoured by flames that cast inky smog up to greet Valescar's fleet. Trees had been reduced to stumps. No grasses swayed atop the plains; only mud and clay remained. Even without looking, the Rittermarschal knew that their precious fields had been salted. No crops would grow here for decades, maybe longer.

This was the cost of war. Beiras' wall of glimmering towers, resplendent in the morning sunlight, hid a darkness in their shadow, a darkness that hugged its drab, factory-choked outskirts and pressed on toward the far horizon. Dust, Valescar realized. They're kicking up plumes o' dust as they evacuate the city.

And what then? After they made refugees of the whole population, did they plan to destroy the settlement? Set it back centuries just to deny resources to the enemy? Valescar's wounded side burned alongside the fire seething in his chest. He spun toward the helm.

"All ahead flank speed! We're endin' this now."

Captain Gadler didn't balk at the change in plans. Reaching up, he pulled on a hanging rope, setting off piercing claxons throughout the Judicator. Every one of the vessel's thousands of crew members knew that sound: code red, all hands to battle stations.

The clamor of the bridge immediately rose from a murmur to a roar. Hurgan shouted orders at the grim-faced men manning the terminals around him, who in turn relayed orders to gun emplacements throughout the dreadnaught. Snaps and clicks echoed like pistol retorts, the sound of men and women racing to strap themselves into combat crash harnesses. There was no worse way to go than getting sucked out a shell hole at twenty-five hundred meters.

Judicator leapt forward, her engines straining for all they were worth. Grunts and groans rose from the crew as they were pressed into their seats, but Valescar leaned into the pressure, magnetizing his boots and armor to hold himself in place. The nausea that churned his insides was nothing compared to his disgust at the Imperium commanders.

Clouds of yellow illyrium dust burst around the 7th fleet, their exhaust magnified by the surge to maximum speed. The world around Valescar shook and shuddered, but he held firm, his eye trained on Beiras. The lofty, twisting spires of the city grew to dominate the viewport, and the stream of refugees became distinct enough for him to pick out humongous chained dragwyrms hauling artillery pieces and cargo bins. In the foreground, the blocky images he'd viewed on the projector resolved into trench lines, bunkers, and the Rabbanite airships protecting them from above.

"All ships reduce ta half ahead," Valescar called. He spread his legs to shoulder width and clasped his forearms behind his back. "Feed energy ta gun batteries, target enemy fleet."

"Half ahead!" Rorck repeated, slowing the ship.

Annell glanced up from her spread of comcrystals and code-knockers. "All vessel's report one-hundred percent combat readiness!"

The fleet drew together in a line, bands of light rippling across their almost overlapping lumes, an angry red glare pulsing from their thousands of weapon emplacements. Hurgan ordered one final adjustment, and the great turrets forward of the bridge swung left and leveled their cannons at the dreadnaught holding the enemy's center.

"Ready, my Lord," he announced.

Valescar held up a gauntlet, palm out. "Hold fire. The codes o' war insist that we give our foe the opportunity ta surrender. Annell, open a comm channel ta that dreadnau—"

Gouts of flame from the dozen enemy vessels—and from concealed bunkers on the ground—interrupted him. It took a moment for his brain to process what was happening, as often happened when battle erupted. Vibrant explosions dimpled Judicator's lume, obscuring their vision. The sounds struck next. First, the roar of shells detonating on their shield, then—bizarrely—the blast of the Rabbanite guns firing.

Cause and effect went out the porthole the instant battle began.

"No damage to superstructure!" Ketrik cried, one hand on his ear, the other on a glowing illyrium crystal fused to the bulkhead. "Lume is operating at seventy-eight percent efficiency."

"Scum-sucking voidspawn!" Valescar cursed, watching one of his light cruisers, the Threntas, spiral out of control with a smoking wound in her side. Links of chainmail snapped as he clenched his fist hard enough to warp his gauntlet. "Fire at will! Blow them from the skies!"

Sarconian lumes lowered, and a weighty salvo flew back at the Imperium fleet. Judicator rumbled as her own cannons discharged, engines and gravpads firing in reverse to hold her steady in the sky. Bulkhead bolts rattled, the bridge trembled, and Lt. Commander Hurgan ordered their gunners to reload.

Caught by the gusting winds, the black smoke pouring from their cannons quickly dissipated. Valescar frowned. Their marksmen were good, but the opposing commander was canny. In between fusillades, he'd drawn his smaller wedge-shaped cruisers and snub-nosed frigates about his massive dreadnaught, forming a cluster of supporting lumes that allowed them to weather the Sarconian storm.

Dropping their shields, the Rabbanites fired again. At the same time, the enemy dreadnaught's engines engaged, and the entire Imperium fleet began accelerating toward them.

The Judicator quivered under the assault, and Captain Gadler swore as he stumbled into one of the four pillars supporting the bridge's roof. The Cannavor didn't take the exchange nearly as well. Her lume gave, and her front-mounted bridge was showered with shrapnel, ripping away the canopy and slicing a nasty gash down her side. She remained aloft, but began listing heavily and drifting toward the rear.

Another update came from the sensor division. "Lume at Fifty-four percent!"

"Alternate volleys!" Valescar's blood was boiling—half with fury at losing good men and ships, half with joy at facing someone competent. Loathe though he was to suffer casualties, he loved the thrill of the fight. "Battle groups one through five will fire in ten seconds. Groups six through ten in twenty seconds. We an' Renfrow's Vindicator will open up with the hammerers at twenty-five."

The 'hammerers' were the twin, side-mounted cannons the sister dreadnaughts had been built around. Running the length of each ship—a distance of several city blocks—they delivered a payload the size of panzcraft at mountain-shattering speed. In fact, one shot from the Judicator had once shattered a Lusserian invasion from the north, collapsing a winter's worth of snow on them as they attempted to forge a narrow pass.

"Orders delivered!" Annell yelled.

Valescar took a deep breath and willed his plan to work. Still closing, the enemy fleet loosed another barrage. One of his light cruisers blipped out of existence, its magazine detonating in a blast that left behind nothing but ragged, earth-bound debris. To Judicator's port, the Vindicator moved up and took half of the rounds meant for them on her lume. Vice Admiral Renfrow's provin' ta be a capable ally, Valescar thought.

Five seconds elapsed. The opposing warships continued to close with one another, their segmented decks, gun barbettes, and the colorful flags flapping proudly from their halyards resolving into view. Garish hull paints—greens, blues, even purples—clung desperately to rusted steel that had seen better days. Valescar had always hated the Rabbanite tradition of making sure their ships couldn't be hidden.

Ten seconds.

Reloading finished, the Rabbanite's lowered their lumes. Valescar smiled—a grin so wide it tugged at his scarred flesh and set his cheek to burning. I have ya now!

Half the Sarconian host blossomed with lances of flame and smoke. Their shields down and cannons loaded, the effect on the Imperium fleet was devastating. Cruisers split in two or three places, secondary blasts from their own munitions setting them ablaze as they tumbled from the sky. A carrier hanging to the enemy dreadnaught's rear took two rounds to the engine, sending its prow—and all the fighter craft lining its top-deck—plummeting toward the plains below. In the back of his mind, Valescar could almost hear the pilots' screams.

When the smoke cleared, only five Rabbanite airships remained, and even they trailed fires that leaked from flickering lumes. The dreadnaught still hunkered at their center, engines still blazing, still rushing forward.

On closer inspection, it looked as though it had just been launched from drydock. Its swept wings were full of gaps—dark holes where weapons or lume projectors should be mounted, but weren't due to lack of time. Several of her many decks were open to the rushing winds, the gestalt steel ribs connected to her arching spine laid bare for all to see. Of the engines Valescar could see, only two—one on each side—were operational. The rest leaked spouts of ebony synth-oil and wisps of unused illyrium discharge.

His left foot began to tap, his charred toes shrieking at the motion. Why? Valescar thought. Why throw 'er inta battle instead of pullin' her ta the rear?

The Rabbanites unleashed a futile, impotent salvo, then hunkered behind their faltering shields. At twenty seconds, the other half of the 7th fleet released their storm of fire and lead. Two more cruisers careened off course to explode in greasy fireballs among the trenches below, where Imperium ground forces continued to uselessly launch artillery rounds skyward. They would never reach, but perhaps doing something—anything—made their impending doom more bearable.

Three wounded warships rushed onward. Their commander, thinking the worst was past, that all the Sarconian vessels had fired, dropped their lumes to retaliate.

Valescar slashed his right arm across the viewport. "Fire the hammerers!"

"Fire!" Gadler and Hurgen echoed.

The deck beneath their feet leapt. Anyone not sitting was tossed to the metal gantry, and Valescar's teeth chattered as his brain tried to shake itself free of his skull and his eyeballs flattened into their sockets. The boom that followed would've shattered the canopy glass—and his eardrums—if not for the shock dampening techniques Sarconian engimages had used to forge the bridge.

The two remaining cruisers disappeared. Evaporated, disintegrated, the definition mattered little. The four hammerer rounds continued through their wreckage to strike the dreadnaught. It visibly jolted under the blows, seeming to halt in midair despite the immense power of its thrusters. Half a wing tore free and flipped end over end in its wake. One of the faulty engines became a shrapnel bomb that tore a quarter of the decks apart.

For a second, Valescar thought it would fall. Drop from the air to leave a crater the size of Sarconia on the fractured earth beneath them. Yet, with a gasp of black smog, fire, and yellow-red illyrium dust, it found some hidden reserve of strength and kept hurtling toward them like a vengeful missile.

Valescar's eye went wide. For a single second of chilling clarity, all the phantom embers scorching his left side froze in place.

Missile.

Toward us.

Toward . . . me . . .

A gasp came from the comm station. Valescar whirled toward Annell, who gaped at a sparking, staticky comcrystal on her desk. "They . . . they hacked us, sir."

"Who did?"

By way of answer, she pointed a trembling, white-gloved hand out the viewport.

A loud pop came from the crystal, followed by a garbled voice—a Rabbanite voice. ". . . sscrrkk . . . You think you've won, invaders . . . sscrrkk . . . Today? Yes, that is true . . . sscrrkk . . . . Tomorrow? That is not a fate we need concern ourselves with, for . . . sscrrkk . . . neither of us will be . . . sscrrkk . . . around to see it! . . . sscrrkk . . . Come, my brothers! WE BECOME THE WIND!"

"Fire! Fire! Fire!" Valescar roared, spittle catching on the deadened half of his mouth. It dribbled down his chin and onto the clasp of his crimson cloak. "Don't stop firin' until that fool's ship is a pile o' slag on that piss-trough o' a trench they've dug."

Gadler shoved Rorck away from the helm while shouting into the voicepipe to the engine room. "Full speed astern! Give me all you've got!"

The old officers exchanged a look. A hint of fear lay in both their eyes, but not for themselves. It was already too late. They would die, and the crew they valued above all else would die with them.

Valescar turned back to the viewport. The enemy dreadnaught was a funeral pyre. His fleet had begun to encircle it from the sides, and fire poured into it from three directions. Its spine snapped. The other wing—and one of its two working engines—broke away in a spray of sun-touched sparks and silver.

Thrust unbalanced, the warship began to spin. Yet its forward trajectory retained a weighty inevitability. The Judicator's reverse thrusters engaged, tossing the bridge crew forward, but their sudden course change wasn't enough. They would soon be engulfed by the same inferno licking at the dreadnaught's hooked beak.

Raising his hands, Valescar prepared to push back with every drop of men'ar coursing through his veins. He'd never tried to move something the size of an airship before, but he would try. By all the forgotten Veneer, he thought through gritted teeth, For my crew, let it be enough.

As the Judicator rumbled backward, a very familiar fuselage bearing a gold and crimson "1" on its flank cruised past in the opposite direction. Its three top-deck turrets—one aft, two forward—were a match for the Judicator's, as was its command tower rising to a peaked bridge amidships. The only difference was the silver-haired man standing behind its viewport, fist across his chest in salute.

Valescar's jaw went slack. Vice Admiral Renfrow? The Vindicator? What are they—

A new sound burst from the comcrystal, this time a much-beloved sailor's shanty. Renfrow's gravelly, horribly off-key voice was the loudest, but thousands of different voices chipped into the tune along with his.

Yo-ho-ho, Yo-ho-ho,

Yo-ho-ho, Yo-ho-ho,

Once upon a clear blue day, up I looked an' sighed,

The breeze was brisk, the sun was warm, what a day to die!

Yo-ho-ho, Yo-ho-ho,

Yo-ho-ho, Yo-ho-ho,

"Draw in the sails," the captain said, "Reef an' stow the lines,

A storm's a comin' with our foe, what a day to die!"

Yo-ho-ho, Yo-ho-ho,

Yo-ho-ho, Yo-ho-ho,

The cannons roared, the mast did snap, ol' Betsy screamed an' wept,

Our blood ran cross the tilting deck, what a day to die!

Yo-ho-ho, Yo-ho-ho,

Yo-ho-ho, Yo-ho-ho,

Crimson is the sea now stained, the fishies gnaw our bones,

Yet the breeze was brisk, the sun was warm, what a day to—

By the time the shanty abruptly ended, Valescar and his entire bridge crew were on their feet, saluting Vindicator's bravery and singing along with them. The collision was brilliant. Hooked beak met pointed prow. Both were staved in, and as their guts intermingled, a detonation triggered deep within. Regardless of which vessel the explosion began on, an inferno swept outwards from the middle, casting fragments of their tortured bulkheads in all directions.

Valescar chanted a single word. "For'emag'wa."

The steel rain descending toward the Judicator halted, then reversed course. An entire dreadnaught was too much for the vaunted "Wall of the Empire" to stop. But the shredded remnants of one? Even two? Valescar could manage that just fine.

Yet the price in steel, illyrium, and cannons was one he'd willingly pay. The other . . .

Meaty thuds sounded against the viewport, the bridge tower, and the Judicator's topdeck. Valescar held his revulsion in check. The stench of his own burnt flesh, real or imagined, filled his nostrils day after day. Seeing its like again wouldn't break his spirits.

The same could not be said of Annell, or Ketrik, or even the redoubtable Rorck. They fell to the deck, vomiting. Valescar couldn't blame them. No one should have to look upon the charred remnants of their fellow soldiers.

The rain—both kinds—slackened, then disappeared entirely as Judicator continued her retreat. Valescar let his arms fall at his side. Then he fell to his knees, staring out the viewport at the smoking corpses of the Rabbanite fleet and the glimmering city they'd zealously defended to the last.

Beiras was all but won, and it had only cost him two light cruisers, the Vindicator, and Vice Admiral Renfrow and her loyal crew.

“A cost too voiding high,” Valescar whispered. “A cost too voiding high . . .”

"A fiery beginning to what could be one of the best fantasy series of all time."

"Peloquin has channeled the energy of the greats [Martin, Rothfuss, and Abercrombie] into an epic narrative that is as enthralling and thrilling as it is heartbreaking."

"The Hunter is Peloquin's John Wick, and Voramis is his King's Landing."

BLURB:All in Voramis know the legend of the Hunter. Relentless. Immortal. Death walking. The greatest assassin who ever lived.

Pay the master killer his due and the Hunter will execute any target, carry out any contract, no matter how impossible.

But when the Bloody Hand crime syndicate harms the innocents under his protection, they foolishly make an enemy of the one man they can’t afford to anger. The price of the Hunter’s vengeance is high—paid in blood and eternal damnation. Not even an army of crooks, cutthroats, and demonic creatures of nightmare can stand in his way.

He’s far more than just one man…he’s the Keeper-damned Hunter of Voramis.

REVIEW: 5 / 5 Stars

Peloquin has achieved the impossible: dragging my rent and bloody heart through 750 pages of pure heartbreak only to leave me grinning like a fool during the final pages. Yes, heartbreak. Darkblade: Assassin is not for the squeamish, and every twist and turn of The Hunter's tale is bound to leave shredded pages or bent plastic (for you Kindle readers) beneath your white knuckles. Let's dive into this dark fantasy masterpiece.

The Hunter is one of the three pillars of power in the festering sore that is Voramis. King Gavian might rule in broad daylight, but a vicious criminal syndicate, the Bloody Hand, owns everything else. The flesh trade, the brothels, the black market. If it's worth even an offal-caked bronze drake, they have a finger in it.

A tenuous peace exists between the Hunter and the Bloody Hand. He ignores their wanton degeneracy and corruption, and in return they give him free reign to carry out assassinations—ones he is forced to execute to sate the ravenous bloodlust of a magical dagger inexplicably bound to him. It is not a tranquil relationship, but there is peace. For now . . .

What follows is grim, bloody slaughter. Peloquin is a master of sensory storytelling, rooting you in the Hunter's unstable mind as he battles through reeking back alleys, incense clogged parlors, musty catacombs, raucous taverns, and elegant soirees. I cringed at every blow the Hunter struck and received. Tasted the coppery blood in his mouth and curled my noise up at the stench of death he was so Keeper-damned efficient at doling out. Every thrust, stab, slash, hack, chop, and any other method of dealing immense bodily harm was accounted for, and I reveled in the amount of detail I was being given.

But for all Peloquin's emphasis on action, does his world-building and characterization suffer? Hardly. If anything, these are the true strengths of Darkblade: Assassin. In the middle of all the death, despair, and suffering, my favorite segment was three subsequent chapters that consisted of nothing but the Hunter and a side character talking about lore while climbing a seemingly infinite staircase. Peloquin's mythology is riveting. The talk of gods, demons, ancient civilizations, lost continents, frozen seas, forgotten wars, and alchemy could be ripped from the twitching muscles of this book and would still be fascinating on their own. Bravo, well done!

And characterization? The Hunter is, quite frankly, a mess. But for all his brutality and bloodlust, he is a compelling, likeable mess. He must kill, but he chooses who, why, and when. Even in the midst of his long-term amnesia and despondence at the unending cycle of death and mayhem he must engage in, the Hunter has a code he follows. And, perhaps, even people he cares about. I fell in love with the brooding bloke, and my heart ached when the vicious Peloquin inflicted the unthinkable upon him.

"In these quiet moments, the Hunter became the prey, and he could never escape the lifeless eyes and accusing faces."

This low point in the novel might receive criticism from other reviewers, but not from me. Depression is not something that evaporates with one minor success or simple kindness. Guilt and shame are not overridden by direction or purpose—at least not entirely. They are ever present, like ghosts lurking just out of sight, waiting to drag us back down into the darkness at the slightest weakness or crack in our armor. The Hunter encapsulates this perfectly, and I applaud Peloquin for not shying away from these hard truths.

I could gush for hours about this book, but the highest praise I can give it is this: read Darkblade: Assassin for yourself. It will hurt you. Yet, at the same time, it will also give you hope. Hope that we can rise above our heritage, our circumstances, and our past. Hope that we can be the light in the darkness; the good that doesn't yield to evil. And we don't have to be pure ourselves to take up that fight. We have all sinned, we have all fallen, but as long as we rise to our feet once more, we will never truly be beaten.

Just like the bloody Keeper-damned Hunter of Voramis.

WORLD FIRST PREVIEW OF DIVINITY'S TWILIGHT BOOK 2 (content subject to change)

SPOILERS AHEAD

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED LAST CHANCE TO AVOID SPOILERS I MEAN IT REALLY, I DO

NOT TURNING BACK? WELL THEN . . .

. . . SPOILERS, HERE WE GO!

Chapter 1:

“Kinloss”

Hetrachia 12, 697 ABH

Somewhere Along the Phar Coast, Imperial Province of Darmatia

Shaking and stench consumed Sylette Artorios' world, and there was nothing she could do about either. The first she could forgive. Matteo's airship was a generation past its prime. Passing gusts whistled through tiny, impossible to locate holes in the fuselage. The engine on the deck below howled like a dying beast, all the while trying to rock the craft apart from the inside out. Every screw on her co-pilot's seat squeaked, the headrest was a swath of grimy bandages, and her seat cushion was missing, leaving her bottom resting on a plate of rusted metal. Sylette gritted her teeth as each jolt of the craft was delivered directly to her already aching body. She was bruised, battered, and determined to hunt down and slaughter the mechanic who'd left the ship in this state. But the exiled Sarconian princess could deal with pain. Pain had been her constant companion for ten years, ever since her inexplicable banishment and her mother's execution. Instead, what made Sylette's gaze go red was dealing with that discomfort on top of the pungent odor of seven filthy cadets packed into a space little larger than a closet. She tried to focus on something—anything—else. Flocks of aether-swallows outside the viewport, sweeping by off the vessel's port side. The vast tapestry of life hundreds of meters below, sea meeting land in the jumble of reefs and cliffs that lined Darmatia's Phar Coast. And . . . Sylette sighed, then nearly gagged as she sucked in a particularly potent whiff of the two men sharing the cockpit with her. Some combination of sweat, dried seawater, and a third element she had no desire to place. I'm at my limit, Sylette thought, astral summoning dust coalescing around her. I can take the shaking. None of us have bathed in over a day. But I draw the Voided line at imbeciles bickering right next to me. "No, over there!" Renar Iolus yelled. Oblivious, he thrust his bare chest in between the two pilot chairs—one armpit dangerously close to Sylette's face—and jabbed a finger out the viewport. "Take us closer to the cliffs." Dear Veneer. Sylette spun away and held her breath. She barely heard Matteo's reply. "They're just rocks, Renar. Sharp limestone rocks, the kind we've been looking at since last night. Please, please, give me something more to work with." If not for the unwashed brute hulking over her, Sylette would have complimented the Professor's display of nerve. Two weeks ago, the bespectacled Terran had been a sniveling coward, so unsure of himself that he'd allowed Vallen to lead him around like a pet crysahund. Now he might be useful to her, if only just. Renar threw up his arms, releasing more of his musk to infect the air. "What part of the poem wasn't clear? We're looking for a lighthouse, Matteo, a lighthouse." His hands traced an imaginary tower in the space above the dashboard. "And since it could be tucked under the cliffs, you're going to have to get closer." "It isn't hidden under the cliffs."

"Why? People hide secret stuff underground all the time. Like buried treasure or evil relics." Enough, Sylette decided. Born from her anger, clouds of silver slivers twisted around her head, clinking softly as they joined together. One dagger formed. Two. At the noise, Matteo glanced toward her. His cheeks blanched, and his grip on the airship's control stick tightened. "You wouldn't fire those in a pressurized cabin, would you?" No, but neither of them needed to know that. "Renar?" Sylette prompted. Palms out, the burly Terran took a step back, allowing her a sweet breath of slightly cleaner air. "Yes?" "If I'm not mistaken, Unter recorded an exact copy of Archelaus Heisden's poem. Why don't you go grab it from him, and ask Lilith how his wounds look while you're at it. Alright?" The daggers twitched, honed edges glinting beneath the afternoon sunlight filtering through the transport's canopy. "Oh, guess you're right. I'll . . . I'll go fetch it." Turning sideways, Renar shuffled through the narrow cockpit door into the adjoining cargo hold. When he was gone, Sylette focused her gaze on Matteo, whose glasses did little to hide the thick bags forming under his eyes. Her brow furrowed. "And you're not going to crash this time, right?" She let the blades spin about their cross-guards. "You're not going to fall asleep? You're feeling awake and full of energy?" Matteo gulped and nodded. "Good."

Satisfied, Sylette dispelled her summoned weapons and leaned back, eliciting a tortured squeal from her seat. It wasn't just Matteo—they were all tired and on edge, herself included. Lilith was dashing between the aft maintenance hatch, Unter, and Velle, stopping to check on their injuries whenever she wasn't fixing a broken steam pipe or sprung gasket. Reek aside, Renar was doing a decent job at navigating. Which left Vallen Metellus, their eternal weakest link. He did save them in Etrus. Sylette would give the Triaron that much credit. Yet he'd done so by expending all his men'ar on a single spell, after which he'd limped along, sullen and brooding. Thinking about him made Sylette's head throb. To have so much power, yet be so useless! How was she going to turn Vallen into a valuable tool when he couldn't see anything but red mist? The vibrations of the airship warred with the mallet beating against Sylette's skull. She started to let her eyes close, started to rest her head on the wad of bandages atop her seat. It certainly wasn't the worst pillow she'd used—a dirt filled ditch had that honor. Sylette could . . . sleep for five minutes, and then . . . She bolted awake, shaking violently to stave off exhaustion. Long silver haired flapped back and forth, smacking Renar across the face when he ducked into the cramped cabin. "Wha—ptoo, ptoo!" He spat several strands from his mouth, then glared at Sylette. "Watch where you're swinging that thing!" Sylette snatched her hair back and held the end over her shoulder, inspecting a freshly soaked clump. No . . . He'd sullied it; sullied the beautiful hair her mother had loved. For a second, Sylette considered slicing the clump off, then impaling Renar with the same dagger. "That 'thing,' as you put it, is my hair. Hair which I would kindly ask you to not stick in unsavory places." Reaching beneath the dashboard, Sylette pulled out a wad of dirty cloth, which she used to wipe her locks dry. Then she tossed the rag at Renar's face—it was his shirt, after all. He reacted quickly, raising his left hand to catch it. A hand that clutched a wrinkled scrap of paper. Renar's eyes went wide. In that instant of indecision, he didn't drop the parchment. Nor did he block the flying garment. The sweat-stained, blood-crusted, drool-contaminated shirt struck him right on the nose and wrapped halfway about his head. Sylette couldn't help but giggle. Oh, how I needed that, she thought. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Renar said, voice muffled beneath the fabric. "I'll get you back at some point. Just you wait." Careful not to damage the paper, he unfurled the shirt and pulled it on over his tanned shoulders and chest. "Anyway, this," he held up the scrap, "Is the entirety of the poem the Resistance broadcast. If we're going to find out where the meet-up point is, we have to figure out where Heisden wrote it." The Resistance. Was it actually someone from the Darmatian army, trying desperately to assemble a rebellion against the Sarconian Empire's occupation? Or was it a cleverly laid trap, designed to lure in and eliminate surviving Kingdom stragglers like them? Sylette didn't know, but she'd always choose whichever option brought her a hairsbreadth closer to slaying the Emperor—the murderer who she'd once called father. Clamping down her rage, Sylette nodded. "Read it."

"On distant shore, where mist a-abounds,

The god of wind and sea is found.

His jag-jagged crest, worn and...pocked, Is lined in shadow where none may dock.

Beneath the yet eternal flame,

The wooden trappings of mortals came, And only where his light did shine,

could they avoid the def's confine. Stoic, stout, firm he stands, Protecting all beneath his hands."

Renar read the first half of the poem aloud. He clearly wasn't a court scop—one of those garishly dressed minstrels who'd frequented the palace halls, desperate for Emperor Sychon to grant them a recital. Sylette had summoned them on occasion, letting them soothe her ears while she ate fruit tarts in the gardens with her pet, Tyxt. Even her limited experience was enough to expose the holes in his performance. The iambic was off, his pitch soared and dropped at random, and he was struggling with some of the words. But Sylette could see potential, not that his meaningless hobbies interested her. "Wooden trappings are ships," she reasoned, "And the light—a lighthouse—protects them from reefs. What's next?" Since there were only two seats in the small cockpit, Renar moved from the doorway and leaned against the instrument panel behind Matteo's chair. Even then, he was forced to hunch over, his shoulders and neck craned downwards to avoid smacking the low, curved ceiling. Squinting, he continued to read by the light of the blinking ceiling diodes. "The serpents flee, their maws pull back,The sea hems and . . . haws and must ret-retract. Haze can but hide; the—there's a smudge here—truth still remains, Both fear of man and—actually, might be Unter's blood—hope to claim.

If one can but survive the perilo-lous quest,In the—I can't read this wrinkle here—they may find rest. The rest is a little blurry, but I think—"

Sylette cut him off with a wave of her hand. "That's enough. If I remember correctly, the rest is just some fanciful description and a little bit of the author's verbose flair. The only notable parts in there are about the tidal patterns and the mist common to the area."

Unable to see out the viewport, Renar squatted down on his haunches and shoved his bulk into the gap between their seats. Too close! Sylette pushed against the opposite armrest, all but plastering herself to the shuddering bulkhead wall.

"So we're looking for a lighthouse in a place with lots of mist and constantly changing tides," Renar said. "That should makes things easier." Do I have to do all the thinking around here? Sylette thought, sigh building in her lungs. It died on her lips. Exhaling led to inhaling, and she had no desire to take a hefty whiff of Renar's fermenting odor. When Sylette spoke, it was to the bobbing needle of the altimeter on the panel in front of her—away from Renar. "What exactly do they teach you Darmatians in school? Tides are always coming in and out; that's kind of their thing. Besides, we'd have to sit and observe them in several locations to notice any difference, or collect data from library repositories we can't access. "Then there's the matter of fog. Tell me, Renar, what do you see outside?" Sylette pointed at the skyscape rushing past the airship. "The sun, blue sky as far as you can see, the ocean and Phar coast, a paved highway a little further inland, and some sandy bluffs spotted with small groups of trees. Why do you ask?" Such a straightforward answer, and so him—quick, simple, direct. The coast he'd described was sheer limestone, fragmented in places where water rushed in to form tiny inlets and grottos. Their tops had been blasted by foam-laced wind, forming craggy dunes to which patches of shrubs and ivy—Renar's 'trees'—clung with rugged determination. It wasn't until at least a league inland that green grass was even visible, and a league further than that until the ground was level enough to site a road. And that road, the Pharus highway, was hardly a major thoroughfare. With Etrus at one end and remote Weisvale on the other, it saw scarce traffic, predominantly horses and wagons instead of magtech vehicles and airships. But Renar could have stopped after describing the heavens, for that was all Sylette needed to make her point. "Yes! Clear sky, not a cloud in sight. In the month of Hetrachia, just before the start of winter, near to both the sea and mountains of northern Darmatia. It's cold and there's no moisture in the air, Renar! There's no way mist is going to naturally appear at this time of year!" "Which means?" Before Sylette could slug, stab, or otherwise assault the ignorant buffoon, Matteo came to her rescue. "She's saying all we have to guide our search is 'a lighthouse near Weisvale,' which we already knew."

The former princess closed her eyes and silently thanked whatever Veneer or deity was listening that there was someone else with common sense on the ship. "And," Sylette continued. "That's not much to go on. Renar, do you know anything about the poem's author or history or—" "Actually," Matteo interjected. "It tells us more than you think." It was the second time in a day that the timid sensory mage had cut her off or questioned her ideas and beliefs. The first time, just before the exile attempted to charge a compound filled with Sarconian soldiers, his suggestion had likely saved their lives. Even so, the fact that anyone would dispute her plans rankled Sylette like nothing else. Both then and now it raised her heart rate and made her blood boil—especially because of how inept the man-child was in every other situation.

But, Sylette let the irritation out through her nose. But I'll restrain myself, simply because Matteo will probably say something useful.

"Care to elaborate?" she asked. "Well, combining what my father told me about the transport business, along with what we learned in our culture and society classes . . ." Matteo began in typical, roundabout Professor fashion. Stay calm, Sylette told herself. Let him finish. ". . . After that, when the town of Weisvale was founded in the third century to provide a settlement for those early logging pioneers, they needed to figure out a way to ship the rich lumber down south. Since there were no rivers, they had two choices—use roads or use the Phar sea. The first was impractical; in fact, the Pharus highway wasn't even built at that time. So the frontiersmen decided to dump their logs into the sea and guide them down the coast to Etrus." Sylette kicked the underside of control panel, startling Matteo and cutting his oppressive dissertation short. So much for her staying calm. "Are you trying to damage something important?" he squeaked. "We'll pass the lighthouse before you're done. Just give us the lecture notes version." Matteo looked crestfallen. "Those were my lecture notes. From Principles of Darmatian Industry? It was a required course our second year at the Academy." Neither Sylette nor Renar showed any signs of recognition. He might as well have been speaking Eliassi. "You have your lecture notes memorized?" Renar's mouth hung open. "You guys . . . don't?" A snap of Sylette's fingers and an icy glare got Matteo back on topic. "Short explanation, got it. The Weisvale harbors were frozen most of the year—the town does sit up against the Great Divide mountains. This meant the settlers couldn't move their product by sea . . . unless they constructed a road down the coast to a bay that didn't freeze. At that halfway point, ships from the south took charge of the timber and guided it the rest of the way to Etrus. And to keep those vessels from running aground on the cliffs or reefs, they would have built—" "—a lighthouse," Sylette finished. "See? You can be brief if you try." Inside, she kept a firm damper on her hope. This might not be a fool's errand, but she wouldn't rejoice until they came face to face with the Resistance. "You think Heisden's lighthouse and this one are the same?" Renar asked. Matteo nodded. "I don't see why not. Heisden wrote that poem a century after it was constructed, so it was definitely around at the time." "And how long till we get there?" As he spoke, Renar stood and tried to stretch. His arms immediately smacked the bulkheads to either side. "Ow, ow, ow, that stings . . ." "It shouldn't be all that much . . . wait, what's that down there?" Easing off the throttle, Matteo slowed the airship and began an arcing descent toward the ground. The wispy cloud tendrils that had been whipping by slowed along with it, and the howl of the craft's tortured engine lessened to a wounded mewl. Sylette sighed as her seat—and the whole ship—stopped vibrating to pieces. She leaned toward the viewport, and Matteo obliged her curiosity by pointing at the object that had grabbed his attention. "Start at the middle of the window," he suggested. "Then look down and left." The scene below was a perfect match for Heisden's poem and the Professor's description. Ragged limestone cliffs topped by waving brown grasses wore their way to a broken black base that abutted the roaring sea. The lower levels were shorn bare of vegetation, gleaming dark teeth that cut the seething white waves crashing against them. However, Sylette's gaze was drawn to a solitary island that jutted out at least a hundred meters from the ridge itself. It was no more than fifty meters in diameter, a circle rounded by the water lapping against its edges, with its upper reaches barely flat enough to support any manner of construct. Yet there stood a magnificent lighthouse, two rounded turrets clinging desperately to the side nearest the sea. The larger sported a burgundy cap half the size of the stone base beneath it. Within that glass chamber, currently dimmed, was mounted the largest illyrium crystal Sylette had ever seen. Renar's eyes twinkled with the joy of a child unwrapping a Festivus gift. "I think we found what we're looking for," he breathed, moving next to her for a better view. Their shoulders brushed. Sylette bit her lip, counted to ten, and resisted the urge to shove him away. Loathe though she was to admit it, he had earned this moment. "Maybe," she replied. "We'll have to get closer and look around. Matteo, can you set the ship down by that bridge?" The stone causeway extended from the open bluffs above the lighthouse down to the water's edge, then over to the structure itself. Made of a more grayish brick than the white marble of the towers themselves, it appeared to have been constructed at a later date, perhaps after the ravenous sea sliced the knob of land from its main body. A drop of sweat trickled along Matteo's hairline. He licked his lips, and his fingers clenched and unclenched atop the airship's yoke. Nerves, Sylette reasoned. But of course he'd be nervous. His last flight had ended in a crash and a burning wreck. Yet the winds were light, the landing zone was flat, and there were no enemies to pressure him. If Matteo couldn't land now, he would never succeed as a pilot. Reaching over, Sylette placed a hand on the control stick, preventing Matteo from pushing it forward. He glanced at her, eyes narrowed in confusion. "You know," Sylette began, dredging up vestiges of compassion she'd long thought forgotten. "It's pretty tedious to call this flying wreck 'ship' or 'transport' or whatever every single time I talk about it." "Flying . . . w-wreck?" Matteo stammered. "It is; don't interrupt." In the background, Renar snorted, but Sylette ignored him and pressed on. "She needs a name, Matteo. What is it?" "My father called her—" Sylette shook her head. "It's not his ship anymore. It's yours. So what will you name her?" Matteo gazed over his shoulder at the cargo bay door, through which could be heard the sounds of Lilith hammering a sheet of metal and Unter's deep, labored breathing. "We should decide it together. We are a team, after all." Bile twisted in Sylette's stomach at the thought of being on a team with Vallen. This wasn't a team; it was a bunch of idiots and fools thrown together by happenstance. Their continued survival was a greater miracle than any the Veneer had ever performed. She smiled. "But you're the pilot. We don't get anywhere without you or," Sylette waved her other hand at their surroundings, several tons of third grade gestalt steel fixed in place by brittle bolts, bandages, and the collective prayers of its occupants. "Your ship. So what's her name, captain?" "You called him captain." Renar started laughing again. Daggers glared from her eyes, silencing him almost immediately. "Once. It won't happen a second time." "Him," Matteo said. He was staring out the viewport, chest heaving, tears in his eyes. Trembling still shook the yoke they both held, but now from sadness, not fear. "Him," Matteo repeated. "Kinloss. I'll name the ship after Abbot Kinloss, the man who stayed behind—who gave everything so we could escape Etrus. He deserves that much, don't you think?" "Yes," Sylette said.

No strong emotion compelled her agreement. Death stalked her. Her mother's, long past. Her father's, a promise to be fulfilled. And, eventually, her own. She'd be delighted if her vengeance didn't cost her life, but if it did . . . Suffice to say that Kinloss' sacrifice wasn't novel to her. Nor was Leon Descar's. She appreciated them, remembered them . . . and pressed forward. Looking back wouldn't bring her blade to the Emperor's throat. Gently, slowly, so as not to alarm Matteo, she removed her hand from the control stick and allowed him to ease into their descent. The landing that followed was perfect, even though the pilot still had tears in his eyes.

TO BE CONTINUED IN DIVINITY'S TWILIGHT: BOOK 2

What a way to come off an extended hiatus!

Late last night, I opened my author email expecting to dismiss a few pieces of spam, look at a couple notifications from social media, and check my book stats on BookBub and Bookfunnel. What I didn't expect was to find a message from the Chanticleer International Book Awards informing me that I'd won their OZMA Award: the grand prize given to their favorite fantasy novel of the year.

My fingers froze. My eyes roved from the return address, to the blue ribbon crest shining above my book cover, to the list of incredible finalists that Divinity's Twilight had been judged alongside. This can't be real, I decided. I cross-referenced the sender against my submission form from a year ago, still expecting a mistake—or worse, a scam.

It was neither. My debut novel had legitimately won an award.

Shock morphed to numbness, numbness to flushing and tears. A real award. Five star reviews and kind messages about my work have always touched my heart, but this was something else entirely: validation, and from a respected literary organization no less.

Yet it isn't enough for me alone to revel in this success. I've gone silent for a long time while working on my next batch of writing projects, but now I'm reemerging from the shadows to share what you can expect to see from me over the next year. First, in celebration of Divinity's Twilight: Rebirth's shiny blue ribbon, signed copies are immediately being discounted to $4.95 + shipping (LINK). There's never been a better time to dive into the world of Lozaria, especially since I just started talking to Chris McGrath about the cover art for Book 2. Keep your eyes peeled for ALL the reveals over the coming months: Title, synopsis, cover, the whole nine yards. There's also . . . Well, I don't want to spoil everything in one post. So look forward to the next blog entry and check my social media, because Chris Russell is back in action and writing more than ever! OZMA Finalists and Grand Prize Winner: LINK

All Grand Prize Winners: LINK"How we rise is far more meaningful than how we fall . . ."~Chris

Divinity's Twilight: Rebirth (Signed Editions $8.95 + shipping) Unsure of what to buy your loved ones this year? Can't seem to find a gift that you can enjoy inside as the temperature drops? Look no further than Divinity's Twilight: Rebirth, an epic fantasy adventure that's perfect for the reader in your life. Signed copies are currently $8.95 (plus shipping) on my website, so there's never been a better time to begin your journey through the tempestuous skies of Lozaria.

,STORE LINK

From the Shadows (FREE E-Book) You can also add a freebie to your winter TBR: From the Shadows. This newly released anthology is the brain-child of 22 authors ranging from established best-sellers to promising newcomers. Beginning with humorous fare and proceeding to grimmer tales, these stories explore not the brave farmboy setting off on a heroic quest, but his opposite: the dark lord, despots, and VILLAINS of fantasy. Where did they go wrong? What drives them? And, most importantly, are they actually in the right?

Every villain is the hero of their own story.

BLURB:

I thought I would be the hero. Instead, I became the villain.

They curse me, call me ruthless, insane, unhinged… a monster. But is life so black and white? What if they took the time to understand my motivations? Would they still condemn me if they recognized the same monster lurking inside themselves? There’s a villain inside us all. Unhinge yourself from reality and walk with me into the darkness. If you dare…

From the Shadows is an anthology of twenty-one villainous stories brought to you by the authors of Indie Fantasy Addicts.

MY ENTRY:

Gravitas: A Tale of the Constella - When Lestadt's College of Auguries delivers an omen of doom, the nation's leaders turn to Lord Fixer Scraw for salvation. His ruthless methods have succeeded before and should do so again. Yet with revolution on the horizon, the government on the brink of collapse, and only a month to combat the lurking threat, to what depths of depravity will Scraw descend to save Lestadt? Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease . . .

,FREE AMAZON DOWNLOAD LINK

In Celebration of Divinity's Twilight: Rebirth's birthday, these deals are running from now until October 12th!

Get Divinity's Twilight: Rebirth on sale for the fantastic E-Book price of $0.99. That's 500 pages of Epic Fantasy adventure for less than ONE DOLLAR!

This riveting tale of metal and magic is now available EVERYWHERE BOOKS ARE SOLD! Look for the physical edition at your favorite bookstore (Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, 2nd and Charles, Waterstones, !ndigo, and various independent shops) or your preferred online retailer.

AMAZON LINK: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088PB6M5D

All SIGNED COPIES purchased through my website (https://www.christopherrussellauthor.com/product-page/divinity-s-twilight-rebirth) are discounted from $19.95 to $10.95!

Want CONCEPT ART? Get all four fantastic prints by author and artist Celeste Francis Campbell on our website shop for $3 + shipping. EVERY SIGNED COPY comes with a bookmark and your choice of one of these prints (Pyrevant, Airship, Lilith, Valescar)

MEET THE AUTHOR: Our first in-person book signing will be Saturday, September 26 at Book Warehouse in the Williamsburg, VA Premium Outlets (Address: 5625 Richmond Rd ste f-130, Williamsburg, VA 23188,)

TEASER

A world consumed by war . . .

An ancient evil resurrected . . .

A millennia old bargain comes due . . .

When two blades clash, the third will fall, and the fate of all will be jeopardized. To save Lozaria, the failures of the past must be atoned for by a new generation of heroes. The time has come for mortals to cast off sight and, in doing so, truly come to

see . . .

Victory is never absolute.

Seven centuries ago, the forces of order won the Illyriite War on the plains of Har'muth. Darmatus and Rabban Aurelian slew their elder brother, Sarcon, the despotic architect of the conflict, then sacrificed themselves to banish the cataclysmic vortex opened with his dying breath. The first advent of the Oblivion Well was thwarted. Even without their vanished gods, the seven races of Lozaria proved themselves capable of safeguarding their world.

Or so the story goes.

The year is now 697 A.B.H (After the Battle of Har'muth). Though war itself remains much the same, the weapons with which it is waged have evolved. Airships bearing powerful cannons ply the skies, reducing the influence of mages and their spells. Long range communication has brought far flung regions of Lozaria closer than ever before. At the center of this technological revolution are the three Terran states of Darmatia, Rabban, and Sarconia, who have fought a near ceaseless campaign of 700 years in an attempt to best each other. The roots of their enmity lie buried beneath the wasteland of Har'muth, a place all three nations consider best forgotten.

However, an ancient power sealed within Har'muth has not forgotten them, and the

descendants of those who fought on that field must now take a stand to rectify the mistakes of the past.

Please take advantage of these stellar deals and, in doing so, help Divinity's Twilight: Rebirth make the Amazon E-Book bestseller list. Even if you've already purchased the book, every $0.99 purchase—which can be gifted to friends!—brings us closer to that goal. I am eternally grateful for your support and patronage. Thank you so, so much.