Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels Read online

  Awareness leaping is all the rage.

  Grey isn’t sleeping.

  Sunny Grimm finds a strap around his head with an embossed symbol between his eyes. This is the mark of awareness leaping, where players launch into alternate realities and anything goes. Investors make millions. Critics, however, refuse to call it a game. They argue that reality confusion will end humanity. Labels aside, there are many who play and many who lose.

  The consequences are steep.

  Sunny goes on a mad search for her son and the people responsible for allowing him to play. The only way she will find him is to not lose herself in the search.

  The Maze is more than a game.

  * * *

  Blood for Stone by Logan Thomas Snyder

  Meridia’s most notorious meet their match, and nothing will ever be the same.

  One of Earth’s last great cities is under siege from within. When a shocking act of violence rocks the city-state of Meridia, the humans, vampires, and gargoyles who call it home realize how fragile their peace truly is. As acts of recrimination begin to mount, it’s only a matter of time until the city descends into complete chaos.

  Enter Ryen Cato and Hank Smiley, the mayor’s own special investigators. Together, the so-called “spectors” uncover a plot long in the making, one that could permanently change the balance of power in the city. With the help of allies new and old, it’s a race against time to prevent everything the citizens of Meridia have worked toward from crashing down around them.

  And yet, even if they succeed, the city will never be as it once was.

  * * *

  The Incurables by Felix R. Savage

  Volume I of The Chronicles of the Worldcracker

  A Game of Thrones set in the 1980s, with tanks and guns.

  In this alternate Earth, magic is real, but illegal. Miracles cost a fortune. And King Trystan II is fresh out of cash.

  Reigning in an alternate 1979 Great Britain where feudalism never ended, King Trystan faces a terrorist insurgency. His father lost the magical sword Worldcracker that kept House Taranstroy's throne safe. And with the saints of his House decaying, Trystan can no longer buy peace.

  The assassination of Trystan's son triggers vicious reprisals. The lords of Britain plot a coup.

  Meanwhile, an undercover magician in the pay of Brussels struggles to contain an outbreak of illegal magic.

  All that can save the kingdom from disintegration is the sword Worldcracker. But when the magical blade does turn up, its finder is a wildly unlikely hero.

  For starters, he's only nine…

  * * *

  Ferromancer by Becca Andre

  Iron Souls, Book One

  Solutions aren’t always black and white—sometimes they come in shades of iron gray.

  Captain Bridget “Briar” Rose wants for nothing. Each day is a new adventure, living the life she loves, running cargo on the Ohio & Erie Canal. That is, until her cousin decides to sell the family boat to finance a new business venture. He wants to build locomotives for the railroad—the very industry that could put the entire canal system out of business.

  Not one to give up without a fight, Briar does a little snooping into her cousin’s new business partner. When she gets a sneak peek at the locomotive plans, she suspects that the man is either a genius, or a ferromancer—one of the dreaded metal mages of Europe’s industrial revolution.

  Determined to reveal her suspicions, Briar takes the plans and heads for the newspaper office in Columbus, stealing the family boat in the process. Kidnapping her cousin’s handsome business partner wasn’t part of the plan, but when he shows up, demanding the return of his property, she can’t let him go. After all, if Briar can prove that the railroad is using ferromancy, she could save more than her boat. She could save her way of life.

  * * *

  The Other by Marilyn Peake

  Fear can blind you to the truth.

  The world was melting down. North Korea had tested another nuclear missile. Terrorist attacks were happening with frightening regularity in European cities. In the United States, the FBI and CIA were investigating multiple computer hacks in which the Russians were the prime suspects. Then the news took an even more ominous tone. People began seeing UFOs and strange, alien-looking creatures with humanoid shapes, green skin and large black eyes. In places where this occurred, doctors reported the spread of a mysterious virus that scrambled people’s thoughts and caused hallucinations. Many experts believed the virus came from the aliens. The pathogen had not yet been identified; there was no known cure.

  Psychology professor Dr. Cora Frost had a different theory: the bizarre symptoms were nothing more than mass hysteria, not unlike the hysteria that caused people in our not-too-distant past to see witches flying through the sky, which justified hanging them or burning them at the stake. Intense stress within societies gives rise to scapegoats. Doing field research within the compound of a cult in Roswell, New Mexico that revered the exact same kinds of aliens being reported on the news, her entire worldview is shaken and upended. In a shocking series of events, her past and future collide, forever changing her life.

  * * *

  New York by JC Andrijeski

  A Bridge & Sword Prequel

  Born in a cyber world. Hunted by an ancient cult.

  Allie Taylor lives in a world populated by seers, a second race discovered on Earth at the beginning of the 20th Century. Psychic, hyper-sexual and enslaved by governments, corporations and wealthy humans, seers are an exotic fascination to Allie, but one she knows she’ll likely never encounter, given how rich you have to be to get near one.

  Then her boyfriend has a band concert in New York, where seers are already visible fixtures on the club and business scene. In the midst of boyfriend troubles, she sees seers get tasered on the street, terrorist attacks, and someone leaving her cryptic and creepy notes. Weirder still, a tall, black-haired guy with strangely colorless eyes, keeps showing up everywhere Allie goes.

  When a bizarre seer religious cult targets Allie for an end of the world ritual, her visit goes from chaotic to quite probably fatal.

  * * *

  Rift Cursed by Margo Bond Collins

  At night, the Rift infects my dreams, tempting me to do terrible things. Things I’m ashamed to even remember in the light of day.

  A year ago, my brother Brodric set out on a Rift-quest to activate his latent magical genes. My family forced me to wait until my twenty-first birthday to set out after him.

  Now I’m following the plan he laid out—the one he left for me to find. So I’m headed to Brochan City, the abandoned site of the strongest Rift activity in the land.

  Along the way, I met up with a refugee from another world, tossed upon our shores like Rift-borne trash. Coit’s too naïve to survive this world easily, but he’s a good brawler. And the other pilgrims I’ve picked up in my travels? They might be useful, too. I’ll never admit out loud that I’m beginning to care for them.

  I’m hoping to send Coit back to his world and get my brother back. Sometimes the Rift allows trades like that.

  Sometimes it simply drives petitioners mad.

  If we’re lucky, that’s the worst it will do.

  * * *

  The Zoo at the End of the World by Samuel Peralta

  A young girl, one of the caretakers at a private zoo, looks after her charges in the weeks before a comet destroys humanity.

  They call it Gabriel’s Comet, an asteroid fifty times the size of Mount Everest, on a collision course with Earth. Time is running out—and it may already be too late to escape the apocalypse. But is there still time for humanity to find redemption?

  * * *

  Iron Tamer by Tom Shutt

  “A boy discovers his skill with iron goes far beyond the forge.”

  Mal, a cursed boy from the town of Point, is convicted of killing a forest spriggan and sentenced to take the deathly mountain walk with a thief girl named Arwin.

  They live, but with
no coin or food, they reluctantly band together to survive. When Mal narrowly escapes capture from the law by unexpectedly manipulating iron with magic, he draws the attention of the Empire’s highest guard—dangerous men. A skilled, royal tracker is on Mal’s tail and will stop at nothing to track him down.

  Please note that during the writing of this novel, Tom Shutt passed away and was unable to finish his novel, Iron Tamer. To honor Tom, the Dominion Rising authors wanted to include his novel in the set. Rest in peace, dear friend.

  * * *

  Reign of Bone and Steel

  Gwynn White & Erin St Pierre

  A murdered Soul-Reaper. A stolen Weapon. No one can be trusted.

  Lieutenant Caeda Aerith is a fearsome Fae warrior, and that is all she ever wanted to be. But when the Soul-Reaper of the Kingdom of Yatres is murdered and her deadly weapon stolen, Caeda is chosen as the new Reaper. It’s left to her and the charming, but dangerous heir to the throne, Lord Dominik Dakar, to find the weapon before it is used to destroy them. The only problem is, Dominik is her number one suspect.

  Somewhere in a court of webs and lies hides the truth that will save or destroy them all—and it is up to Caeda to find it. When all the clues point to Dominik, Caeda must ignore her growing feelings for him to bring him to justice. But if she's wrong, the true perpetrators may have more than enough time to use the weapon for its true purpose: turning the world into nothing but bone and ash…

  Reign of Bone and Steel is a mysterious dark fantasy simmering with forbidden romance. If you like nail-biting whodunits, beautiful and brutal fae worlds, and explosive chemistry, then you'll love Gwynn White and Erin St. Pierre's dark world.

  1

  The Fire-Weaver swung his sword at Caeda’s head. Her armored feet fought for grip on the churned-up battlefield as she jerked her shield up.

  Steel screeched on steel. The sound was lost in the roared battle cries and the clash of swords from the Fae—both friend and foe—around her.

  The Fire-Weaver screamed and swung again.

  Foolish move.

  Hours on the killing field had drained him of his magic. Now he clawed for life with fist and blade—the weapons she could wield in her sleep. Without any remarkable sorcery to call her own, she had honed her fighting skills into something magical.

  Not that her muscles and bones didn’t burn, or her armored feet drag. This battle had raged all night, and now icy dawn claimed the battlefield.

  Still, the Nyhan blood coating her armor like a second skin should have warned him to flee. But his eyes were wide with the animal-like desperation that came with losing a war—a fox trapped in steel.

  She gripped her sword tighter and faced him mercilessly.

  He should not have invaded Yatres.

  Not that he would have had much choice. Like her, he was a warrior, a tool in his king’s hand. The same king who had set out two years before to conquer her homeland.

  And to steal their Bone.

  Yet another, foolish, ill-advised move.

  She summoned her remaining strength and thrust her weight behind her shield to push him back.

  He stumbled.

  Shouting a battle cry, she drove the pommel of her sword into his nose. His blood splattered the visor of her helmet.

  A grunt, and she crashed her sword down on his. A wave of shock vibrated up her aching arms. She ignored it and twisted her sword, angling the tip for his neck. A probing thrust, and he jumped back.

  Just as she’d anticipated.

  Drained mages would never match her on the battlefield.

  With renewed energy, she whirled, sword raised, waiting for him to make his final, fateful mistake.

  She smiled behind her visor when he barreled for her, clashing his sword into hers.

  The fool thought he’d jar her sword from her hands?

  Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

  She met his blow with equal force. The tendons in her neck stood as she forced his blade upward to expose his midriff. Quick as lightning, she drove her foot through his tattered armor into his groin.

  A gurgling moan, and he stumbled backward, dropping his sword. His dark eyes bulged as her sword crashed down, severing his head from his shoulders. He slumped into the mud.

  She spun, ready to face her next foe—

  A Nyhan warrior bore down on her friend. “Laylea! Your back!”

  She cursed, too far way to help.

  Sword dragging, bleeding from a wound in her thigh, Laylea spun slowly. Way, way too slowly.

  The Nyhan’s sword slashed into her, spilling her guts into the mud. With a moan, she collapsed into her own gore. Her lifeless eyes stared, unseeing, up at the snowy clouds glowering above her.

  “Bastard!” Biting back tears, Caeda scrambled across the litter of dead bodies to reach him. He was not walking off this battlefield alive. Not after killing Laylea.

  A brilliant blue light shot from the king’s pavilion on the edge of the battlefield. It arrowed into the sky, as broad as a river and as high as an aspen.

  The Soul-Reaper had unleashed her Sword in preparation for her Reaping.

  Caeda tossed her head back. The unleashing lit the pewter-gray sky. On some silent command, the light exploded. It rained down on the Nyhans, cutting through them like fire through ice. The bastard who’d killed Laylea was one of the first to fall. He crumpled next to her with his arm stretched across her body. A death embrace.

  Others fell to their knees and begged for mercy.

  There was none.

  Blood misted the air as body after body collapsed into the mud.

  A horn sounded.

  Caeda tore off her helmet and fell to her knees.

  The battle was over.

  “It’s done!” Dain yelled. Bloodied sword waving in the air, he stumbled over corpses to reach her. “We made it!”

  Now was not the time to tell him about Laylea. He would find out that she was gone soon enough. She opened her arms and yelled, half laughing, half crying.

  His strong hands scooped her up into the air and spun her around.

  If it had been anyone else but Dain, she would have punched and fought at the indignity, but he was her friend, the best one she had, even closer than Laylea had been. So she laughed with him as they twirled, tripped, and slid over dead bodies, gore, and mud. Mercifully, his boots stayed far from Laylea.

  A heavy hand clamped down on her back. “Lieutenant Caeda. Lieutenant Dain. The Soul-Reaper wishes to see you.”

  Dain skidded to a stop.

  Past two burly Fae in pristine Royal Guard uniforms, timeless blue eyes met hers.

  Lady Ayda, the Soul-Reaper of Yatres and patron saint of all.

  Chosen by the Sword itself, Ayda was a high-ranking Fae part of King Kaist’s inner circle.

  Now Ayda held that glowing blue Sword in her hands. Her long blond braid had come loose, leaving a sheet of gold trailing down the back of her leather tunic.

  Dain dropped Caeda.

  Her arms flailed as she struggled to balance in the mire and then bow. “My lady.” She gulped. “How can we be of assistance?”

  The Soul-Reaper dipped her head. “The Sword has chosen you both for your valor in battle. Today, you will accompany me as I reap souls.”

  The Reaping? It was said to be a once-in-a-lifetime marvel to behold. Ignoring her racing heart, Caeda inclined her head to accept the honor.

  She chilled as her eyes drifted to Laylea. She’d be required to witness the Sword Reaping her friend’s soul. Whether that was a good thing or not, she didn’t know.

  * * *

  Despite the light fluttering of snow, flies buzzed over the corpses, almost deafening in the post-battle silence.

  A pair droned to Caeda, drawn by the dried blood on her face, her pointed ears, and in her dark braid. Her steel armor, fighting leathers, and the shield strapped to her back were still caked with gore.

  After summoning her and Dain, Ayda had wasted no time to begin Reaping. Any moment now
, they would find Laylea, and Caeda hadn’t had a single moment to prime Dain to her death. Such personal loss didn’t seem like the thing one discussed with the Soul-Reaper of Yatres present.

  Gingerly, she stepped over the Fire-Weaver she’d beheaded just an hour before. She imagined his soul coiled in him like a ribbon in her father’s haberdashery shop.

  “He was one of your kills, wasn’t he?” Lady Ayda’s breath came out in cold puffs. She pointed her glowing sword at the Fire-Weaver.

  Caeda’s eyes widened. “I didn’t think you’d noticed, my lady.” It warmed her chest to be recognized beyond her service as a Royal Guard. Had Ayda been aware of every fallen warrior? She supposed it was possible. Ayda was the Soul-Reaper, after all.

  “The Sword and I always notice.” Ayda gestured to Dain, walking on her left. “We could have picked someone with magic, but you two fight without such trickery. That counts. At least it does in my book.”

  Caeda and Dain exchanged smug looks. Neither mentioned that they wore armor crafted to ward off spells and had been trained by the finest instructor in the king’s army.

  Ayda bent over the Fire-Weaver, muttering a strange, one-sided conversation with him in a voice so low Caeda couldn’t discern the words.

  It was said that Ayda was no more than two hundred years old, but rumor had it she was slowly going mad.

  The fate of all Soul-Reapers.

  Ayda poked the tip of her finely crafted Sword into the Fire-Weaver’s chest.

  Caeda’s smile swept away, replaced by straight-backed anticipation.

  A trail of glowing red light crept out of the Fire-Weaver’s body and into the Sword.