Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  “I don’t think it will be as easy to manipulate them as it was to chase off my potential suitors.”

  The vampires and witches each controlled a vast empire with many worlds. Every major decision was made by their emperor—or empress—along with their advisory councils. We’d have to convince dozens of lords on dozens of worlds in each empire to throw all caution to the wind and recklessly go to war.

  “I’m sure I can dig up something to convince them,” Jason said.

  I let out a soft, breezy snort. He was probably right. Jason was intelligent, resourceful, and fierce.

  “Well, let’s leave the grand galactic conspiracies for another day,” I replied. “We’re here.”

  ‘Here’ was Ribbon Falls, my favorite waterfall in the known galaxy. We always ended our interworld workout here. I walked to the edge of the falls and sat down. My feet dangling, I looked down at the majestic crash of water and foam against the pool below. The pale golden rock of the sun-warmed ledge hummed beneath my legs, and the air was light and fresh with the scent of wet leaves and sweet mist. I drew in a deep breath, drinking in the nature—and the magic here.

  “This is nice,” I said as Jason sat down beside me. “I wish things could always be like this. This simple. This peaceful. Just like when we were kids.”

  He met my eyes. “But everything is changing. It will never be as it was.” He sounded almost wistful.

  “I fear you’re right,” I sighed.

  Jason crashed against me, tackling me to the ground. My pulse quickened in alarm. And a moment later, a black throwing knife shot over our heads. If he’d been a second slower pushing me down, it would have hit me.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, standing. He pulled me to my feet.

  “Yes. Just a little breathless.” My heart was pounding, my head spinning from the knowledge that someone had just tried to kill me.

  He placed himself between me and the woods. “Good.”

  I scanned the trees, but I couldn’t find anyone. Who had thrown the knife?

  “Come on,” Jason said. “We’re going to find them.”

  “Look no further,” a mage with spiky tangerine hair said, stepping out of the trees. “I’m right here.”

  It was Topaz, one of Vib’s magic-augmented mages.

  5

  Nemesis

  Topaz jumped up, launching a volley of black knives at us. We avoided them—barely—and Jason hit the man with a Phantom mind blast that sent him crashing hard into the nearest tree. Topaz bounced back to his feet, his eyes glowing orange. He tackled Jason to the ground, and the two of them rolled down the wooded hill.

  A shrill cackle pierced the dense forest. I knew that laugh—and the psychopath it belonged to.

  A mage stepped out of the trees, her spiked, fiery hair contrasting violently with the leafy green background. Nemesis. Her eyes studied me, glowing brilliant turquoise, though I’d witnessed firsthand that they sometimes shone blood-red. She was posed in perfect statuesque stillness. Like a tiger lying in wait for its prey.

  Her eyelids were crested with orange-red eyeshadow—the shade a perfect match to her hair—and a mixture of colorless and red sparkling gems adorned her skin from the corners of her eyes to her ears. Her bare arms, shimmery pale, were planted rigidly on her hips. She was dressed in a red leather leotard decorated with metal studs. The same accents were sewn into her knee-high leather boots. Her outfit was hard, vicious—like she was forever ready to charge into battle. The belligerent sneer on her lips only seemed to confirm this.

  Jason was still busy fighting Topaz, which left the Triad for me. A Triad was a very rare and very special kind of mage. Most mages could wield only one kind of magic; a few could wield two. Triads were masters of three. This was my lucky day.

  Nemesis thrust out her hand, expelling a mind blast that split branches and shred leaves. I rolled, avoiding it.

  “Don’t run away, little girl,” she taunted in a sing-song voice. “Stay and play.”

  Nemesis darted around me, grabbing hold of my arm. As I tried to throw her off, she kicked me in the ribs. The air went out of my lungs. I heaved in deep breaths but did not fall. Training with Jason had made me tough; it had taught me to push through the pain and fight back. I swung a punch at her, my fist colliding with her stomach.

  Nemesis didn’t even seem to notice. “Do it like you mean it, you pretty little Prophet. You’ll never win like that. If you don’t fight to kill, you stand to lose.” A sneer curled her lips. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You can’t kill anyone.”

  That was one of the things about us Prophets, seers of the future. Our powerful gift came with powerful consequences. One of those was Prophetic Whiplash. The moment a Prophet ended someone’s life, all the possible futures that person could have lived to experience just snapped, flooding the Prophet’s mind with a million murdered moments. The barrage of broken foresights colliding and collapsing in under its own anguishing weight nearly always drove the Prophet, the instrument of this person’s demise, insane. For good.

  Nemesis lifted me as though I weighed no more than a sack of feathers. She threw me so hard against the trunk of a tree that pieces of the bark splintered off, raining down to the ground. I scrambled to my feet and kicked her in the ribs.

  Nemesis glared at me, moving forward. Her eyes blazed redder than blood, pulsing with a wretched, powerful energy. Leaves crunched and melted to ash beneath her boots, the sick odor of burning decay singeing my nostrils. The short spikes of the Triad’s orange-red hair stood on end like an agitated cat. When she drew her Bloodfire knife, Phantom flames burst to life upon the blade. Wow, she was pissed.

  And I was the recipient of her boiling rage. Blood soaked my shirt, and I was feeling a little light-headed. The sadistic fire in Nemesis’s eyes told me that she wanted to make me suffer before she ended me—and that was the only reason I wasn’t dead already.

  Her eyes flicked to a rocky mountain face. Chunks of the granite exploded from it, and like a rocky waterfall, they buried me. Crushed beneath the stony pile, it hurt to breathe. It hurt to live. But I wasn’t a quitter, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give Nemesis the satisfaction of spitting on my grave.

  I shifted the rocks off my body. Nemesis shot me a disdainful glare. She was getting ready for round two, and I didn’t think it would be any more fun than round one.

  Hope flared up in me. Jason was behind Nemesis, closing in on her with silent steps. She didn’t even see him coming.

  But Jason was hurt. Topaz lay unconscious on the ground behind him, but the fight had taken its toll on my friend. His head was bleeding, and his shirt was torn half-off. He was even missing some of his accessories. For a mage, that was like being disarmed.

  It didn’t slow him down. He launched two knives at Nemesis’s back. She spun around and picked them out of the air as though they were books on a shelf—then tossed them aside.

  “Really, Magus, you should know better.” She clicked her tongue.

  While her back was turned, I jumped up and went for her.

  But Nemesis was too fast. She whipped around and knocked me down. She hit like a wrecking ball.

  “My mistress wants you both alive, and I would hate to disappoint her,” she said.

  Nemesis had once made me and Jason an offer on behalf of her empress: come work for them and gain great power. We had both refused. We’d told her that we didn’t work for witches—or psychopaths.

  From what I’d heard, Sarah Avan, empress of the Avan Empire, was nearly as mad as her pet mage Nemesis. But if the Empress of Witches had told Nemesis not to kill us, that would cripple her in a fight. Maybe even enough for us to defeat her. Nemesis always aimed to kill. I wasn’t sure she even knew how to fight any other way.

  “We have no interest in being your mistress’s latest pets,” Jason told her.

  “A shame,” she said with poisoned sweetness, pouting out her red lips. “You would have made a good pet.”

  With inhuman
speed, Jason launched two more knives. Nemesis darted aside, evading them easily. While she was in the air, Jason used the opportunity to launch a storm of stones at her.

  She did not dodge that attack. The stones hit her hard, pummeling her with the force of a tornado. The rocks thumped against flesh and drew blood. A lot of blood. The bombardment would have killed a human. It would have knocked out most mages. But Nemesis stood there stubbornly, gritting her teeth and taking the beating with the constitution of a boulder.

  As I went to stand beside Jason, I gaped in shock. I had never seen anything like it before.

  Jason whirled the rocks around her, unrelenting in his attack, yet she remained standing. His strength was clearly beginning to fade, the rocks slipping from his mind. One after the other, they dropped to the ground, piling up around Nemesis. Sneering, she walked over the debris, her steps unwavering. Dressed from neck to toe entirely in red, the blood hardly showed. The only hints of it were the rocks’ crimson kisses and the trail of bloody boot prints she’d left on the ground.

  “My turn,” she growled, spitting blood.

  As Nemesis stepped forward purposefully, her eyes flaring, I considered our options. Jason’s rocks had done little more than infuriate her. She was too resilient. And I had nothing stronger than his Phantom attacks.

  We needed something bigger, something Nemesis could not shake off so easily. I eyed the whole mountain. If it collapsed on top of her, it was unlikely that even she could withstand that. Unfortunately, Jason looked too depleted right now to take down something that big—assuming it was even possible.

  Jason’s eyes pulsed. He was concentrating. I sensed he was focusing his energy, gathering it into a point. Nemesis continued to prowl toward us, a twisted smile upon her lips, savoring each step. The closer she got, the more punch Jason’s release would pack.

  But it wouldn’t be enough. I knew it wouldn’t be. The Triad was too strong. This wasn’t a fight we could win with force. It had to be won with wits. But how?

  We were close to a portal. That was it! As Nemesis and Jason stared each other down, I grabbed his magic-augmenting gloves off the ground. They were one of the accessories that boosted his telekinetic powers. I slid them over my hands.

  Phantom energy tickled my fingertips, building up like a static charge, fed by my magic. A mage’s accessories were a part of our body, a second skin bonded in magic. We worked together as one—mage and accessories—in smooth magical harmony. No mage could simply pick up another mage’s accessories and use them.

  Except for me. I’d always been able to use Jason’s accessories. I didn’t know why, but whatever the reason, it saved us that day.

  I threw a large rock at Nemesis, hitting her in the back of the head. The Triad turned around in surprise. She touched the wound, and her hand came back stained red. She licked the blood from her fingers, her feral smile widening.

  “Oh, honey, you shouldn’t have done that,” she told me with pure delight.

  She stalked toward me in long, powerful strides. I pushed out my hands and hit her with a mind blast. The Triad stumbled but kept moving forward.

  Her eyes flickered to the gloves on my hands. “Well, well. Aren’t you full of surprises?”

  I charged at Nemesis, slamming my hand down on the portal key attached to her wrist. A rush of magic exploded behind us, and a portal blossomed out. I slammed my fist against her chest, shooting a jolt of Phantom energy straight through her heart. Dazzled, her eyes wide with surprise, she froze for a moment. A moment was all I needed. I shoved her into the portal.

  Jason looked at the closing portal, then at me. “You sent her to the GTA.”

  I grinned, clutching my bloody ribs. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  The GTA was the Galactic Transportation Authority. You could access it from any portal. It was a kind of emergency channel. The GTA was the office responsible for interworld travel and portal keys. It was run by the elves, which meant it was all very neatly organized—and swimming in bureaucracy. Once you entered the office, you were in limbo, caught between worlds. Your portal keys were all locked. To leave again, you had to first see a GTA agent. The estimated wait time was four to eight hours. Nemesis wouldn’t be bothering us anytime soon.

  “Good thinking.” Jason patted me on the shoulder.

  I sucked it up and pretended it didn’t hurt. I put on a big smile. Smiles made good bandages; they covered up pain nicely.

  “Bureaucracy rules our lives,” I said. “So I thought for once it should work in our favor.”

  6

  Battles & Betrothals

  Here, these belong to you,” I said, sliding off Jason’s magic-augmenting gloves. I set them in his hands.

  “You used them well.” He slipped them on. “As though they were yours.”

  “I’ve been playing with them for years. I guess they recognized me.”

  “You speak as though they are alive, as though they have feelings and a mind of their own.”

  “Don’t they?”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps a part of me has merged into them over the years.” He lifted Topaz from the ground. “I need to bring him to the prison on Pegasus.”

  “You mean dungeon,” I teased.

  His lower lip twitched. “Yes.”

  I began walking toward the portal loop that led home to Laelia. Jason followed me.

  “That’s the wrong way.” I pointed behind me. “The portal loop to Pegasus is that way.”

  “I’m escorting you as far as the portal to Laelia.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” I told him.

  “It is.”

  It was a detour for Jason, especially when he was carrying someone. Topaz wasn’t a small fellow. Then again, Jason didn’t seem bothered by the load.

  “Really, I’m fine,” I insisted.

  “I wasn’t asking.”

  Jason was overprotective like that.

  “You are very stubborn,” I told him.

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t argue with him further. To be honest, I was glad for the company. And I had to admit I was feeling a little rattled after our run-in with Nemesis. I felt safer with Jason by my side. We walked in silence through three worlds.

  “Are you still going after Vib later?” I finally broke the silence. I’d never been very good with silence.

  “Yes, tomorrow morning,” he replied. “You should come with me.”

  “Using those black market portal keys?”

  “We’ve done worse.”

  I didn’t argue with that either. He was completely right.

  “I’ll think about it,” I told him.

  “You can do better than that.”

  I laughed. “My father really is right about you. You are a bad influence on me, you Phantom rebel.”

  He stopped, meeting my eyes, his voice serious. “Don’t let people tell you who you are, Terra. You don’t have to marry anyone you don’t want to.”

  His eyes were smoldering, phasing obsidian, as though the thought of me being forced into anything had put him into a rage. But he controlled the anger, calming himself. The darkness faded from his eyes. They were brown again.

  “We’re here,” I said with a half-smile. We’d reached the Laelia portal. It was time to put on a brave face.

  “I could go all the way with you as backup.”

  “You mean moral support.”

  “Backup, moral support, breaking your betrothed’s kneecaps. I am here for you, whatever you need, whenever you need me.”

  My smile was real this time. “Thank you.” I kissed him on the cheek. “But I fear this is one battle I must face alone.”

  Jason was too worked up right now, his blood running hot from the fight. That coupled with his overprotective nature might make him kill the vampire my father had betrothed to me. That would not go well for anyone.

  I gave him a final wave, then stepped through the portal.

  And then, in an instant, I was home. The sweet aroma of Laelia enveloped
me, as soft as a fluffy blanket on a cold winter’s night. I walked down the forest path toward the palace, pink blossoms snowing down on me.

  My father stood outside the front gate. His eyes narrowed with disapproval—and resignation—when he saw my dirty and disheveled appearance.

  “What happened?” he asked as we entered the palace. “Why do you look like you’ve been through a war zone? You were supposed to go to the spa.”

  “Don’t you like the battlefield spa treatment?” I joked.

  He gave me a flat look. He was clearly not amused.

  “Fine. I never made it to the spa. While Jason and I were on our morning run, one of Vib’s mages came out of nowhere and attacked us. And Nemesis was with him.”

  I left out the part with all the black market stuff. Father wouldn’t have approved. And I wasn’t going to betray Jason’s secrets.

  “What happened to them?” Father asked.

  “Jason knocked out Vib’s mage.” I stepped into my bedroom, heading straight for my dresser. I pulled a tub of healing cream from one of the drawers. “He’s bringing him to Pegasus. And I pushed Nemesis into a portal then activated the GTA beacon.”

  My father didn’t snort. He was too kingly for that. But I could tell he really wanted to.

  “So Vib is working with the witches now.”

  “It appears so.”

  Nemesis was a Siennan mage, from a rogue world allied with the witches.

  “Vib is creating potions to augment mages’ powers.” I lifted up the bottom of my shirt and rubbed the healing cream all over my bruised and bleeding sides. Relief spread across my body, displacing the pain. “If he gives those potions to the Siennans, they will be more powerful than ever.”

  “This is a troubling development. I need to speak to Edward right away. We must interrogate his prisoners to learn all we can about Vib’s work.”

  “So you’re leaving for Pegasus right now?” I asked hopefully. “I guess you’ll have to tell our guest not to come.”