ILONA ANDREWS

Magic Triumphs, the final novel in the Kate Daniels main series, will be available in full dramatized audio from Graphic Audio on the 20th of May.

That’s eleven instalments (including Magic Gifts) of determination, heykittykittyness, blood, grit, immortal apple pie, and Atlanta mayhem, each one adapted with a full cast, original score, immersive sound effects, and enough snark to satisfy even Kate herself.

If you’ve never listened to a Graphic Audio adaptation before, it’s a full production, a “movie in your mind,” with actors voicing every character. Michael Glenn sacrificed vocal chords to roar like Curran. Nora Achrati basically became Kate, and adapted and directed every book with the same love we have for our favorite gal. KenYatta Rogers would get even Jim’s seal of approval. And the fights? You hear every bone crunch and magic burst.

Next Tuesday, the series will be complete, after a journey that became in 2023. Small Magics will be released with all the KD extras as well as original works like Retribution Clause, Grace of Small Magics, Of Swine and Roses on June 12th.

But wait … completed series doesn’t mean it’s OVER! Kate would never!

Exciting Announcement

The Wilmington Years series AND Blood Heir will both be getting the GA treatment, with Nora at the helm, in the first half of 2026!

Thank you to everyone who chalantly pressured fluffily suggested to GA that they continue adaptations in the Kate world and helped to make them audio cult classics.

The Horde is powerful, the Horde is mighty. The Horde, as usual, gets things done.

Until then, we’re celebrating with SIX exclusive audio clips from Magic Triumphs, more sample extravaganza than we’ve ever been able to share before!

A rude awakening:

Fear the Greeks, especially when they’re at your door in a panic:

I love him, you love him, but especially I love him, the best Dark Volhv of all:

Dum-dum-dum-DUUUUUUUMMM! The entrance, the drama, the llama!

It’s an impossible choice, but one of the best scenes of the series, I think. GO, DADDY!

Nobody likes nonconsensual dragons, dude!

Now it’s your turn: tell me which moment you’re most looking forward to from the dramatized Magic Triumphs?

The post Magic Triumphs Sample Bonanza first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

My dearest BDH,

I come to this keyboard today to write to you that we are well. It has been 8 days without a working dishwasher. It is but by the grace of the higher power that we are surviving this crisis. Hope alone sustains us through these dark times, hope that a new dishwasher shall arrive today between the hours of 01:00 PM and 05:00 PM from Wilson Appliances.

Forever yours and deep in dishes,

Ilona, Your Loving Author.

The trouble with the dishwasher started as soon as we came back from vacation. After we got home, I marinated some chicken, and ended up with a load of dishes that had a big glass marinading dish in it.

I start the dishwasher. It gets through part of the cycle. I come back to the kitchen.

DRAIN.

Okay. I have done this song and dance before. I open the dishwasher full of nasty chicken water. Ugh. I get gloves, scoop the water out, take out the filter, clean it out – it’s clean, put it back in, hit the rinse and hold cycle.

DRAIN.

Grrr. I opened the dishwasher, scoop the nasty water out for the second time, remove filter, undo the plastic doohicky that protects a little fan. Sometimes stuff gets stuck under there, preventing the fan from rotating. The fan is clear. Nothing is stuck. Rinse and hold.

DRAIN.

*$##$%%^%$%^.

At that point it was late at night and I didn’t want to wrestle with the chicken water again, so I gave up.

Morning found Gordon messing with the dishwasher. He scooped the chicken water out, checked the filter, checked the fan.

DRAIN.

Maybe there was some grease accumulated somewhere and now things are clogged. We boil water, pour it into the dishwasher. The dishwasher drains. YES! Start the rinse and hold.

DRAIN.

More boiling water.

DRAIN.

DRAIN.

We hoped to have the dishwasher repaired, but nobody works on this brand. We did have a plumber out to check is the hose had clogged.

Plumber: It seems like the motor. How old is this dishwasher?

Gordon: 27 years.

Plumber: This might have something to do with your current problem.

So we bought a new dishwasher. In other news, I have finally finished the nobody knows how old bottle of Dawn’s dishwashing liquid that had been living alone in the dark under the sink.

The house is coming up on 30 years, and so far in the last 18 months the range quit, the fridge bit the dust, and now the dishwasher died.

::eyes the dual ovens::

Between you and me, if they die, I wouldn’t mind, because they are old and the temperature control is questionable. I’m pretty sure 375 is no longer 375. But we are keeping them until they die. They have got to hold on till the mid-fall at least. The Inheritance Buys New Ovens royalties should come in then.

Our smart thermostat quit, but we fixed it and Kid 1’s microwave gave up the ghost, so that concludes the trilogy of appliance breaking. These repairs usually come in threes, so let’s hope this cluster is behind us.

Here is hoping your appliances work well and last way past the manufacturer’s suggested lifecycle.

The post Dishhhwashhher first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

We have some tense chapters ahead. Remember, this is not a tornado that will rip your house apart. This is a well-maintained rollercoaster that passed all of the safety inspections with flying colors. It might be scary, but you will walk away from this ride.

Thank you for the numerous offers to “pay for the story right now.” It is so gratifying.

The Inheritance will be available as an ebook pretty soon. Meanwhile, we would really appreciate you spreading the word and recommending this serial to your friends and other readers you know. Thanks again for suggesting the Royal Road a means to reach a wider audience, but unfortunately The Inheritance probably isn’t LitRPG enough to fit there.

There was no way down.

I had scanned the darkness three times. It was a bottomless pit. No route below, no ledges we could drop down to, no escape. The only path out was the same way we came. Through the passage and back into the lake dragon’s cavern.

I gave it about five minutes after the last of the noises faded, and then Bear and I snuck forward to the mouth of the tunnel. We made it just in time to see the lake dragon pull the bug’s corpse under the water. It would be busy for a while. As long as we avoided the shore, we should be safe.

I searched the perimeter of the cave, staying as far from the lake as I could. There were no other tunnels, but there was a path up, along a ledge that climbed fifty feet above the cavern floor. We took it and picked our way onto a natural stone bridge. It brought us across the cavern to a dark fissure in the opposite wall, barely three feet wide. We squeezed through it, and it spat us out into a wide tunnel.

Ahead the passageway gave way to a large natural arch, and through it I could see more ledges and passages, a warren of tunnels, some dark, some marked by bioluminescence.  Unlike the banks of the river, studded with jagged rocks, the floor of the tunnel was relatively flat, with ridges of hard stone breaking through here and there like ribs of some buried giant skeleton. Fossilized roots braided through solid rock between the stone ribs. The air smelled sour and acrid.

Next to me, Bear took a few steps to the side and sniffed something. I focused on it. Stalker poop.

“No,” I whispered and tugged the leash.

She came back and looked at me with slight disapproval. Sniffing strange poop was what dogs did, and I was clearly preventing her from fulfilling her duty.

I could see the other signs now: the faint trail leading to the fissure, more feces, stains from urine on the rocks. These tunnels were stalker hunting grounds. They came through here and took the bridge down to the water below, and because the banks of the river was hard to get to, some of them made their way to the lake to drink. The lake dragon nabbed them like a crocodile ambushing wildebeests.

This wasn’t just a cave stuffed with random monsters. This was an ecosystem. The lake dragon was an apex predator; the giant bug was probably a rank below, and the stalkers were mid-tier.  There must be prey species somewhere in these tunnels. There was certainly enough vegetation to support small herbivores.

What were the breaches? Nobody could definitively answer that question, and there was a lot of debate about whether they had been artificially made by the invaders or if our enemy somehow plucked a section of existing reality and wedged it between our worlds.

I could see the pale stains on the rocks, where stone had been bleached by generations of stalkers urinating on it. None of this environment looked new. This was an established bionetwork that developed over years, possibly centuries. All of this had to have belonged somewhere, to a different world.

This was the longest I had ever been in a breach and the furthest I had gone into one. Assault teams spent days, sometimes weeks in the breaches, but my normal MO was to get in, find the resources, and get out. I had no idea if all breaches were like this, but if they were, what would happen to this place when the anchor was destroyed? Did this environment disintegrate, or did it simply return to its place of origin?

I almost felt something, a memory or a trace of knowledge, just outside my reach. A kind of amorphous feeling, like trying to remember a dream. I nearly understood it, but it slipped from my grasp and was gone.

Officially there were thirty-two times when a breach collapsed while people were still inside. Sixty percent of those were considered fatal events – nobody made it out. In the rest of the cases, some people were jettisoned back to the point of the gate’s origin. A large percentage of those survivors showed brain damage with retrograde amnesia. Some had to relearn basic skills like writing and holding a spoon.

Sooner or later, Cold Chaos would put another assault team into this breach.  I had to get out before they shattered the anchor.

Bear growled softly.

I flexed. Four shapes were closing in on us, sneaking through the gloom. My talent grasped them, and knowledge came flooding in. The re-nah. Fast, deadly, able to regurgitate acidic bile that would burn exposed skin on contact. Pack hunters, cautious alone, brazen in large numbers. The strongest of the group would attack first, drawing attention, while the rest would flank the prey. Their hearts, on the right side, were possible to reach with a long narrow blade, but the best target was at the base of their throat, just under their chin. A small organ that functioned like a secondary motor cortex. It made them fast and helped them coordinate their movements when they swarmed, and when damaged or destroyed, it induced partial paralysis.

A memory unfurled. A clearing in a deep alien jungle, stalkers streaming from the caves in the mountain side, forming a massive horde. Eyes glowing, fangs bared, two males fighting, each trying to rip out the other’s throat…

I reached down and released Bear’s leash.

Around us the cave was perfectly silent, except for the faint sound of water dripping somewhere out of sight. The bracer on my wrist flowed into my hand, its metal familiar by now, slightly textured and comfortable, like a favorite kitchen knife I had used for years. I focused on the blade. Long, flat, an inch and a half wide. As much damage as possible in a single thrust. The organ would be hard to hit on a moving target. Still better than a heart, though.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

There were no thoughts anymore. I just stood still and waited.

Drip. Drip.

Almost there. They were crouching along the walls, measuring the distance, shifting forward, paw over paw. One large male, two smaller ones, and a female hugging the left wall.

Drip.

The large male charged. He tore out of the gloom like a cannonball, jaws gaping. There was no time to think. I just reacted. My sword slid into the soft tissue of his neck. The male crashed, its momentum carrying him forward despite his locked limbs. Somehow I dodged, and then Bear was on him. The stalker was twice her weight and almost twice her size, but his legs no longer worked. She ripped into his throat, tearing at the wound I’d made. 

The remaining males lunged, one from the left, the other from the right. The right one came high, snarling and loud, while the one on the left silently aimed for my legs. I sliced from right to left, turning as I cut. The sword caught the right stalker across the muzzle, carving a bright gash. The stalker recoiled, but I kept going, cutting as I twisted. The blade caught the stalker on the left, slicing through his flesh. There was almost no resistance. The left stalker yelped and scuttled back on three legs, its front left leg severed clean.

Bear ripped into the left stalker. The right one pivoted and charged toward her. I sprinted, slicing like my life depended on it. The right stalker’s head slid off its shoulders.

Bear and the other stalker were a clump of fur and teeth, rolling on the ground. I flexed, willing the moment to stretch out like a rubber band. It did. The frantic whirlwind of bodies slowed, and I narrowed my sword into a spike, and drove down into the base of the stalker’s neck.  It went limp.

Time snapped back. A terrible weight smashed into my back. My knees buckled. Scalding teeth sank into my right shoulder.

Pain tore through me, turning into an ice-cold rage.

I turned the sword into a dagger, bent my elbow, and stabbed the blade straight into the female stalker’s face. She dropped off me, backing away to the fissure. I chased her, blood running down my arm. She made it all the way through the gap before I caught her. She spun to face me and bared her teeth, her nose wet with blood. I bore down on her and kicked as hard as I could. My foot connected with her head. She stumbled back and slid off the stone bridge. For a moment she hung on, digging her claws into the bare rock, but her talons slipped, and she plunged into the river below.

Bear. Shit.

I spun around and sprinted back into the tunnel. The three stalker bodies lay unmoving. Bear sat in the middle. Her shoulder was bloody, and there was a long streak of red across her right side. She panted, her eyes bright, her mouth opened in a happy canine smile, like she just ran around through the surf on some beach and was now waiting for a treat.

She saw me, grabbed the smallest stalker by the paw, and tried to drag it toward me. Hi, I’m Bear and these are my dead stalker friends. Look how fancy.

I dug into my pocket, fished some jerky out, and offered it to her. She took it from my fingers, dropped it to the ground, went back to the stalker, bit it some more, came back, and ate the jerky.

“Good girl, Bear. Best girl.”

We were both bleeding, but we were still alive. Four stalkers! We took down four…

I should be dead.  And Bear should’ve been dead with me. It took the assault team a bucket of bullets to stop eight stalkers, and Bear and I killed four.  A creature the size of a Great Dane had jumped on my back, and I stayed upright. It should’ve knocked me off my feet.

It wasn’t just the weird hallucination and the unusual precision of my talent. I was changing.  Physically changing.

The thought pierced me like a jolt of high-voltage current. The hair on the back of my neck rose.

The year after the divorce had twisted me. I used to like flying.  In my head, flying was married to vacation, because flights of my childhood took me to the beach and amusement parks. Suddenly I was terrified to board a plane. The fear was so debilitating, I couldn’t even talk while boarding. I became obsessed with traffic, avoiding driving whenever I could. I developed a fixation on my health that bloomed into hypochondria.

 I ended up in therapy, where we got to the root of the problem. I had realized that Roger was truly, completely gone and if something happened to me, the kids would be alone. I was desperately trying to exert control over my environment, and when I failed, my body locked up and refused to respond. It took years to get over it, and the hypochondria was the hardest to defeat. Every time I thought I’d finally broken free, it would come back with a vengeance over some minor thing like a new mole or some weird pain in my arm.

In a way, becoming an assessor was the best thing for me. Facing death every week didn’t leave room for anxiety.  I was too busy surviving.

In this moment, it was like all those years of therapy, exercise, and rewiring my brain’s responses never happened. Was I dying?  Was that glowing thing eating at me like cancer? No doctor would be able to get it out of me. There was no treatment for whatever the fuck it was. What if I wasn’t human anymore? What if I got back to the gate and it wouldn’t let me exit back to Earth?

The grip of anxiety crushed me.  I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t move, I just stood there, desperately cataloging everything happening in my body. My breathing, my aches and pains, the strange electric prickling feeling in my fingers.  I could hear my own heartbeat.  It was fast and so loud…

A cold nose nudged my hand.

I still couldn’t move.

Bear pushed her muzzle into my fingers, bumping me. I felt her fur slide against my hand.

Bump. Bump.

I exhaled slowly. The air escaped out of me, as if it had been trapped in my lungs. I swallowed, crouched, and hugged Bear. Gradually the sound of my heart receded.

Yes, I was changing. No, I had no control over it and I didn’t know what I would become at the end of this process. But I was getting stronger. There were four stalker corpses on this cave floor. I made that happen.

I petted Bear, straightened, walked over to the nearest furry body, and flexed. One hundred and fifty-seven pounds. I grabbed the stalker by the front paws and lifted it off the ground. My shoulder whined in protest.  I clenched my teeth against the pain.

I was holding one hundred and fifty-seven pounds of dead weight. It wasn’t resting on my back, no, I was holding it in front of me.

I wonder…

I spun around and threw the corpse. The stalker flew and landed on the cave floor. My shoulder screeched, and I grabbed at it. Okay, not the brightest moment.

The stalker corpse lay 10 feet away. I threw one hundred and fifty-seven pounds across ten feet. Two weeks ago, I’d used a forty-five-pound plate for some overhead squats at the DDC gym, because someone was hogging the Smith machine, and I had a hard time holding it steady for 10 reps.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Bear.”

Bear looked at me, padded over to the corpse I threw, and bit it.

“No worries.  It’s dead.  You are the best girl, Bear, you know that?”

Somewhere in the tangle of the tunnels a creature howled. We couldn’t stay here.  We had to keep moving.

I pulled the antibacterial gel out, slathered some on my bleeding shoulder, popped 4 Motrins, and turned to Bear.

“Okay, girl, let’s treat your battle wounds.”

The post The Inheritance: Chapter 5 Part 2 first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Note: commercial airlines fly at 30,000 feet. Private jets fly higher, with the midsize jets specifically flying at 41,000-45,000 feet.

The plane shuddered as it hit an air pothole. Elias put his hand on the maps spread out in front of him on the table to keep them from sliding off. Across from him, Leo sat very still, his eyes unblinking. His XO didn’t like planes. It wasn’t the flying; it was the lack of control. And if he mentioned it, Leo would just feel more self-conscious and withdraw deeper. Comfort and logic didn’t work for times like these, but distraction did wonders.

Elias turned his attention back to the maps. The sooner he sorted through his thoughts, the faster he could put Leo’s sharp mind to analyzing the Elmwood disaster instead of focusing on being stuck in a metal tube hurtling through the atmosphere 40,000 feet above the ground.

Gate dives had stages. Of all of them, the Assault phase was the main and most important. Humanity entered the gates to destroy the anchor and collapse the breach. Everything else was secondary to this goal, no matter how much some people wanted to twist it. Yes, mining paid the bills, but the focus of the mission was to keep the invasion at bay.

Like many others, Elias felt the anchor the moment he stepped through the gate. It tugged on him, a knot of energy, a distant nexus of power that demanded attention. The stronger you were, the more it pulled on you. Not every gate diver sensed it, and the majority of those who did barely felt it. To them it was a spark, a firefly winking somewhere in the distance. To Elias, it was inescapable, like an evil sun. It called to him, and he hunted it down until he cut through its defenders, forced his way into the anchor chamber, and shattered it.

The trick wasn’t just carving a bloody path to the anchor. The real challenge was to destroy the breach and come out alive. Successful gate dives required preparation. It began with the DDC, who measured the energy emissions of a gate, graded its threat level, and assigned a DeBRA and a guild.

Once Cold Chaos received the assignment, the gate became their problem. An assault team, a mining crew, and an escort was determined, and a gate coordinator was chosen to handle the logistics and keep everything running smoothly.

The assault team deployed to the gate and began the first official phase, the Survey. They progressed carefully into the breach and identified the most likely route to the anchor and promising mining areas. They cleared the mining sites, mapped as much of the immediate environment around them and the gate as was feasible, and came back out.

The next stage was called R&R: Rest and Regroup. Each breach was unique. Open air biomes required larger groups. Cave biomes called for a smaller force with higher individual firepower. Some people didn’t do well in dark enclosed spaces. Others couldn’t swim or had trouble with heights. The assault team reshuffled its roster based on their findings. They reviewed their survey with the escort captain, the mining foreman, and the DeBRA, and then they rested for 24 hours.

After the R&R, the Assault stage finally began. The assault team went back into the breach, swept the mining site one more time, sent a scout back to give the mining team an all-clear, and pressed on toward the anchor. An hour after they entered, the mining crew, the DeBRA, and the escort walked into the breach, made their way to the mining site, and began stripping. A rich site would mean a steady flow of carts filled with resources out of the gate.

If everything went according to plan, the assault team would reach the anchor and destroy it. Without the energy of the anchor, the breach would begin to degrade. The assault team would have to haul ass to the gate, usually sending a scout ahead to warn the mining team to wrap up operations. The breach typically collapsed within 12-36 hours.

That wasn’t what happened in Elmwood. 

Radio communications did not work in the breaches, so every assault team carried a “cheesecake,” a beeper stone. Beeper stones occurred in the steppe and mountain biomes and had a core of denser material running through them. When shocked with electricity, they glowed and vibrated. If you broke a piece off and then shocked the core of the main stone, the broken-off piece would also light up and vibrate. Distance didn’t seem to matter. As long as both fragments were in the same breach, shocking the core would activate the other chunk. The first gate diver who discovered this effect compared it to the Cheesecake Factory’s restaurant pager and the name stuck.

The moment the cheesecake was activated, the assault team would know that a fatal event occurred, and they were being recalled. It was the breach equivalent of an SOS. They would turn around and head back for the gate.

The mining crew died less than an hour after entering the gate. As soon as London and the rest made it out, the gate coordinator went into the breach with the core stone, shocked it, and then returned to shock the core stone every half hour for three hours. The assault team was barely two hours into their trek to the anchor. They never came out. It meant only one thing: everyone was dead.

Elias peered at the mining site map. Compasses didn’t work in the breaches, so traditional directions didn’t exist. Instead, the moment you entered, you faced north and the gate behind you was always due south. It was obviously simplified but it worked, and all breach maps followed this principle.

The cave biomes were Elias’ least favorite, and this one was a fucking maze. A tangle of tunnels, passages, and chambers, resulting from eons of erosion as water shaved and carved the stone.

Some people theorized that the breaches were artificial, generated environments, constructed specifically to invade Earth. He never believed in the artificial breach theory. It was bullshit. He’d gone into too many breaches and seen too much. The complexity of the bio systems they encountered was incredible, far too intricate for any artificial construct. No, the breaches were chunks of some other world, maybe worlds, complete with their inhabitants and their own weird rules of survival. And this breach was a perfect example of that. It was old and filled with valuable deposits and extremely dangerous hostiles.

On the surface, Malcolm, the leader of the assault team, had followed the Cold Chaos protocol. The assault team surveyed, they R&R’d, they reentered and swept the mining site for the second time, then started toward the anchor. But the more Elias looked into what actually happened, the wonkier it appeared.

The map in front of him showed Malcolm’s chosen anchor route, which ran almost straight north into the breach. The mining site lay off to the east, roughly a mile from the gate, at the end of a branching tunnel. It was a massive cavern with a stream running north to south. The map showed an entrance in the lower left, through which the mining crew accessed the site, and three tunnels in the north, at the top of the map. The assault team had mapped the tunnels up to half a mile, revealing a tangle of passageways, pits, chambers, and tunnels, half of them carrying running water.

Map of the Mining Site

Click to enlarge

Determining a good mining area was more art than science. The Cold Chaos guidelines for cave biomes dictated that only the larger caverns could be designated as mining sites. The guild lost too many people in tunnel collapses. The mining site had to be safe and defendable, it couldn’t be too far from the gate, and it had to have a good mix of promising minerals identifiable by sight and an abundance of vegetation in case the minerals turned out to be trash. The weirder the site looked, the more promising it would be.

Things would have been so much simpler if they could hire their own assessors, Elias reflected. As it was, they were forced to play the guessing game. That’s why most assault teams identified at least 3 sites.

Malcolm had only picked one.

Elias examined the top edge of the cavern one more time.

Nothing in this world was free. They were never going to go into a breach with fluffy bunnies and rare, priceless resources. The unspoken rule was, the more valuable the find, the harder it would be to extract. Malcolm knew this. He wasn’t sloppy, he wasn’t careless, and yet here they were.

Elias looked at Leo. His XO leaned forward slightly.

“You are Malcolm,” Elias said.

Leo nodded.

Most people assumed that the tank was always the leader. Something about a warrior putting themselves in the path of a threat and soaking up damage while shielding others naturally lent itself to the leader role in people’s imagination. In reality, tanks were almost always too focused on combat to be effective leaders. They were the tip of the spear, and they usually had their hands full.

His own Talent, the Blade Warden, straddled the line between a tank and a damage dealer. He could play either role. On paper, he paid for this versatility with reduced effectiveness. A pure tank Talent, like Sentinel or Protector, of the same power level, could take more damage than Elias. A pure damage dealer, a Pulsecarver or a Stormsurge like Leo, would wreck more havoc. But in the breach, the value of his versatility skyrocketed. He had led teams while tanking – he would do it again in Elmwood – but given a choice, he preferred to go in with a dedicated tank.

Most team leaders were either midfielders or ranged fighters. The ability to survey the terrain was paramount.

Malcolm was an Interceptor, a maneuverable, fast damage dealer. He positioned himself behind the tank, which allowed him to rapidly respond to the changing battlefield. He fought with a spear, could summon plasma javelins, which he hurled at incoming threats, and could teleport about twenty yards once every hour or so.

The man had an uncanny situational awareness. He was slightly precognizant, anticipating the enemy’s actions as well as his team’s. He could predict how and where an opponent would attack and how his people were likely to respond to it. He sensed when someone would need assistance, and he was always where he was needed the most. His only flaw as a team leader was that occasionally he made impulsive decisions. Nine times out of ten, he reacted as expected but once in a while he would roll the dice. To his credit, he was good enough to compensate when his gamble didn’t pay off, but he’d come close to disaster a couple of times.

Elias tapped the map of the mining site. “You find this site. You sweep it. It’s clean. Your next move?”

“I set up aetherium charges in these three tunnels and detonate.”

Exactly. “Why?”

Leo swept his fingers across the three passages veering and branching off, some paths spiraling, others ending abruptly.

“It’s a mess. Everything is connected. The only way to secure the mining site is to prevent access completely. One way in, one way out.”

“Agreed. Malcolm would have known that.”

“Yes.”

The two of them peered at the map. This was basic shit, and yet Malcolm left the tunnels as they were.

“Why?” Elias murmured.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your best guess?”

Leo considered the map. “Perhaps he was unsure whether he picked the right path to the anchor and thought he might have to double back and take one of the tunnels instead.”

“Yes, but with the firepower in that team and the mining crew’s equipment, he could easily reopen one of the entrances after collapsing it. Why gamble with the miners’ lives?”

Leo shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Next question: why only one mining site? The protocol suggests at least three. Why this one?”

Leo thought about it. “You think he found something in that cave? Something he had to have?”

“That’s the only thing that would make sense.”

In Malcolm’s place, Elias would have spent another three days on a survey and then doubled back and collapsed those tunnels. Then and only then would it have been safe to bring in the miners. Yes, there would be red tape, and they would have to explain to the DDC why they took their time, but in the end, lives wouldn’t be lost. Instead, Malcolm charged in, pushing the mining crew to the site as soon as the guild regulations allowed.

Leo eyes flashed white. The moment he was left to his own devices, he would take a deep dive into Malcolm’s life. Leo took mysteries as a personal challenge,

Elias leaned back. “Let’s say Malcolm glitched out for some reason. He gets impulsive once in a while, but London doesn’t.”

Leo nodded. “London is careful and risk averse.”

Risk averse. Interesting way to put it. Elias would have to remember that.

The XO frowned. “When the team came out with the survey, London would’ve had to sign off on it. He is the escort captain.”

“Exactly. Did you ask him about it?”

“No. It didn’t occur to me.” A hint of frustration showed on Leo’s face. He was his own worst critic. “I should have. It seems obvious in hindsight.’

The intercom came to life. “We’re beginning our descent into Dallas.”

“Don’t worry too much about it,” Elias said. “London isn’t going anywhere. In a few hours we will ask him about that. And a lot more.”

Leo nodded and buckled his seat belt.

The post The Inheritance: Chapter 5, Part 1 first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

The vacation was amazing. The air was 80F. The ocean was 80F. The pools were great. The room was spectacular. The food was delicious. The drinks were to die for.

We went on a date to this restaurant that was technically part of the resort but set outside of the grounds, by a busy street. We sat on a terrace, under a canvas, watched the foot traffic and listened to a remarkably good live singer. At some point I had a moment of wondering if this was actually happening. It’s been so long since we had a vacation. Last year, we had a weekend in Daytona. That was it. I needed this in the worst way.

We swam so much. I miss it already.

We are back home, and the dishwasher drainage line is clogged. We’ve taken the dishwasher apart, checked the fan, and have done the boiling water trick, so it looks like we have to get a plumber involved. Reality, coming like a freight train.

Professional News

This Kingdom is a hot potato. We have now sold the rights to 5 foreign countries, most of which we cannot contractually disclose yet, but we are free to say that we will be working with Tor UK. We are very excited.

We have seen the cover sketches. They sent 3 sketches and all three were great. We picked a favorite and can’t wait to see it in color and detail. I don’t want to jinx it, so I won’t say more.

Book Recommendation

I usually don’t read while we work. It’s very hard to shift gears from concentrating on the narrative to enjoying it. While on vacation, though, I downloaded a series through Kindle Unlimited and I glomed it. I’ve read 4.5 books at this point. Big thanks to Matt, Alisha, Sauron, and Christy for recommending the Azarinth Healer series.

Ilea likes punching things. And eating.

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many career options for hungry brawlers. Instead, the plan is to quit her crappy fast-food job, go to college, and become a fully functioning member of society. Essentially – a fate worse than death.

So maybe it’s lucky that she wakes up one day in a strange world where a bunch of fantasy monsters are trying to kill her…?

On the bright side, ‘killing those monsters right back’ is now a viable career path! For she soon discovers her new home runs on a set of game-like rules that will allow her to punch things harder than in her wildest dreams. Well, maybe not her wildest dreams, but it’s close.

With no quest to follow, no guide to show her the way, and no real desire to be a Hero – Ilea embarks on a journey to discover a world full of magic. Magic she can use to fight even bigger monsters.

She’s struggling to survive, has no idea what will happen next, and is loving every minute of it. Except, and sometimes also, when she’s poisoned and/or has set herself on fire. It’s complicated.

Read the story that took Royal Road by storm with over 60 million views and counting.

It’s a classic LitRPG, the stats, the battles, the violence. A prefect beach read for me. I really enjoyed the action. The protagonist is endearing and is authentically a 20 year old. The world is imaginative and exciting. The Silver Rose dungeon was chef’s kiss. I’m a horrible harpy who hates everything, and I couldn’t stop reading it. If you like LitRPG, this is a good one.

For the romance readers: there is none. There is some casual sex with the door closed.

There is an audiobook and it is good. I listened to about half of the first one on the plane.

Fair warning for people fresh to the genre: this series concentrates a lot on the battles. You get very detailed blow by blow fights. I like battles and there were times my eyes started glazing over. Like if you think our fight scenes are too long, these are much more detailed.

Here is the link to Amazon: Azarinth Healer. There is always another drake.

The post Back to Life, Back to Reality and Book Recommendation first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

We are back from vacation! Clearly, a thousand ships have been launched while we were gone.

Before we delve: if you would like to reread The Inheritance from the beginning, uninterrupted, click The Inheritance tag under the post title. We now have a front page banner, and we would like to introduce Candice Slater, the talented artist who will be illustrating chapters for us. You can find her Instagram account here.

Artwork by Candice Slater

The cave passage stretched in front of me, a narrow tunnel painted with bioluminescent swirls of strange vegetation with a stream trickling along the left wall. The passage split about thirty yards ahead, with one branch curving to the right and the other cutting straight into the gloom. 

I had a light on my hard hat but decided against using it. It didn’t illuminate much, while making me easy to target, and I had no idea how long the battery would last. It was better to save it for emergencies. The pale green and pink radiance of the foreign fungi and lichens offered some light but it made the darkness seem even deeper.

It was like I’d turned five years old again, lying in my bed in the middle of the night, too afraid to move, until the need to pee won out and forced me to make a mad dash to the bathroom. Except that back then, if I got really scared, I could flick the lights on. As long as you had electric light, it gave you an illusion of safety and control. Without it, I felt naked. It was just me, Bear, and the tunnels filled with underground dusk.

There would be no dashing here. We would go carefully, quietly, and slowly.

A cold draft flowed from the tunnel, bringing with it an odd acrid stench.

Bear whined softly by my side.

Whining seemed entirely appropriate. I didn’t want to go into that gloom either.

“We don’t have a choice,” I told the dog.

Something rustled in the darkness, a strange whispering sound.

Bear hid behind me.

“Some attack dog you are.”

That’s probably why she survived. If she were braver, she’d be dead.

“The exit is to our left. This is the closest tunnel to it. The other two branch off to the right, which will take us further from the gate. This is our best bet for getting out.”

Bear put her ears back.

“It will be okay. Well, no, it probably won’t be, but staying here isn’t an option. Come on, Bear.”

I started forward and tugged on the leash. She resisted a little, but then changed her mind, and followed me through the passage. We picked our way through the glowing growth. It looked almost like a coral reef that had somehow sprouted on dry ground.

We reached the fork. The stream flowed from the right branch, with a scattering of luminous plants along its banks. It promised light, but the banks were narrow and strewn with rocks and water would attract predators. We needed to hang left anyway, so I took the other path, straight into the gloom, and kept moving. The tunnel was about thirty feet high and probably the same width. An almost round a hole in the rock, as if some massive worm had burrowed through the mountain. Hopefully not.

The passage veered slightly left, then angled right. Normally, cave passages like this varied in size and shape. This one was too uniform. Whatever dug it out had to be huge.

Time stretched. We trudged forward, following the curves of the passageway. Occasionally Bear paused, listening to something I couldn’t hear. I let her take her time.

Back by the entrance, we’d passed by some stalker bodies, and Elena mentioned that the assault team didn’t wipe them all out. Taking on a single stalker would be difficult.  There had been eight corpses, and the stalkers typically traveled in groups. If a pack of them attacked us, the best strategy would be to run and hope the tunnel narrowed ahead so they could only come at me one at a time. If I saw a crevasse, I would have to make a note of it in case I needed to double back…

For some reason, I could actually see both sides of the tunnel now with a lot of clarity. My eyes should have adjusted to the darkness, that was to be expected, but I could pick out small details now, like the cracks in the stone. The walls weren’t glowing, and the shining growth in this area was kind of sparse. Hmm.

We rounded another gentle turn, and I stopped. Ahead ridges of growth sheathed the floor and walls of the tunnel, like someone had raked solid stone into shallow curving rows. Between them bright red plants thrust out, shaped a little like branching cacti or Sinularia corals, almost like alien hands with long twisted fingers decorated with narrow frills. The tallest of them was about two feet high, but most were around eight inches or so. There were hundreds of them in the tunnel. The red patch stretched into the distance. Forty yards? Fifty?

Something about the red plants gave me pause. I crouched by the nearest patch. The frilly protrusions weren’t leaves. They were thorns, flat and razor sharp.

I flexed, accessing my talent. The red patch snapped into crystal clarity, flaring with a bright purple. Not helpful. Red was usually valuable, blue was toxic, orange was dangerous, but purple could be whatever.

I focused, trying to dig deeper.

The Grasping Hand. The thorns carried lethal poison. If one of those cut me or Bear, we would die in seconds, and the Hand would devour our bodies. In the distance, I could see a lump that was once a living creature, soon to become one of those ridges, drained of all fluids.

How did I know that? This hadn’t been in any of the briefings. I had never seen this before. I hadn’t read about it, no one had talked about it, and I should not have detailed knowledge of this carnivorous invertebrate. I shouldn’t have even known it was an invertebrate. The best my talent could do was identify it as animal and possibly dangerous.

The knowledge was just in my head. I flexed again, concentrating on the bright red stems.

A dark plateau unrolled in front of me, acres and acres of red stems, some twenty-feet-high, blanketing purple rock with giant dinosaur like reptiles thrusting through the growth, the stinging thorns sliding harmlessly from their bony carapace…

This was not my memory.

Fear washed over me. My heart pounded in my chest. I went hot, then cold. What the hell was happening to me?

Bear nudged me with her cold nose. I petted her, running my hand over her fur, trying to slow my breathing. Was this my inheritance? Memories from I didn’t know who obtained I had no idea where.

I stared at the patch. I could have a nervous breakdown right here and now, or I could keep going. 

It didn’t matter where the damned memory came from. It warned me about the danger. It might not have been mine, but I knew it was true. Blundering into that growth was certain death.

The Grasping Hand grew in clusters, probably determined by the availability of nutrients. Each of those clumps or ridges used to be a body. This growth was relatively young, the stems short and somewhat sparse.

If I was careful, I could pick my way through it. The problem was Bear. There was no way to communicate to the dog that she had to stay away from the thorns. One tiny scratch and it would be all over. I had to keep Bear safe. No matter what it took. I owed it to Stella, and if Bear died… Bear couldn’t die. We would leave this place together.

I could carry her. She was a big dog, she had to weigh… I flexed again. Eighty-two pounds. And that was a lot more precise than normal. I could usually ballpark weight and distance but not with that much accuracy. Something told me that if I concentrated, I could probably narrow it down to ounces. Fuck me.

I focused on the field of red. Forty-eight yards or one hundred and forty-four feet.

Great. All I had to do was pick up an eighty-pound dog and carry her across half the length of a football field. While carefully avoiding deadly thorns.

I could always double back and try one of the other tunnels. But none of the other passages led toward the exit. We’d been walking for what felt like hours. It would be a long trip back, and there was no guarantee we wouldn’t run across this same problem in another tunnel.

Also, very few things could get through the Grasping Hand without some kind of body armor. It was a deterrent, a little bit of safety behind us. Nothing would come at us through that patch.

If I put Bear on my shoulders, I could make it. But not while I carried the backpack. The canteens were bulky and heavy, and the backpack pulled on me. If Bear squirmed, she would throw me off balance and both of us would land right into the thorns. It was the pack or the dog.

All of the water and food we had was in that pack. I could try to throw it ahead of me, but there was no telling where it would land or how far. Dragging it behind me was out of the question. It could get stuck and pull me back, and the thorns would either shred it or deposit poison on it. I had no effective way to neutralize it. 

If I got through, I could find a safe spot on the other side, tie Bear to something, and come back for the pack. Yes, that had to be it.

I dropped the pack, pulled a second canteen out, and hung it on my coveralls. I had to take only what I absolutely needed. The antibacterial gel, a couple of bandages, knife, a single candy bar, and Motrin went into my pockets. That was all that could fit.

God, I didn’t want to leave the pack behind, but Bear mattered more. It would be fine. I would come back for it.

I took off my hard hat, pulled one of the spare canteens out of the backpack, poured water into the hat, and offered it to Bear.  She lapped at it. I drank what was left in the canteen and waited until the shepherd stopped drinking. I took the hat, tapped it on the ground to get the last of the liquid out, and put it back on my head. It was the only helmet I had.

There was a command guild dogs were taught to make them easy to carry. I’d heard the handlers use it before. What the hell was it? Lie, rest… Limp. Limp, it was limp.

I tore the packet of jerky open, pulled a piece out, and offered it to Bear. She sniffed it and gently took it out of my hand.

“Good girl. See? We’re friends.”

I took another piece of jerky and crouched by the shepherd. “Limp, Bear.”

She stared at me.

“Limp.”

Another puzzled look.

I was sure that was the right command. I scooted close to her and put my arm around her. Please don’t bite me.  “Limp.”

The shepherd leaned against me, slumping over. I put my hands around her hind and front legs and heaved her up onto my shoulders.  If she were a human, it would be fireman carry, but since she was a dog, it was more like a fur collar. I stood up.

Bear made a surprised noise halfway between a whine and a growl. I offered her another piece of jerky. A warm wet tongue licked my fingers, and she swiped the jerky from me.

“Good girl. Stay. Limp.”

I put my hands on her legs, took a deep breath, and walked into the field of red death.

Ten feet.  Fifteen. Twenty-five…

I zigzagged through the field, threading the needle between the thorn ridges.

If Cold Chaos alerted the DDC that I died, the government would sit on that news until my body was recovered or the breach was closed, at which point I would be officially presumed dead, and they would notify the kids. There would be nobody to cushion the blow.

Roger was out of the picture. His father and stepmother basically disowned him in favor of his younger brother and never showed any interest in our kids.

My mother was unreachable. After my father died a decade ago of a heart attack, she moved back to her native UK, and I didn’t even have her phone number. My mother viewed having children as a duty she had to fulfill. She had me, she provided food and shelter until I reached adulthood, and that was the end of her obligation to me and society in general.

I was an only child, and I didn’t have any friends, at least none who would step in. I did have an excellent lawyer and a will, but the kids would need warmth and kindness.

I had to make it home.

Sixty feet. Almost halfway there. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. I would make Melissa eat those words when I got out.

Bear must’ve been a shoulder cat in another life because she sat steady like a rock. Come to think of it, carrying her should’ve been a lot harder. Maybe it was the adrenaline…

Bear stiffened under my hand. A low growl rumbled from her mouth. She craned her neck, looking at something in the tunnel behind me. I didn’t have room to turn around and check what was happening. 

Ninety feet.

Another growl.

Running would get us killed. I wove my way through the ridges. Whatever was coming up behind us would have to deal with the Grasping Hand as well. It would be fine.

Growl.

One hundred and twenty feet.

Fine. Just fine.

A dry skittering noise came from behind me. It sounded insectoid as if a giant cockroach was scrambling through the tunnel at top speed.

Bear snarled, trying to lunge off my shoulders. I wobbled, careened, caught myself at the last moment and kept going, feverishly trying to keep from slicing my legs to ribbons.

Bear erupted into barks, jerking me to and fro.

“Stay! Limp! Stay!”

The chittering chased us.

Almost there. Almost through. Just a little longer. Just a little bit…

Bear threw herself to the left. I spun in place, my boot catching on the nearest clump of thorns, shied the other way, and jumped over the last ridge. My boots hit the clear ground. Alive. I was alive somehow. The thorns didn’t penetrate through the shoe.

I dropped Bear to the ground and spun around.

The awful chittering sound filled the tunnel behind us. I flexed and saw a dark outline of four-foot-long chitinous legs.

“Run!” I turned and sprinted down the tunnel. The dog dashed ahead, pulling me forward with the leash.

It wouldn’t get through the Grasping Hand. Surely, it wouldn’t.

I glanced back, flexing. A massive insectoid thing tore out of the tunnel. It sampled the red field and plowed right into it. Shit!

I flew across the cave floor, drawing even with Bear. No turnoffs, no branching hallways, just a death trap with the thing behind us charging full speed ahead.

The tunnel veered right, curving. We took the curve at breakneck speed. I slid, caught myself, and dashed forward. Ahead the mouth of a tunnel opened to something lighter, glowing with eerie purple. We raced to it. A moment and we sprinted into the open.

I flexed. Time stretched as my enhanced vision thrust the feedback at me.

A huge cave lay in front of us, its jagged walls rising high up. You could fit a ten-story office tower into this chamber. Natural stone bridges crossed high above, a waterfall spilled from a fissure in the wall far in the distance, and straight ahead, in a front of us, a small lake lay placid, its color a deep blue. Short shrubs grew along the shore, about a foot high, with leaves the color of purple oxalis, dotted with glowing mauve flowers.

Two stalker corpses lay in the flowers, torn apart, and in the lake itself, a large shape waited, hidden in the water. It flared with bright orange. Danger. Chances of survival: nil.

The world restarted with my next breath. I pulled Bear to the left, where a chunk of the wall protruded in a miniature plateau. We couldn’t crawl onto it, but there were boulders around it. It was the only cover we had. Anything else would bring us too close to the lake. 

We dashed through the flowers. My heart was beating a thousand beats per minute.

A screech erupted from the tunnel.

We reached the ledge, and I ducked behind a large boulder and pulled Bear close. She squatted by me, and I hugged her, my hand on her muzzle, and whispered, “Quiet.”

The shepherd stared at me with big brown eyes.

A monster burst out of the passageway. Its front end resembled a silverfish that had somehow grown to the size of an SUV, with razor-sharp terrifying mandibles. Its tail was scorpion like, curving over its head, and armed with another set of flat pinchers, studded with sharp protrusions.

The monster paused. Its tail blades sliced the air like two huge shears.

I held my breath.

The creature skittered forward, straight for the stalker corpses on the shore.

The thing in the lake waited, still and silent.

The bug monster reached the closest stalker corpse. The mandibles sliced like two sets of shears, cutting the body into chunks, dissecting it. The first shreds of flesh made it into the creature’s mouth.

The thing in the lake struck. A blur erupted out of the water, lunging onto the shore. Somehow the bug monster dodged and skittered back. The lake owner paused, one massive paw on the torn-up corpse. It was huge, ten feet tall, as long as a school bus, and it stood on four sturdy legs armed with eighteen-inch claws. Its body was a mix of dinosaur and amphibian, dark violet, with scales that shimmered with indigo and pink as it moved. A massive fin-like crest crowned its head and flared along its spine all the way to the tip of a long thick tail. Its head with four small deep-set eyes and a wide, triangular mouth filled with razor sharp teeth was straight dragon. There was nothing else to compare it to. It was a lake dragon, and it had sighted an intruder in its domain.

The bug monster skittered backward, then sideways, its tail raised high, ready to strike.

The dragon’s flesh rippled. Pale pink spots appeared on its sides, near its crest, glowing softly. Was it a warning or was it trying to mesmerize the bug?

The monster silverfish veered left, then right, but did not retreat. Bugs weren’t known for their strategic thinking. There was meat on the shore, and the bug wanted it.

The silverfish lunged forward, the tail striking like a hammer. The dragon spun and swatted at it with its tail. The silverfish dodged and charged in.

I grabbed Bear’s leash, leaving her six inches of lead, and moved carefully away, past the boulders, along the ledge, toward the back of the cavern. Bear made no noise. She didn’t bark, she didn’t growl, she just snuck away with me.

Behind us, the bug monster screeched. A deep eerie hiss answered, almost a roar.

I picked my way along the wall, through jagged boulders. On our left, the walls were smooth and almost sheer.  On our right, the river that flowed from the waterfall rushed to the lake. 

I flexed again. The water was twenty-two feet wide and seven feet deep. Too deep to easily cross, and the other shore sloped up, littered with large rocks. A chunk of cave ceiling or one of those stone bridges above must’ve collapsed and broken into big chunks. Too hard to climb.

I kept scanning. There had to be a way out of this deathtrap.

My vision snagged on something ahead, where the wall curved left. A dark gap split the rock face, twelve feet high and fourteen feet wide. I focused on it. 

No dice. The gap was fifty-three yards away, and my talent told me that there was nothing valuable in the rock wall around it, but I couldn’t tell how deep it was or if it even led somewhere.  My ability was always tied to my vision. I could sense things buried within rock, but I still had to look at the rock while doing it. If I closed my eyes, I got nothing, and that fissure was just a dark hole. Once I entered the gap, I could scan it but until then, it was a mystery.

There could be other passages on the other side of the cavern, but I didn’t want to risk it. There could be nothing there.

The boulders ended. The ground here was almost clear and sheathed in the mauve flowers. We’d have to leave cover to get to the gap.

I glanced over my shoulder. The bug monster had circled the lake. It was on our side now, still facing the dragon, but two of its left legs were missing and a long gouge carved across its chitin carapace. It wasn’t darting quite as quickly. The huge lake monster kept advancing, its crest rigid, the spots on its sides almost blinding. A wound split its right shoulder, bright with magenta blood.

We had to risk it.

I tugged Bear’s leash, and we padded into the open, heading for the gap. My enhanced vision snagged on the flowers.  Poisonous when eaten. Everything in this fucking breach was trying to kill us.

Something thudded. I risked a glance. The bug had crashed into the wall, falling on its side, and the dragon bore down on it, mouth gaping. At the last moment, the silverfish flipped and dashed away, heading straight for us.

I ran. We flew across the cave, scrambling over rocks. The air in my lungs turned to fire.

The bug was right behind me. I felt it there. I didn’t need to flex, I knew exactly where it was.

The gap loomed in front of us.

Bear and I scrambled into the darkness. For a moment I was running blind, and then my night vision kicked in. Ahead, the passage narrowed down to four feet wide.

Yes! The narrower the better.

An awful scraping noise came from behind us, the sound of bug legs digging into the rocks.

Beyond the narrow point lay darkness. It was too deep and too dark.

We dashed through the narrowed gap, and I slid to a halt, yanking Bear back. We stood on a seven-foot ledge. Past it the ground disappeared. There was no way down. There was just a gulf of empty dark nothing.

We were trapped.

The wall behind us shook.

I spun around.

The bug rammed the stone, trying to get its tail through, but the gap was too narrow.  It screeched and struck the rock again. The mandibles shot toward me through the gap, slicing.

I jerked my right arm up on pure instinct. The cuff around my wrist flowed into my fingers and snapped into a long sharp spike, and I drove it into the bug’s head. The blade sliced through the right mandible and bit into the armored carapace. The mandible hung limp. I yanked the blade free and stabbed again, and again, and again, thrusting and cutting in a panic-fueled frenzy. To my right, Bear launched forward, exploding into snarls, bit the mandible I had partially severed, and ripped it free.

The bug screeched. Puss-colored ichor wet its head. It tried to back up, but its head was wedged into the gap.

I kept stabbing. Bear lunged back in, foam flying from her mouth, latched onto another mandible, and hung on, fur standing straight up.

Stab, stab, stab…

The bug collapsed. I drove the sword into it seven more times before my brain finally processed what I was seeing. The giant silverfish was dead. It wasn’t even twitching.

I heaved, trying to catch my breath. We killed it. Somehow we killed it.

Bear snarled next to me, biting a chunk of the bug she had torn off. All of her fur stood on end.

“Good girl,” I breathed. “Finally snapped, huh?”

Bear growled and bit down.  Chitin crunched.

The bug shuddered.

I jerked my sword up.

The silverfish slid backward, into the gloom of the dark passageway, and behind it, I saw the outline of a massive paw and pale glowing spots.

I dropped into a crouch and hugged Bear to me in case she decided to follow. The silverfish vanished, swallowed by the darkness.  The pale pink spots winked out.

The post The Inheritance: Chapter 4 Part 2 first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

2,119 miles away from Elmwood

The right leg hurt, the left arm hurt, everything fucking hurt. There was alien slime dripping from his armor, and it stank like yesterday’s vomit.

The gate loomed in front of him. Elias McFeron stepped through it.

Blue sky. Finally. 

He took a deep breath and tasted home. That first gulp of Earth’s air. There was nothing like it.

Behind him the rest of the assault team staggered out. He’d force-marched them for the last two days, all the way from the anchor chamber. It was a hard pace even for the top Talents, and it took longer than expected because the markers they had placed to guide their way through the swamp had sunk.

The first responders dashed toward him with the stretcher. Elias let them get in position, lifted Damion Bonilla off his shoulders, and carefully deposited him onto the stretcher. The pulsecarver’s blood-smeared face was a mask of pain.

“Thank you, Guildmaster. I’m sorry.”

Elias nodded. “Nothing to be sorry about. Rest. You’ve earned it.”

The first responders carried Bonilla off. His legs were bloody mush below the knees, but he would walk again. The healers would fix him. They fixed anything except dead if you got to them in time.

This was the last time. Elias had promised himself that every time he went into the breach, but this time he meant it. He would strip off the armor, take a long shower in his hotel, board the guild jet with the rest of his team, and go home. He would eat well, sleep in his own bed, and then in the morning he would put on a suit, go into his office, and do paperwork like a normal fucking human being. That’s where he belonged. Running the guild, which had plenty of blade wardens without him.

The medics swarmed the assault team. A young kid with a healer’s white caduceus on his jacket ran up to him. Elias waved him off and squinted at the familiar orderly chaos in front of the gate, looking for the mining crew. He’d sent a scout ahead with the orders to wrap it up. The miners were on the left, stowing their gear. He counted them out of habit. 15 and 8 escorts. Good. Everyone was out.

A familiar tall, lean figure in a black Tom Ford suit tugged at his attention. Leo Martinez, who seemed to be born to wear elegant suits and be the public face of a guild, the only man standing still in the flurry of activity. His XO, who should’ve been back at HQ, 2,000 miles away. Something had happened.

Leo started toward him.

Elias made himself walk forward. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to deal with it but avoiding it would make things worse.

A sharp sound cut through the human clamor, like the noise of a thousand paper sheets being ripped at once magnified through concert level speakers. The gate collapsed.

Leo reached him. “Cutting it a little close, sir.”

“Happens.” Elias headed for the familiar black SUV. The back hatch rose as he approached, and he began stripping his armor and tossing it into the plastic-lined vehicle. “What is it?”

Leo kept his voice low. “We had a fatal event.”

He’d figured that. “Where?”

“Elmwood Gate. The assault team is presumed dead. We lost nine of twelve miners, four of the escorts, a K9 and handler, and a DeBRA.”

Elias stopped for a moment. Twenty-eight people. Good people. He’d approved the line up himself. It was a solid team that should’ve been more than adequate for the deep yellow gate. He’d personally trained them, he’d gone into breaches with them, and now they were dead. Half of them under the age of thirty. He’d sent kids to their deaths again.

This wasn’t a fatal event, this was a catastrophe. What the hell went wrong over there?

Leo’s face was carefully neutral. “The DeBRA is—”

“Adaline Moore.” The best DeBRA in the Eastern US died in their gate dive.

“Yes, sir. I’ve got the mining foreman, the surviving miners, and London under lockdown.”

“London made it out?”

The crisp line of Leo’s jaw got sharper. “Yes, sir.”

“Hm.”

“I’ve reported to the DDC,” Leo continued. “Cora Ward owes me a favor, so she will sit on it for as long as she can, but sooner or later this will get out and when it does, both the Hermetic Alliance and the Guardian Guild will scream bloody murder. The Guardians, in particular, have been vocal about our share of the gates.”

Adaline Moore had been in high demand. DeBRAs of her caliber were rare and monopolized by the DDC. Elias liked to know who he was working with, so he kept tabs on the assessors. Adaline was divorced, with an absentee ex-husband, two children, a cat, and her life revolved around work and family. The very definition of a noncombatant. Her children were now orphans.

Leo was right, the fallout from this would hit them like a hammer, but the political mess and the PR nightmare wasn’t important right now. He would deal with that later. “What does London say happened?”

“Humanoid combatants. Highest red level.”

“What kind of combatants?”

A slight edge slipped into Leo’s voice. “He doesn’t know.”

Perfect.

“His entire crew and the DeBRA are dead, and he doesn’t know. Did he see the DeBRA die?”

“He says he did. The mining foreman backs up his story.”

The foreman made it out, too. “What about the other miners?”

“In shock. They aren’t talking.”

Elias deposited the last bit of gear into the SUV and slapped it shut. The vehicle rocked. The control got away from him a hair.

Leo got behind the wheel, Elias climbed into the passenger seat, and they drove out, past the police barricade and the onlookers onto I-205, heading north, toward the airport, where the guild jet waited.

“From what London described, we will need the primary team,” Leo said. “Kovalenko is on loan to Texas’ Lone Star Guild and Krista is on vacation in the Caribbean. Jackson is in Japan.”

And they would have to wait for Jackson because they would need their best healer.

“Jackson has the longest travel but should make it within 48 hours. The real problem is the tank,” Leo said. “Both Karen and Amir are inside the gates right now, and both went in less than twenty-four hours ago. We can substitute Geneva, but she lacks experience…”

“No need,” Elias said. “I’ll take them in myself. Tell Krista I authorized triple rates. We can swing by Dallas and pick up Kovalenko. We have 28 people in that breach. We must recover the bodies so their families will have something to bury.”

If there was anything to recover. With the kind of delay they were facing, they could get there and find only bones stripped bare. Dead people became meat, and meat didn’t last long in a breach. He would shower and sleep on the plane. The office would have to wait.

“Are we pulling them to HQ or straight to Elmwood?” Leo asked.

“Straight to Elmwood. Nobody goes into that gate until I get there.”

“Understood.”

Elias looked at the city soaking in the dreary rain of the Pacific Northwest outside the window and glanced back at his XO. “Was London injured?”

A hint of bright electric lightning flared in Leo’s eyes, turning them an unnatural silver white. He pronounced words with crisp exactness. “Not a scratch, sir.”

“Hm.”

He had to get to Elmwood. The sooner, the better.

The post The Inheritance: Chapter 4 Part 1 first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

While House Andrews is away (hopefully somewhere gorgeous, where the only monsters are overloaded breakfast waffles), you’re left with me. Mwahahaha.

As always, the result is chaos! Fluffy, nerdy, deeply chalant chaos. Some of you are still trying to marry London though sheer force of headcanon – because would a guy with such good jawline really be capable of betrayal? And who among us hasn’t at one time suggested impromptu post-mortem thumb fingerprint extraction surgery in a toxic monster-infested cave trap? Long live Team Facts Be Damned, you’ve taught me all I know!

The comments have also been busy trying to figure out which Talent would serve us best beyond the gate.

I see you. I hear you. I have made you a thing: The Inheritance Talent Sorting Quiz.

Tried to write it as a ‘choose your own adventure’ story. That’s technically the tank-repairing grandma of LitRPG, so it should work. There are 6 possible results: assessor, tank, blade warden, scout, healer and mining foreman. Sorry chat, you can’t aim for the InBearitance. If we can’t all be Bear, no one can be Bear. It’s only fair.

Gentle note:

This is just for fun. Every Talent plays a vital part in helping humanity survive. If you think getting a particular result might ruin your afternoon, it’s perfectly fine to skip the quiz. Bear still loves you.

Also: the newsletter doesn’t like the quiz plugin and sends it out in code. If you read this in email form and want to take the test, click here to come directly to the website.

Long may you survive the breach, BDH! Preferably with all your thumbs.

6668

The Inheritance Talent Quiz

When the first gate tore and monsters came out, everything went sideways. Humans freaked out. A few—not me, I’m a dog—woke up with powers no one could explain. Talents. Some became walking shields. Some turned into stabby-happy blade machines. Some just got very good at finding shinies.
The war is still going. It's time to find your place in the breach. Take the quiz. Get sorted. Don’t die. And bring dog biscuits.

— Bear, Winner of the "Best Girl" Guild Award, 3 years running

 

1 / 10

You step through the gate. The mist clings to your boots and the air smells like copper and rain. Ahead, alien darkness stretches, waiting.

Before you challenge it, you reach for your talisman. Every diver has one. Something to hold, remember, and ward off the worst. What do you carry?

A dog tag from someone who didn’t make it. You wear it so no one forgets. A coin you flip before each gate run. It doesn't matter what you call—it’s not about the outcome, it’s about the toss. A nugget of rusty breach ore. Worth nothing. Kept it anyway. It hums sometimes. A loop of thread, torn off from your oldest guild coveralls. It’s frayed. So are you. Still works. A polished citrine crystal. Your mother said it brings prosperity. You mostly use it as a fidget spinner. Just a ritual. You whisper your name once, then leave it behind. In the breach, no one can hold you, even by your shadow.

2 / 10

The first thing you encounter is a grove of bioluminescent fungi, stretching as far as the eye can see. Some pulse with variegated light; others twitch when the air moves. Do you…

Immediately start cataloguing. Potential resource, possible danger—both matter. Could it work as potential escape cover for later? Who knows what will be chasing you on your way out. Clear a path through it—gently, if possible, forcefully if not. Look for signs of medicinal properties. Even breach-nature heals if you know where to look. Check whether it grows over something more valuable. You're in this for the income as much as the outcome. Investigate the wider area while everyone is focused on the mushrooms. Someone has to.

3 / 10

At the other end of the mushroom field, the ground starts to shake underfoot. Debris cascades down the cave walls. Ahead, a narrow tunnel splits left, and a spindly stone bridge stretches right across a deep chasm. Neither path looks safe. Make your choice.

A "gut instinct" is your experience and perception telling you something before the brain has had the chance to formulate rational thought. You pick the path your intuition dictates. Not all of you will be able to fit through the narrow tunnel. You test the bridge’s strength with your full weight. If it breaks, better it’s you than the others. You guard the crossing until everyone else makes it through. Survival is a priority, but resources are the whole reason the team is here. Which path leads to fewer regrets? Bah. Rocks. You know rocks. Rocks fall, nobody died. They're overreacting. Make sure everyone’s stable before committing to either direction.

4 / 10

Good news: your whole team made it across the narrow stone bridge. Bad news: the air here crackles with static. Something hums in your teeth. Only one step into the eerie cold and your comm unit sputters and dies. HQ is gone. Radio silence. What do you do?

Fall into leadership mode. Contact or no contact, someone needs to take responsibility for the team. You have no authority here. You can only hope procedure will be maintained. Mutter a curse and keep working. If it's important, they’ll find you. Rally the team, keep panic from spreading. Hold position and fortify your location until a new plan forms. Double-time it to higher ground to assess the new area. Sooner or later, the order will be to move.

5 / 10

You hear a faint tapping behind a collapsed wall in the new cavern. Comms are still down, so it could be someone from the assault team, trapped. How do you handle it?

Leave the team to their work and go investigate from a side tunnel. Clear the rubble with brute strength—there's no time to lose! Weapon at the ready. Chances are it's foe, not friend. Have your supplies at hand. You hope it's not too late for whoever's out there. Use tools to clear rubble efficiently, like you were trained to do. Evaluate the surroundings and probabilities before you even touch this new problem.

6 / 10

An ambush! There's monster fire as soon as you clear the suspicious tapping wall. Your instincts scream. You react with:

Shield up, block as much of the damage as possible. Fall back, analyzing the cavern for counterattack or escape options. Find cover and prepare to deal with the inevitable. Stealthily drop a grenade on the enemy from above. Play deadly games, win deadly prizes. Rush the enemy, cutting your way out. If it's heavy enough, it's a weapon. I'm not going down today.

7 / 10

You've escaped the monster ambush, but one of your teammates is down—bad leg wound, bleeding fast. What do you do?

Assess the wound and try to stop the bleeding immediately. Carry them without slowing down. Clear a path for evacuation, with force if necessary. Look around for that one lichen that acts as a painkiller. They must be in agony. Find the fastest way back to the gate. Time matters. Rig a makeshift stretcher out of whatever you have. You'll take turns getting them through this.

8 / 10

You've been in the breach for a day now and it's taking its toll. You find a mostly intact supply crate dropped by the assault team. What's the first thing you grab?

The fresh pair of socks. Work conditions are hard and trench foot is harder! A new can of high-vis spray paint. This breach is loaded! Med supplies, the severe limb injury is draining ours. Emergency rations. I need my strength. Check for any weapons. Even with the safety protocols, we don't want them to fall in enemy hands. The portable beacon. Escape routes matter more than loot.

9 / 10

You’ve reached the anchor chamber. It’s pulsing at critical mass. Once it ruptures, monsters will flood Earth. But this is also the first chamber you've come across any high-value ore. You have minutes. What do you do?

Collapse the anchor. We'll find good ore in other breaches. Slash at anything that comes from the anchor while others mine. We're in a blue threat-level breach, we can take these monsters. Block the entrance. If creature wants to go through, it won't make it past you. Get your team out alive. Nothing is worth dying for. Move out. No looking back. Secure the ore—fast. After all that, you’re not leaving empty-handed.

10 / 10

As you stumble through the collapsing gate, bloodied and exhausted, one thought burns brightest in your mind. What was most important to you inside the breach?

Giving the fight my all. Understanding the breach so humanity can make the most out of it. Protecting my team. Always. Getting everyone out on their own feet. Having something to show for it. Glory is good, but bonuses feed my kids better. Outmaneuvering every threat the breach threw at me. LinkedIn Facebook Twitter VKontakte

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If you concentrate, you can sense mushrooms being toxic three tunnels away.\\r\\nIt\\u2019s not just about survival when you head out in front of everyone in the breach. You have to outsmart, outmaneuver, and outrun danger, and come back to bring first warning. You read every shadow and sound beyond the gate like a map, and make sure the rest of your team don\\u2019t get caught unaware.\\r\\n\\r\\nBear says: \\\"Light paws. Smart paws. Ears up, eyes open!\\\"\\r\\n\",\"interval_image\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ilona-andrews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/kuzco-emperor-1.gif\",\"interval_redirect_url\":\"\",\"interval_redirect_delay\":\"\",\"interval_wproduct\":\"\",\"interval_keyword\":\"E\"},{\"interval_min\":\"\",\"interval_max\":\"\",\"interval_text\":\"Congratulations, you are a Mining Foreman!\\r\\n\\r\\nSurvival isn't just about killing monsters\\u2014it\\u2019s about building something afterward. Others heroically swing blades and dodge monster claws, but who is making all that possible? You are!\\r\\n\\u201cPlaying around with pretty rocks\\u201d ensures humanity gets the precious metals to reinforce armour and forge the weapons. No wonder you get paid the big bucks!\\r\\nMiners are strong, adaptable, pragmatic and not above smacking a monster with a rock drill if it comes to that. You're the bedrock everyone else builds on.\\r\\n\\r\\nBear says:\\\" Shiny rocks good. Shiny rocks mean bacon.\\\"\\r\\n\",\"interval_image\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ilona-andrews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/TSBEvolution-All-Blocks.gif\",\"interval_redirect_url\":\"\",\"interval_redirect_delay\":\"\",\"interval_wproduct\":\"\",\"interval_keyword\":\"F\"}]","author_id":"4477","post_id":null,"create_date":"2025-04-29 14:38:45","quiz_url":"","is_user_logged_in":false,"quiz_animation_top":100,"quiz_enable_animation_top":"on","store_all_not_finished_results":false}';

See you on Friday for The Inheritance Chapter 4!

The post Horde Alone And Inheritance Quiz first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Alex Costa, thirty-two years old, honorably discharged after eight years in the Marine Corps. He and his husband had just celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary, and before the dive, he had showed off the necklace he received as a gift – a clover charm in gold with a small breach emerald in the center. For luck.

Alex sprawled on the rocks, face up. The left side of his skull and face were sliced off, and the cut was so sharp, it was like half of his head simply disappeared. His one remaining eye stared up at me, dull and lifeless.

I squatted by the body. My leg whined in protest, so I sat on the ground and picked up Alex’s SIG Spear.

“This probably won’t work,” I told Bear.

Bear enthusiastically panted.

Originally the SIG Spear was developed as a civilian version of US Army XM7, a multi-caliber rifle that answered the military’s need for the small arms with greater firepower.  It offered higher muzzle velocity and better long-range shot placement. This version of the SIG Spear was developed specifically for the gates. I knew all of this because I had been briefed on it and taught how to fire it.

There was just one problem.

I turned the rifle on its side and found a small black selector. It could be turned only two ways: toward a stylized bullet etched into the gun or toward the identical bullet with a line through it. Fire, no fire. As my retired Marine firing range instructor put it, private-proof. So easy even a soldier could do it.

The selector was in the safety position. Alex died too fast to fire off a shot.

I flipped the selector toward the bullet, raised the rifle to my shoulder, and pressed the trigger. Nothing. As expected.

A small red light flared on the rifle and faded.

The use of guns inside the gate was strictly controlled. Only smart guns were permitted, and only combat-rated Talents could carry one. Nobody wanted the civilians grabbing weapons dropped by their injured escorts and firing them in a blind panic. Nobody wanted to hand a working firearm to the enemy either. That technology needed to stay in human hands as long as possible.

Each smart weapon was keyed to the biometrics of its owner. In a pinch, it could be unlocked by entering a code given only to the assault and escort team members. A new code was issued for every gate dive.

They didn’t give me the code. I was a non-combatant Talent. I would never need this code, because I had a big strong blade warden with an invulnerable forcefield to protect me.

“When we get out of here, I’m going to punch that smarmy weasel in the face.”

I flipped the gun over to the code lock. The small screen had space for six digits.

123456

654321

000000

111111…

Nothing. I could sit here for hours and not get anywhere.

“If there are more of those four-armed creatures on the other side of the gates, guns won’t be much of an advantage for us, Bear. They still need a human to aim and fire. Parrying an attack at that speed requires a top tier combat Talent, and we don’t have too many of those.”

I went through Alex’s pockets and came up with two energy bars and a ka-bar knife.

Anja’s corpse was next. She wasn’t cut, but there were chunks of rock embedded in her chest. Killed by London’s grenade.

She wore the same shoe size as me, 8 in women’s. I took her boots. They were dry.

“I’ve turned into a ghoul, Bear. I’m now robbing the dead.”

Panic crested inside me, and I shoved it back down again. Don’t think, just do.

I took his canteen and the bars and moved on to the next corpse.

Fifteen minutes later I’d worked my way around the cavern back to where I’d passed out. Nine of the twelve miners had died. Of the escort team, only London had made it out.

George Payne was the oldest miner on the crew. He was fifty-four, and his years had been hard-won. He’d brought a backpack. Inside I found Motrin, a Chapstick, some tissues, a small towel, a packet of jerky, a Leatherman multitool, a pair of dry socks in a Ziploc bag, and way too many Tiger Balm patches. I dumped the patches and kept everything else. I swapped my socks out, put Anja’s boots on, and loaded the rest of what I gathered from the others into the backpack. My haul consisted of eight energy bars, seven 32 oz canteens, two Kit Kats, one portable first aid kit, and a pack of THC gummies. Only four canteens fit. That and the one on my waist made five.

“A Ka-bar.” I showed the knife to Bear. “That’s the weapon we have to work with. This is all our firepower. Right here in my hand.”

Bear didn’t seem impressed.

“We’re going to make it out of here if I have cut my way through every last monster in this fucking breach.”

Big talk. Whatever killed the assault team was probably still out there. Jace, the assault’s team tank, was protected by over a hundred pounds of adamant, which he wore like sweatpants because he was literally strong enough to bench press a car. Blue Savant shot lightning from his fingertips. Ximena, a pulsecarver, had a reaction time of fifty milliseconds and could dice a horde of monsters into pieces with her twin swords.

I had a Ka-bar and needed ibuprofen for my knees after a 100-meter dash.

What was the alternative? Sitting here and dying?

I had gone through all of the human dead. The grey attackers were next. I walked over to the first body. The grey shroud wrapping around the four-armed corpse shivered.

I stopped.

The shroud stretched toward me in long strands, like algae swaying with the currents. Behind me, Bear whined.

I flexed. The grey shroud burst into a blazing violent orange. It was plant based and also animal based, an odd hybrid somewhere in-between. A mixotroph like the single-celled Euglena, which used photosynthesis like a plant but moved and ingested food like an animal. And if it touched me, I would be dead. I had no idea how I knew it, but I was absolutely sure. It would kill me.

I backed away. The shroud shivered, as if vibrating in frustration, and settled back onto the corpse.

I swallowed and turned to the woman in blue.

I’d successfully avoided thinking about her and the gem up to this point. But there was no choice now.

What did she do to me? She did something. I didn’t feel that different. Did she really put a gem inside my head? Was that why my leg healed?

But if you had a magic gem that could fix broken bones in a matter of hours, it was highly likely said gem could also regrow limbs. Why give it to me? Why not keep it and regenerate the arm?

Treasure your inheritance, my kind daughter.

All the questions. Zero answers.

The dead woman lay on her back. Her face had lost its vibrant color. The pink and turquoise dulled, muted, as if she were a wilted flower. Her blood-soaked robe stuck to her body, and the puddle of blood by her arm had congealed to a dark viscous gel.

Logic said I had to search her, but something about it felt fundamentally wrong, like committing sacrilege.

I circled the body and flexed. The corpse turned a faint violet, so light it was almost white. A sliver of deepest black stretched by the woman’s side. The sword. My talent had no idea what to make of it, so it registered it as a slice of darkness.

I blinked my power off and knelt on the rocks by the sword. I remembered it being slender and blue, but now it seemed shorter and dull, washed-out grey in color. There was no wrapping on the hilt. The whole thing was one continuous chunk. It looked metal but I had no idea what kind. Nothing like I’d ever seen before.

A sword was much better than a knife.

“I’m sorry you died,” I told the corpse. “I need your sword to survive.”

And now I was talking to dead people.

I touched the sword. Sparks burst from the blade. The blade turned blue. The handle flowed in my fingers as if liquid and wrapped around my wrist.

Panic punched me. I jerked my hand away on pure instinct, flailing around like there was a poisonous bug on my arm. The band of metal around my wrist snapped open, and the blade clattered to the floor.

I froze, staring at it.

The sword lay on the stone, inert, once again dull, muted grey.

A moment passed. Another.

The sword didn’t move.

Okay. One more time.

I reached for the sword. The moment my fingers touched it, the metal flowed again, anchoring itself around my wrist and fitting perfectly into my fingers. The urge to fling it away gripped me.

I clenched my teeth and waited. 

The sword waited with me.

Was I controlling it? Was this some alien artificial intelligence? Was it alive somehow?

Nothing was happening.

I took a deep breath. 

The sword flowed through my fingers to my forearm and wrapped around it like a pale-blue metal bracer.

I quashed the scream before it left my mouth. My fingers were free. I moved my arm around. The bracer stayed as if glued.

I moved as if to stab. The sword streamed into my palm, lengthened into a half-formed blade, and stopped. Waiting for a target? I lowered my arm. The blade slithered back into a bracer.

“Magic sword,” I told Bear.

The shepherd eyed the bracer and kept her distance.

I had made a full circle around the cavern. The pool where Stella died was right in front of me. Her head was still on the bottom, dark hair swaying with the weak current.

I needed to fish Stella’s head out of the water and put it with her body. When the guild eventually came for the corpses, they might miss it, and Stella’s parents would need a whole daughter to bury.

The hair swayed.

I had to do this. It was very simple: wade into the water, pick up the head, put it with her body.

Oh my God. She was twenty years old. She was alive this morning. She was talking, walking, breathing and now she was dead and her head was in the water and Tia was only four years younger. Would somebody be taking my daughter’s head out of a pool like this one so I could look at her face one last time? When they got Stella out, they would put her in a box, and then they would bury her, and her mother would never see her again.

How do you survive this? How do you go on after this?

Her parents couldn’t be much older than me. They would have to live the rest of their lives without her. There was nothing anyone could do. This was done. She was dead.

Tears wet my eyes. I splashed through the water, picked up her head, and climbed out, slipping on the rocks. Her body lay on its back. What do I do? Do I put it on her neck? Do I leave it next to her?

I was holding a kid’s head in my hands and trying to figure out how best to leave it with her corpse.

Someone wailed like a hurt animal, and I realized it was me. Tears came, so many I couldn’t even see.

I put the head gently by her side, dropped to the ground next to her, and cried. I cried and screamed for Stella, for her parents, for Sanders and Anja, for their children and loved ones. I cried for Costa who was missing half of his face and for Aaron who lay in pieces.

I sobbed for all of them, all the bodies in this cave. And I cried for myself, trapped here, left to die, and for my children who might never see me again.

Bear padded over to me and lay by my side. I hugged her and cried harder. It was just the two of us, the cave, and the raw pain of my grief.

Gradually, the sobs subsided. I ran out of tears. For a while I sat there, silent, staring at Stella’s body. Slowly, very slowly, self-preservation woke up and took over. Nobody was coming for me. Nobody would help me. It was up to me.

Nothing new.

I could do this. I’ve been doing this since I turned eighteen and my mother informed me that I had two weeks to move out. I’d been doing this since Roger decided that he didn’t want to do this anymore.

I got up.

Bear stared at me.

“Time to get a move on.”

I swung the heavy backpack onto my back and picked up Bear’s leash.

I was halfway to the tunnels when the generator sputtered and died, plunging the cavern into darkness.

The post The Inheritance: Chapter 3 Part 2 first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

I opened my eyes. A jagged stone ceiling spread above me, glowing softly with swirls of alien growth.

I hadn’t imagined the nightmare. It happened.

I stared at the ceiling for a long breath and checked my watch. The digital skin was dark, with a spiderweb of cracks across it. Must’ve happened when I smashed into that rimstone after the blast.

Lying here would accomplish nothing. I had to get out of this hellhole.

I sat up slowly. The generator was still going, and three of the five floodlights had survived, illuminating the cavern with bright puddles of electric light. The inside of my head burned, my back throbbed, and my right leg felt like someone had rolled an asphalt compactor over it. But I was still breathing.

“Is anyone alive?”

Silence. Just me and the corpses.

“Anyone?”

Something nudged my side. I whipped around. Bear sat next to me, her smart brown eyes focused on my face with unwavering canine intensity.

I wasn’t by myself. The dog was with me.

“Hi Bear.”

Bear tilted her head. Her left side was dark and wet. Blood. It started near her shoulder and bled down over her leg onto the paw. Shit.

“Hold on, girl.”

I pushed to my feet. My right leg whined but held my weight. Oh good. I took two steps before I remembered the bone sticking through my skin.

I pulled my right pant leg up. An angry red welt marked my calf, smudged with dried blood. That was it. The wound was gone.

I’m losing my mind.

My leg was broken. I had looked at it and then hid it with my coveralls. The pant leg was stained with dark red, the result of a massive bleed. I’d left a blood trail half across this cavern. I looked up. There it was, a ragged chain of dark smears.

I felt the edge of rising panic and shoved those thoughts right down before they dragged me under. It didn’t matter right now. I had to see what was going on with Bear’s shoulder.

I made my way to the nearest pond. A bright turquoise hard hat lay on the rocks. I had a sick feeling that Stella might have been wearing it.

Nope, not going to think about that either.

“Come here, Bear.”

The shepherd padded over.

“Stay.”

Bear sat.

I needed to clean the blood off her, but who knew what the hell was in this water. 

I flexed.

The water looked perfectly clear to my enhanced vision.

My talent pegged it as clean, but there were limits to what I could sense. If Bear had an open wound and I dumped a bunch of alien bacteria into it… But then I crawled all over in that water with an open wound – which was mysteriously not open anymore, and yeah, not thinking about that – and I almost drowned in it. I was pretty sure I’d swallowed a bunch of it. Which was neither here nor there, except if there was some vicious pathogen in it, we were both fucked.

There was water in the canteens. All miners carried some. We would have to save that for drinking. There was no way to tell how long it would take us to get out of this cave.

Suddenly my mouth was dry.

I dipped the hat into the stream, scooped some water, and gently poured it over Bear’s flank, half-expecting the dog to bolt. Bear sat like a rock.

“Stay. What a good girl. The best girl. So good.”

Three hats later, the water ran mostly clear. A gash carved Bear’s skin over her shoulder. It was shallow and not too long. Most of the blood must have come from somewhere else. Someone else.

I exhaled. One of those carts should have a med kit on it.

“Let’s get some antiseptic on that.”

I needed to get across the stream and the slight wobble in my leg said that if I fell, I would regret it. The best place to cross was still the same – the shallow part where Aaron lay in two pieces.

I picked up Bear’s leash and made my way to the crossing. If she yanked me off my feet, there would be hell to pay. I waded into the stream, ready to drop the leash at the slightest tug. Bear whined and followed me. I slowly shuffled across the stream bottom.

“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”

The words came out like a curse. Melissa’s face was branded into my memory. I could replay it in my head like a recording. Six years. I couldn’t even remember how many breaches together. She knew my children’s names. She looked straight at me and yelled at London to throw the grenade.

“I thought she was my friend, Bear.”

Bear didn’t answer.

“I saw Melissa push Anja out of her way. And that over there is Anja’s body. She was twenty-six years old.”

Sanders, Hotchkins, Ella Gazarian, they were in front of me when I was sprinting for that exit. My memory served up Sanders being swept away by the blast.

“They were her guildmates. They trusted her, and she fucking left them, and worse, trampled over them trying to escape. Sanders is probably the reason I survived. He took the brunt of that aetherium grenade.”

We cleared the stream and carefully went up the shallow slope to where the carts waited. Water sloshed in my boot. The other one was wet, too.

I tied the leash to the cart, found the first aid kit, and flipped the heavy latches open. A nice big bottle of antiseptic rinse. We were in business.

“Stay, Bear.”

The shepherd sat.

I opened the antiseptic and poured it over the wound. Bear shook but stayed.

“You are so good. Such a good dog.”

I capped the bottle and grabbed a tube of antibacterial gel.

“Melissa’s priority was the mining crew. But London’s priority was keeping everyone safe, and if that failed, keeping me alive.”

I remembered the cold calculation in London’s eyes, too. The way his face iced over when he hurled the grenade. The set of his mouth. I squeezed the gel onto Bear’s wound.

“He was looking straight at me, and his eyes said, ‘Fuck you. I’m not dying here today.’ I was halfway across that stream when he bailed. Five more seconds. That was all I needed. Five seconds, and I would’ve been on the other end of that cave in. What was left of the mining crew would’ve been on the other side. They weren’t even paying attention to us. We could’ve ran all the way to the gate.”

Bear tilted her head, looking at me.

“You know what he said to me? He said, ‘I’ll get you out of here in one piece. The only way you go down is if I’m down, and I’m really good at surviving.’ Well, we know he didn’t lie. That fucker is excellent at surviving.”

I screwed the cap back onto the gel tube.

“The Cold Chaos assault teams are good at clearing the prospective mining sites before moving on. I’ve never seen their escorts deal with anything more serious than a skirmish. The most London had to do was to cut down an occasional left-over creature popping out of its hiding place. This – everything that happened – was the reason why Cold Chaos sent him into the breach. When the worst-case scenario hit, he was supposed to step in. He was supposed to protect us. All those people…”

A sob choked me.

I shut up.

Being an escort captain came with a lot of responsibility, and you didn’t just become one. It wasn’t enough to be powerful or trusted. The position required experience. London had put in years with the primary assault teams. He was seasoned. He looked at those hostiles slicing people like cabbage in passing, and in a split second he knew that he had never encountered anything like them and nothing he had in his arsenal could stop them. He saw death, and he made a deliberate choice to save himself.

He could’ve waited. He could’ve stood in that gap for another ten seconds and let the rest of us escape, but it was a risk, and he chose his life over ours. The only reason Melissa made it out was because she happened to be close enough and he would need a witness to back up his story. When your job is to put yourself between noncombatants and danger, coming out of the breach alone wasn’t a good look.

Even if they fired him, he would live. That’s all that mattered to him. And if he had been one of the ordinary miners I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but he wasn’t a miner. He was a high-ranking combat Talent. We trusted him. I trusted him, and he threw an aetherium grenade in our faces and ran.

“When death stares people in the face, they revert to their true self, Bear.”

London’s true self was a cold, calculating coward.

I checked myself for scrapes and bruises. I didn’t find any. I had some red welts here and there but no broken skin. I’d crawled on my hands and knees across a rough cave floor dragging my broken leg behind me. My hands and knees should’ve been raw, but I didn’t find any abrasions. I rubbed some gel over the red mark on my leg just in case.

Don’t think about it. That was best.

The generator was next. The industrial model was rated for 7-9 hour run time. The fuel indicator was almost empty. I’d been in this cave for at least 7 hours.

If London made it out of the gate, he would immediately report what happened to the guild. London and Melissa didn’t stay long enough to see how the fight turned out, so for all they knew, there were still active hostiles in this cave. Bodycams didn’t work in the breaches. They still recorded, but you only got static. Cold Chaos would have to rely on London’s testimony, and I was sure that Melissa would confirm whatever he said. She wouldn’t just suddenly grow a heart and admit that she climbed out of the cave over her guildmates’ bodies. As she so often told me, she had mouths to feed.

This was going to go one of three ways.

One, London made it out and reported that I was dead. This was the most likely outcome, because otherwise he would have to own up to leaving me behind.

Two, London made it and reported he left me behind. Not likely. If the DDC found out that he bolted out of the cave abandoning me, Cold Chaos would face heavy sanctions.  There would be a fine at best and revocation of gate access at worst. The guild would cut him loose and blacklist him. He would never work for any of the main guilds again.

Three, London and Melissa died enroute. Like Elena said, this breach was a maze, and we had hiked for quite a while to get to this cavern. It was possible that something equally terrible burst out of a side passage and killed those two. The mining crew was required to report back every hour.  At least seven hours had passed without check-in.  Even if London and Melissa didn’t make it, the guild knew that the mining crew was either in trouble or dead.

No matter which of these three outcomes happened, protocol required the assault team to abandon their progress and address this mess. By now they should have been here to neutralize the threat and retrieve the bodies. Nobody came for the corpses or for the incredibly valuable adamantite, and the breach was still active. That meant only one thing: the assault team was dead.

Bear whined softly. I reached out and petted her back.

Right now, Cold Chaos was likely pulling a new assault team together. The level of threat in this breach was beyond anything I had seen. They would need their top Talents for this, and those people were usually occupied. High ranking guild members made more than celebrity actors, and the guilds worked them to the bone for that money. Getting them all in one place could take days.

The gate opened for entrance twenty-four hours ago. Judging by the power readings, Cold Chaos had anywhere between four to eight weeks to clear it. They thought everyone was dead, so they wouldn’t be in a hurry.

There was another unpleasant possibility. If London did own up to leaving me behind, Cold Chaos could choose to deliberately delay. If I was alive, they would face intense scrutiny. Things would be a lot simpler for them if I was dead. Given enough time in the breach, I would be.

There would be no rescue. I was on my own. If I died here, the kids would be alone.  Roger would let them go into foster care. I was sure of it. They were living reminders of his failure as a father, and he had very little tolerance for being held accountable these days.

I’d made a promise to my daughter. I would keep it.

Digging through the cave-in was out of the question. The integrity of the cave ceiling in that passage was shot, which meant moving any of the rocks risked another collapse. No, I would have to go around, through one of those passageways.

I glanced at the end of the cavern. The tunnels stretched into darkness. I would have to go into that darkness, make my way through the breach filled with monsters, ones that probably killed an entire assault team, find the gate, get out, and make sure Cold Chaos didn’t have a chance to stop me. Too easy.

I would need supplies. And a weapon. In a few minutes, the generator would die and take the lights with it.

I had to act fast.

The post The Inheritance: Chapter 3 Part 1 first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Ada before the gate dive. (Link for those of you getting this in your newsletter.)

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I’ve had a rough night. It stormed very heavily, and Sookie the Old Bulldog decided to hide by my side of the bed breathing heavily. Between that and deafening peals of thunder, I must’ve woke up 5 times. ::looks at a cup of black tea:: Work, damn you.

And I am posting this much later and now the above paragraph makes it seem like I slept past noon. If only. I actually had to get up very early and go to the airport to apply for TSA PreCheck.

Mod R sent over a list of questions.

When will we be able to buy The Inheritance? (this year, this summer, even general estimations would be appreciated)

Should be this summer. I’m annoyed with it right now, because we were trying to finish it before the vacation next week, but doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. We may need another week. The Inheritance will be available in ebook, either by itself or as a part of a collection.

What is the release schedule?

A scene will be posted every Monday and Friday. Meaning that if Chapter 3 has two scenes in it, one will be up on Monday and the other on Friday.

Will it be a series? This is less a question and more an emphatic declaration…BARSA BARSA

I swear, Mod R is the worst series rumor enabler. Right now it is planned as a standalone.

Do I need to read other LitRPGs to get this?

I don’t think so. The Inheritance uses LitRPG tropes, but it interprets them in its own way. It doesn’t hit some of the more genre-specific LitRPG milestones such as system, levels, numerical stats, level overseers/observers, and so on. You should be safe.

So is Ada a pink lantern now?

Everyone by now knows about the Green Lanterns, which are a group of guardians policing the Galaxy in DC comics. They get their powers from a magic green ring. At some point DC decided to add more colors. There are Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Indigo and Violet, Black, White, and Ultraviolet powered by Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum (???). Pink lanterns are part of the Violet Corps, and they are powered by love.

This is what happens when you try to squeeze as much out of a franchise as you can by writing too many sequels.

Ada is not powered by a pink lantern.

Does Bear die?

Read on to find out.

How long with this novella be?

Not sure yet. Maybe 35 K or so. We really do not want to cross into short novel territory. It does have its own folder now. It was in Short Stories folder, but now it has its own Dropbox folder, which is a sing that it’s turning into a bit more of a project. We will see. 35K for now.

A small note, because it’s been a little bit since the last serial

Mod R is there for when BDH needs real life help like when you are having technical difficulties. Please respect her time. If you have a story-related comment, please use the comment section instead. In other words, please do not email her to complain about fictional people.

But what about the theory I posted in the comments? Are you not going to say anything about it? It was a good theory!

Given that when BDH was presented with two men and a daughter, they defaulted to magical male pregnancy instead of adoption, nothing surprises me anymore. Bring it on!

Click this line to read spoiler responses to some interesting ideas.

No, London wasn’t saving the Earth, because the monsters cannot exit the gate and are trapped there. Melissa does not have telepathic powers. Being handsome does not make you a good person, and at the end of the last scene, there was only one being left alive in the cave who saw Ada being kind and could’ve said anything to her. You guys are so much fun. You think of so many interesting things.

Admin note:

We are going on vacation next week, if everything goes well. The Inheritance will continue while we are off. All of the story segments are already uploaded to the site, and Mod R will publish them on schedule.

Love you, BDH! You are still and always the best readers an author can wish for.

The post Can I Pet That Dawg? first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Tor released This Kingdom for preorder and did not warn us. We found out 30 minutes ago, and Mod R tells me that the links are already up in Discord and fan groups. BDH: zero chill.

Zero.

The EBOOK is up everywhere.

The PRINT EDITION is up at other places but not up on Amazon US because Amazon US only allows hardcover preorders in 300 day window before release. Oher country Amazons already have it (UK, Canada, Germany etc). It should be up everywhere some time in the summer. We will remind you again when we have the cover. THERE WILL BE A PRINT EDITION.

The AUDIO is not up anywhere except BN because it has not been recorded yet. The book is still being copyedited. THERE WILL BE AN AUDIO EDITION.

If you are ordering from BN: Members Save 25% Off Pre-Orders With Code: PREORDER25.

BOOKSHOP

Synopsis, once again:

Outlander meets Game of Thrones in this blockbuster new epic fantasy series from the #1 New York Times bestselling author duo Ilona Andrews.

When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy, and naked in a gutter, it doesn’t take her long to recognize Kair Toren, a city she knows intimately from the pages of the famously unfinished dark fantasy series she’s been obsessively reading and re-reading while waiting years for the final novel.

Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic, and mayhem? Her encyclopedic knowledge of the plot, the setting, and the characters’ ambitions and fates. But while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters she’s coming to love—a motley band that includes a former lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures, and a dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes—and attentions—of dueling princes, dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the way she knows their stories will end: in a cataclysmic war.

For fans of Samantha Shannon, Danielle L. Jensen, Sarah J. Maas, and isekai and portal fantasy, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is the beginning of the most epic adventure yet from genre powerhouse author duo Ilona Andrews.

At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Also, different retailers are showing different page count. Nobody has the manuscript yet. These are placeholder page numbers.

The post This Kingdom Is Up for Preorder first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

A massive cavern spread in front of us, awash in bioluminescence like some bizarre rave. It resembled an enormous egg set on its side, with the wider end to the right ending in a solid wall and the narrow end to the left splitting off into several dark passages. The cavern’s floor sloped to the center where a wide stream ran through the cave from left to right. The water was like glass, perfectly clear.

At the banks, the stream branched into several small pools bordered by rimstone dams, some shallow, others deeper. The pools flowed into each other, stretching toward a flat island on our right. The stream split around it and emptied into a lake, its waters moving slowly and disappearing under a spectacular flowstone wall where layers of calcite formed a frozen stone waterfall.

“I need lights, people!” Melissa called out.

The mining crew spread out, planting floodlights along the nearest wall. The portable generator on the central cart sputtered into life, and bright electric light illuminated the cavern. The sloping floor was ridged with calcite, and it looked slick. A good way to break a leg.

“Much better,” Melissa declared. “It’s almost like we know what we’re doing.”

London nodded to the tank. Aaron moved to the left and planted himself in the narrower part of the cave, between the dark tunnels and the mining crew. London stayed at the entrance, guarding our exit route. The three strikers fanned out along the perimeter.

It was my turn to shine. The cavern walls were awash with swirls of bright green mixed with rust-colored metallic deposits. Promising.

I took a deep breath and flexed.

The official term was talent activation, but to me it felt like flexing a muscle I didn’t normally use. The world turned crystal clear. The edges of the rimstone dams and contours of the flowstone waterfall came into sharp focus, as if I’d adjusted my eyes to higher resolution. The outlines of individual mineral deposits glowed slightly.

I focused on the closest wall, scanning and evaluating, sorting through different hues. Malachite, copper-rich chalcopyrite, decent but not exciting. Cuprite, quartz, calcite, trash, garbage, junk…

A patch of funky plants to the left glowed with dull, pale yellow. Healer Slipper. A weird variant, but definitely in the same ballpark as the more common varieties. If processed, it would yield a potent broad-spectrum antibiotic. A decent haul, if nothing else showed up.

In the wake of the gate catastrophe and the emergence of the Talents, humanity had tried to find some frame of reference. We settled on video games. A lot of the Talent classification mirrored the familiar game classes: tanks, healers, scouts, and so on. The closest video game match for my talent would’ve been appraiser, but the government nixed that one because it didn’t sound heroic enough and was too “materialistic,” which was utterly hilarious considering what I did. Unlike Melissa, who only sensed ores and only when she was on top of them, I evaluated everything in my environment, organic or inorganic.

So far, the cavern has been relatively disappointing. Usually, orange gates offered a little more. I pivoted slightly, turning away from the wall.

The inside of the stream lit up like a Christmas tree. Well, that was something.

“Gold in the water,” I announced. “Check the pools.”

“Go!” Melissa barked.

The miners scrambled over calcite walls. The pools directly in front of them ran a little deeper, and the water came up to their thighs.

Sanders thrust his hand into the pool and pulled up a tangerine-sized gold nugget. “Holy shit!”

The mining crew erupted into a controlled frenzy. Half of the miners went into the pools with buckets, while the other half positioned themselves on the shore, emptying the buckets into wheelbarrows.

I kept scanning. Gold was okay. Just okay.

“We got time, people,” Melissa called out. “Don’t hurt yourself. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”

A bright swath of deep crimson flared on the edge of my vision. The colors of the glow didn’t always make sense, but red usually meant something valuable. I turned slowly, following it, and focused. A thick vein running from the center of the cavern all the way to the far wall…

It couldn’t be. I squinted at it to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

No, it was there. And the crimson got deeper at the other end of the cavern.

“Melissa?”

“Yes?”

“Dump the gold.”

The mining crew stopped. Sanders closed his fists around a handful of nuggets and hugged them to his chest. Gold fever was a real thing. Something about the bright shiny yellow metal made people lose their minds.

I pointed to the beginning of the vein along the wall of the island, by the two pools closest to the shore. “Adamantite. From here to there. Solid, less than a foot down. We’ll need more carts.”

Melissa splashed into the stream to the adamantite vein buried under calcite deposits and put her bare hands onto the stone. She grunted, squeezed the rock surface with her fingers, shook from the strain, and stumbled back.

“Goddamn! Team One here! Team Two there! I want those drills running five minutes ago!”

The gold went flying. The mining crew grabbed their drills. Safety glasses and noise-dampening headphones went on, and they waded into the river and attacked the dams and the island.

Gold was expensive but adamantite was twelve times more valuable, because it could be refined into adamant. In the same family as osmium, adamant was incredibly durable. Adamant-enhanced armor could withstand machine gun fire. Adamant-coated blades cut through solid metal and monster bones like butter, without losing their edge.

We found it rarely and usually in small deposits. A cubic yard of adamantite was a record-breaking haul that would mean a big bonus for every guild member that entered this breach. We had a lot more than a cubic yard here. In all of my time crawling in and out of the breaches, I had never found a vein half that large.

The drills chiseled at the rock with a dull roar. The first chunk of adamantite fell free, a dark, almost black basketball-sized rock that looked like frozen tar in the crystal-clear stream. The drills stopped as everyone stared at it. Melissa tried to lift it out of the water, couldn’t – it was ridiculously heavy – and laughed.

“We’re gunna be rich!” someone yelled.

“Ada, I love you!” Melissa declared. “Marry me!”

“Sorry, I don’t want to ruin such a good friendship.”

People laughed. Next to me, London cracked a smile.

“Friendzoned,” Melissa groaned.

“It’s not you, it’s me, Mel. I’m the problem.”

More laughter.

Melissa shook her head. “Back to work, people! And someone help me with this rock.”

The miners resumed their drilling.

The vein continued under the stream, veering across the cavern floor to the left and behind the far wall. Getting adamantite from under the water would be cumbersome, and our time was short. The wall deposit lay deeper, but it was a better bet.

I went down the slope to the water. The best place to cross was to the left, by Aaron, where the stream was relatively shallow. I headed there and waded in, careful where I put my feet. The rocks were damn slippery, and the water came up past my knee. Magnaprene wasn’t the most comfortable fabric, but it was waterproof.

I hiked over the shallow calcite ridges to the wall, pulled a can of fluorescent paint from the pocket of my coveralls, and set about tracing the contours of the deposit in bright Safety Yellow. A hell of a find. Not that I would get anything out of it other than bragging rights. Government employees didn’t get gate loot bonuses, and that wasn’t why I’d taken this job.

The steady roar of the drills filled the cavern. 

I was thirty-three years old when I saw my first glow. One of the larger US guilds somehow obtained permission to sell sebrian knives to the public. Sebrian was found only in breaches, and the knife prices started at $1,000 for a tiny pocket blade. Our advertising agency had taken the contract and promptly sent it to me with the key phrase of “rugged luxury.”

I was sitting in my office staring at the knife and trying to figure out the right approach, when the blade turned pale pink. The glow refused to fade, and when I focused on it, something in my brain clicked. The weight, the density, the structure of the metal somehow popped into my mind and combined into a specific … profile was the best word.

I drove to the ER. I thought I was dying. Twenty-four hours later the DDC came calling with a contract and a patriotic sales pitch. Assessors like me were rare, and the government hoarded us, to the point of making it illegal for guilds to hire their own private assessors. The guilds had poured an obscene amount of money into lobbying against that law but got nowhere.

The invasion wrecked my life. I’d looked at that contract and realized I could do something about it. Every time I went into the breach, I found something to make us safer. Today it was adamantite. A drop in the bucket, but it was my drop.

I finished tracing the wall and set the can on a rock.

Elena crossed the stream and lingered on my left, looking toward the tunnels. She peered at the dark passageways, turned, her face sour, and called, “Stella!”

Stella, who was on the other shore watching the miners, didn’t move.

“STELLA!” Elena roared.

The dog handler spun around.

The scout waved her over. “Bring the dog!”

Stella splashed through the stream, Bear on a leash, and trekked over the ridges to us.

“I need you to check the tunnels!” Elena yelled over the drilling noise.

“Which tunnel?”

“Start with the left!”

Bear yanked at her leash, jerking Stella backward, toward the stream. Stella said some command I didn’t catch.

Bear yanked on the leash and erupted into barks.

Elena waved her arms. “Control your dog –”

Something burst out of the middle tunnel. It swept past Aaron, a vaguely humanoid shape in pale blue garments, so fast it was a blur. Four other blurs chased it, wrapped in dark gray. They tore past the tank in a flash.

Aaron’s top half – shield, armor, and body – slid to the side and fell to the ground.

For a horrifying moment, I stared straight at the stump of his torso, still standing upright. It was standing upright.

The blurs wrapped around us. I froze. They spun about me like a whirlwind, the four gray beings striking and slicing, while the creature in blue parried with impossible speed. I caught a glimpse of arms in dark armor gripping silver blades and inhuman faces with fangs bared. A second, and they tore across the cavern toward the wall and the mining crew. 

Untouched. I was somehow uninjured.

I turned to Stella on my right.

Her head was missing. There was her torso in indigo magnaprene, her neck, but no head.

The headless body crumpled to the ground.

A gasp came from the side. I turned on autopilot, still trying to process Stella’s missing head. Elena’s guts spilled out of her stomach. The scout clutched at herself. Dark blood poured out of her mouth. She made a horrible gurgling noise and fell.

This couldn’t be happening. It was a weird, horrible nightmare. I was dreaming that I found the magic motherlode of adamantite and then monsters came and killed everyone.

The air smelled like blood and bile. To the left four inhuman creatures tore at their prey in the blue robe, running on the walls and leaping in for the kill only to be knocked aside. Three miners floated in the stream, face down and the water was red, so red…

Oh God. It’s real. It’s all real.

Panic smashed into me like an icy hammer. I had to get out of here. Now.

The only safe exit was on the other side of the stream. I sprinted across the ridges to the water.

To the left, the fight swung back and forth along the lake’s shore.

I slid over the first rimstone damn, tore through the pool, climbed over the other side, and landed into the stream. Water came up to my thighs and I waded through it, squeezing every drop of speed out of my body.

Half of the mining crew was still drilling.

“Run!” I screamed, waving my arms. “Run!”

Sanders turned, plucking the headphones off his left ear, saw my face, whipped around, saw the creatures, hurled the drill aside, howled, and ran for the entrance. The line of miners broke as people charged to the exit.

Time stretched like molasses. There was only me and the water trying to stop me. I just had to make it across the stream.

At the cave entrance, Melissa was scrambling up the slope, toward London. The blade warden stared straight at me. Our gazes met.

Help me…

A door slammed shut in London’s eyes.

No. No!

Melissa shoved Anja Presa out of her way. The slender woman slid on the rocks and fell, rolling down to the stream.

I can’t die here. I have to get home to my kids!

I was running so fast. Faster than I’d ever run in my life, and I wasted precious breath on a scream. “Wait! Wait for me!”

London’s face was cold like ice. He yanked something off his belt. A grenade. He carried aetherium concussive grenades to be used as a last resort.

“Throw it!” Melissa howled and ran past him.

London looked straight at me.

Alex! No!

He dropped the grenade. It rolled toward the stream, bouncing over the limestone. The blue forcefield of his warden talent flared into life, wrapping around London. He turned and fled into the tunnel.

The world exploded.

The blast slammed into Sanders ten yards ahead of me. Water punched me off my feet. I flew like a rag doll and smashed against solid rock. My right leg snapped like a toothpick. My spine crunched. Agony splashed across my side and bit into my ribs. My ears rang, my head swam, and the air in my lungs turned to fire.

I tried to breathe and couldn’t. There was water on my face. I was in the stream face down. I had to get upright, or I would drown.

I wrenched myself up.

Bright white aetherium smoke filled the cave. I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t hear anything, I couldn’t breathe. I could only hold still as the pain drowned me.

“Mom! Don’t die!”

I won’t. I promise.

I forced myself to take a tiny breath. It felt like jagged glass cutting its way through my throat. I coughed through it and willed myself to take another. And another, swimming through the pain, one tiny sip of air at a time.

The smoke drifted up. My vision cleared. I was sitting in one of the pools by the shore, with the water up to my armpits, with my back pressed against the rimstone wall. Next to me a severed human head rested on the pool’s bottom. The dark curly hair swirled with the current. Stella.

It should’ve hit me like a semi, but instead I simply noted it, the same way I noted the blood spreading from my right leg and the broken glass that ground in my lungs with every breath.

I pulled the leg of my coveralls up, out of the boot. A jagged bone cut through the skin of my calf. A compound fracture. Okay. I tugged my pant leg over it.

I had to get the hell out of here. Out of this cavern. Out of the breach.

The exit was no more, blocked by a wall of rubble. London’s grenade collapsed the ceiling of the tunnel. He and Melissa left me to die.

The clump of alien creatures passed along the opposite wall, all but floating over the debris that had sealed the exit. I didn’t hear any gunfire. Our escorts were dead.

The aliens darted to the right, absorbed in their fight. They weren’t targeting the humans. Aaron, Stella, Elena, they were simply in the way, cut down in passing as the four creatures in gray tried to kill the being in blue. And if their fight swung this way, I would be in the way, too. 

I had to get out of the line of fire.

The wall in front of me, where the exit used to be, was at least forty yards away and sheer. 

I looked over my shoulder. There was a niche in the wall behind me, next to my yellow paint marks, natural depression in the rock. A place to hide.

I turned around. My right leg screamed. Standing was a no go. I would have to crawl on all fours.

I clenched my teeth and crawled out of the pool.

My right leg burned, sending stabs of hot pain through my knee. I could do it. Stay low, move slowly, don’t present a threat. It was only pain. I could endure pain.

Twenty yards to the wall.

Fifteen.

I hit my knee against a sharp rock, and my weight landed on my injured leg. The world went white for a second. I sucked in a small breath and kept moving.

Ten yards. Almost there.

Almost.

My fingers touched the stone. I turned around and tucked myself into the niche, pressing my back against the wall. There was a trail of my blood across the cave floor.

The creature in blue was still moving, but only two gray blurs remained. The third lay on the rocks, a smudge of dark fabric that shifted whenever the fight drew closer, stretching toward it like a living thing. I couldn’t see the fourth.

To the right something moved by the rock.

I sat very still.

A furry head with big ears poked out from behind an outcropping. 

Bear.

I licked my lips, trying to get my mouth to work. “Bear.” I could only manage a whisper. “Come.”

The German Shepherd crawled toward me, pressed against my thigh, and let out a soft whine.

“They left you, too.” 

I hugged the dog to me. We sat by the wall and watched the fight tear across the cave. The blurs were so fast. How could anyone move that quickly? It should’ve been biologically impossible.

One of the remaining gray blurs collapsed.

The last gray attacker shot toward us. It took me half a second to realize it wasn’t a coincidence. It was aiming for me.

There was no time to run, no time to do anything. I threw my arm in front of Bear shielding her on pure instinct. The gray blur loomed above us… and stopped.

I finally saw it clearly, a tall creature with four arms, wrapped in a tattered gray cloak. Its hands had too many fingers, long and clawed, and each hand clenched a sword. It stared at me with terrifying eyes, its irises missing, its sclera a solid mass of solid black, and its mouth, on the face of white pearlescent skin, was a wide, dark slash filled with nightmarish teeth. A blue blade protruded from its chest.

This is also real.

The gray cloak stretched toward my face, like some strange amoeba, its strands long and viscous.

The blue blade turned, twisting.

The creature spat purple blood and went limp.

The sword slid back into its body. The cloaked being fell to the side and slid a few feet down the slope.

A tall figure stood behind it, clad in a shimmering, ice-blue robe. The silhouette looked chillingly human, too tall, with limbs that were too long, but unmistakably familiar. The head was a solid chunk of metal, twisted into a sleek horned shape. The same metal, blue with gold filigree, sheathed their body under the robe. No visible skin. Even the fingers of their right hand, gripping the blue sword, were coated in metal. Their left arm was missing, cut off just below the biceps, and bright red blood spurted from the cut.

None of my briefings had ever mentioned a being that appeared this human. Animals, monsters, inhuman sentients with strange anatomy, vaguely humanoid beings, yes. But never this.

The figure touched their helmet. It split apart and retracted into itself. An older woman looked at me. Her skin was a muted pastel pink in the center of the face, darkening to a vivid turquoise near the hairline. A straight nose with a blunt tip, a narrow-lipped mouth with the same pink lips, and upturned eyes with blue-green irises, slightly too large for an Earth native, but not enough to alarm anyone.

Aside from the skin color, she looked so human, it was terrifying. There were crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and laugh lines by her mouth. Either the DDC did not know, or they’d lied.

The woman stared at me. Her eyes were sad and mournful.

I stared back.

She swayed and fell.

What do I do now?

The sound of hoarse breathing echoed through the cavern.

She saved me. If she hadn’t stabbed the gray attacker, I would be dead.

Another hoarse breath. Another.

Fuck it.

I shifted on all fours and crawled the few feet to the woman.

The arm was sheared as if by a razor blade, the cut so precise, it was like an anatomy slide. I could see the bones among the bloody muscle. Blood shot out with every breath.

“We’ll need a tourniquet. Hold on.”

I dug in the pocket of my coveralls, extracted the paracord I always carried, and pulled it loose. Paracord was a shitty way to make a tourniquet, but she was bleeding out and I had nothing else. I folded the paracord length wise until I had about three-foot stretch of cord, wrapped it around what was left of her arm, and pulled it into a knot. The blood was still spurting.

I patted myself. I needed… Here. I pulled a slim flashlight out of my pocket. I always brought one as a backup to the light in my hard hat. I pressed the flashlight into the knot and tied another knot over it.

“This will hurt, and you’ll lose what’s left of the arm. I’m sorry. We have to stop the bleeding.”

I twisted the flashlight, tightening the knot. Once, twice, three times.

The woman reached out with her right arm and touched my hand. Her fingers were cool, their touch feather-light.

“I’m sorry,” I told her.

The blood stopped spurting. Now I just had to secure this…

The woman touched her own forehead. Her fingers dipped into the skin, sinking into a seemingly solid skull. 

It had to be a hallucination. I was losing it from blood loss and pain.

The woman pulled something out of her head. It was round and glowing, like a brilliant jewel lit from within. It was so beautiful. The colors swirled and danced, a stunning, mesmerizing gemfire.

I had to look away, move, run, do something, but I had no will to move. The gemstone was too beautiful to resist. It was coming toward me, held in the woman’s long fingers. Closer. Closer.

The gem touched my forehead.

The Universe unfurled with light and color. A distant voice whispered inside my head.

“Treasure your inheritance, my kind daughter.”

Everything went dark.

The post The Inheritance: Chapter 2 first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Warning: R rated for fantasy violence and adult themes.

We are at war.

This war is not about wealth, resources, or territory. It’s a war of biological extermination. The very existence of humanity is at stake.

The moment the first gate burst, sending a monster horde to rage through our world, it brought us unimaginable suffering, but it also awoke something slumbering deep within some of us, a means to repel and destroy our enemy. Powers beyond comprehension. Abilities that are legendary.

The war is ongoing. If you are a Talent, your country needs you. The world needs you. Be the hero you always wanted to be.

Take my hand and answer the call.

Elias McFeron

Guildmaster of Cold Chaos

Chapter 1

Health insurance with $1,000 maximum family deductible.

Prescription drug coverage with 80% discount off list prices.

The first time I heard about gates, I imagined them to be these portals glowing with a magical blue light. Too many video games, I guess. They were nothing like it.  This one was a hole. A deep, black, vertical hole that punched through reality, swirling with pale mist. 

It appeared in front of the Elmwood Park Rec center.  To the left was Elmwood Public library, all red brick and tinted windows. To the right was a funeral home followed by perfectly ordinary, three-story boxes of apartment buildings covered in tan stucco. And straight ahead was an interdimensional tear. Just another Monday.

If someone told me ten years ago that I would be standing in front of a hole leading into a dimensional breach and preparing to go inside, I would’ve politely nodded, walked away, and later told Roger I’d met an unhinged person. Of course, ten years ago I was thirty, happily married, with a daughter in elementary school, a son just out of diapers, and a low-risk private sector job I loved. A different life that belonged to a different Adaline.

The future looked bright back then. Until the invasion shattered it.

Free emergency medical care when injured in the line of duty.

I took this job for the benefits, and when it got to me, like now, I recited them in my head like a prayer.

Dental, $150 deductible, 50% off braces.  

Things that came with age and children: appreciation of the dental plan with orthodontics. Braces were hellishly expensive.

Vision plan, 15% discount off glasses and contacts.

The gate gaped like a dark maw.

At least thirty-five yards tall. Maybe taller. The threat scale ran from blue to red, and the prep packet put this gate at the low orange risk level. On a dying scale of 1 to 10, it was about 7.

This was my seventy-eighth gate. I’d gone into orange gates many times before. I didn’t want to go into this one. It made my hair stand on end.  And the presence of the funeral home wasn’t helping.

“Ominous sonovabitch, isn’t he?”  Melissa murmured next to me.

 “Mhm.”

The mining foreman crossed her arms on her chest.  She was a tall woman, two years older than me, with auburn hair she religiously dyed every four weeks and the kind of face that said she had everything under control. We met years ago, on one of my earlier gate dives, bonded over kids, and stayed friendly ever since.

Melissa ran her mining crew like a well-oiled machine. She didn’t get rattled, but she was staring at this gate like it was about to reach out and bite her. Something about this hole set both of us on edge.

Melissa narrowed her eyes. “Anja, tie your damn shoelaces.”

One of the younger miners rolled her eyes and crouched.  “Always on my case…”

“Exactly. I am always on your case. I’m on everyone’s case. If we have to run for our life out of that gate, I don’t need any of you tripping over your feet, because I’ll have to double back and get you. You have two toddlers to come back to.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Melissa heaved a sigh. “Everybody is full of sass today.”

Around us the mining crew checked their gear, twelve people in indigo magnaprene coveralls and matching hard hats. Nobody seemed unusually worried. Toolbelts were adjusted, rock drills and shears tested, the generator and floodlights on three industrial carts inspected.  The usual.

The escort, five combat grade Talents in dark blue tactical armor, had done their precheck ages ago and were now waiting.  Aaron, a tank class, sat on a crate, leaning against another crate, his eyes closed.  His massive adamant-reinforced shield rested on the ground next to him.  Three strikers mulled about, armed with SIG Spear rifles and a variety of sebrian blades for when the ammo ran out.  

London, the escort unit leader, surveyed the mining crew. He was a blade warden, which meant he could both dish out lethal damage and summon a protective forcefield which made him invulnerable for several minutes. He carried a brutal-looking tactical axe, and on the few occasions I saw him use it, he cut through transdimensional monsters like he was chopping salad.

Both the mining crew and the escort wore blue, marked with the lightning blade emblem of the Cold Chaos Guild. I wore a white hard hat and grey coveralls with a patch of Dimensional Defense Command on my sleeve. The mining crew and the escorts were private contractors, while I was a representative of the US Government. My official title was Dimension Breach Resource Assessor. The guilds called us DeBRAs, and they were supposed to keep us alive at all costs.

If things went to shit, the tank would put himself between the mining crew and the threat, the strikers would cut down whatever got past him, and London would grab me, wrap us both in his defensive force field, and drag me out of the gate so I could report the disaster to the DDC. Of everyone here, I was the least expendable, as far as the government was concerned.

It didn’t make me feel any better.

The mist swirled, sending tendrils of dread toward me. I resisted the urge to hug myself.

20 days of recuperation leave.

Which was long overdue. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Basic Housing Allowance.

That was a big one.  BHA was the only reason I was able to keep the house after Roger left.

Child Tuition Assistance.

CTA was another big one. It helped me cover tuition for Hino’s Academy. Things were tight but I hadn’t missed a payment yet. The school had stellar academics, but I picked it for their underground shelter. If a gate ruptured and a flood of invading monsters washed over the city, Tia and Noah would be safe until the military and the guilds repelled it. Competition for the school was fierce, but since I was DDC, the kids were given special treatment along with the children of guild members. Advertising that Hino was the school of choice for the children of Talents was good for the academy’s prestige.

“Ada, London is checking you out again,” Melissa said.

Next to me, Stella, Melissa’s baby-faced protégé, snickered quietly. She was twenty, and flirting was still exciting.

 A large German Shepherd sitting at Stella’s feet panted as if laughing. Bear came from an illustrious line of police dogs with heroic careers. She had the typical GS coloring, big brown eyes, and huge ears, and petting her was off-limits. I’d asked before and was told no. Bear was working like the rest of us. Petting would be distracting.

“Brace yourself, he’s coming this way,” Melissa murmured.

I turned.  London was heading straight for us.  His real name was Alex Wright, and he was from Liverpool, but everyone called him London anyway. People with combat talents were resistant to wear and tear, and at forty-five, London was still in his prime, tall, broad-shouldered, with blue eyes, wavy brown hair, and an easy smile. His job was to keep the miners and me safe, and since he was my designated babysitter, he and I spent a lot of time in close proximity.  Even so, he’d been paying me too much attention lately.

London stopped by us. “Everything okay here?”

“Everything was fine until you showed up,” Melissa said.

He grinned at her.  “Just doing my due diligence.”

They usually had a fun back-and-forth going. It put people at ease. I worked with guilds all over the Eastern US. In some mining crews, tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife and make a sandwich. Cold Chaos was light and bright.

“Are you worried about us, Escort Captain?” Stella tilted her head, and her mane of dark curly hair drooped to one side.

“It’s my job to worry, Miles. Have you been doing your sprints?” London asked.

“I have,” Stella told him. “Fifteen seconds for the dash.”

A hundred meters in fifteen seconds was damn impressive. It was good to be young. God, I was almost twice her age. How the hell did it even happen?  I was twenty only a few years ago, right?

“Not bad,” London said.

“I can beat both of them,” Stella reported, nodding at me and Melissa.

“Talk to me after you pushed three human beings through your hips and put on forty pounds from the stress of keeping them alive,” Melissa told her.

London turned to me. “Where do you dash, Ada?”

Why are you doing this? You know nothing will come of it. “Gate Park.”

All government gate divers ran – not for distance or endurance – but to survive. A 100-meter sprint, a walking lap around the track, rinse and repeat for an hour, then go home, and take ibuprofen for the aching knees. Three times a week. Five would be better, but three was what I usually managed. DDC had mandatory PT tests every six months to keep us in shape. When a noncombatant faced a threat in the breach, running to the gate was the best and often the only way to stay alive.

“Maybe I’ll join you sometime,” London said.

Again, why?  “You’re out of my league. It would be a waste of your time.”

“Never,” he told me.

“How fast do you dash?” Stella asked London.

“Let me put it to you this way: I could pick Ada up and give you a three-second head start, and you still wouldn’t beat my time.”

London smiled at us and moved on.

“Is he lying?” Stella asked Melissa.

“No,” the mining foreman told her.  “Combat Talents are on another level. We can’t keep up.”

London was sending out all sorts of interested signals. He was nice to look at, charming, and he’d clearly been around the block enough to know what he was doing.  By now, he’d had enough experience not to fumble and enough patience to pay attention when it mattered. If I agreed to go on a date, it would go smoothly and end well.

However, the DDC forbade fraternization with guild members. I was supposed to stay neutral and refrain from forming any personal attachments. Even the work-hours friendships like the one with Mellissa were frowned upon. Getting involved with a guild Talent would get me fired, and I had two kids and a mortgage. As fun as London would be in bed – and he would be very fun – he wasn’t worth losing my job.

My phone vibrated. Hino Academy. Please don’t be a problem, please don’t be a problem…

“Yes?”

“Ms. Moore?”

Gina Murray, the assistant principal. That wasn’t good.

“We have a problem.”

Of course, we do.

A woman emerged from the gate and waved. A scout the assault team had left behind. An hour had passed without incident, and it was time to go in.

“Alright people!” London called out.  “You know the drill. Last gear check.  Move out in two minutes.”

“What happened?”

I needed to fix this fast. Phones didn’t work inside the gate, and London had to stick to schedule and account for any delay.  If we went inside five minutes late and a disaster struck, even if it was completely unrelated, the Guild would drag him over hot coals for it.

“Tia left campus without permission.”

Melissa rolled her eyes.

“Okay.” What was that kid doing…

“Before she left, several students and a member of the faculty heard her make a self-harm threat.”

“What?”

“We are required to contact the police…”

“Please don’t do anything. Let me speak to her first. I’ll call you right back!”

I ended the call and stabbed Tia’s number in contacts.

Beep.

She wouldn’t. Tia wouldn’t.  Not in a million years.

Beep.

Beep.

I knew my daughter. She would not.

“Yes, mom?”

“Are you going to hurt yourself?”

“What?”

The mining crew formed up in front of the gate. London gave me a pointed stare.

“Oh look, Stella’s dog is malfunctioning,” Melissa said too loud.

Stella pretended to shake Bear’s leash.  “Won’t turn on. Something broke.”

London headed for us.

“The Academy called.  You told them you were going to hurt yourself and left campus.”

“Well, you know what, maybe I should kill myself because they just assigned us a fifth essay due next week…”

“Tia!” I couldn’t keep the pressure from vibrating in my voice. “This is really serious. I need you to be honest with me.  Are you thinking of hurting yourself?”

London cleared the distance between us. “What’s the hold up?” he asked quietly.

“Give her a minute,” Melissa told him. “It’s her kid.”

“No. I was in the cafeteria, I failed Latin again, and then there was the fifth essay due…”

London met my gaze. “Three minutes.”

Thank you, I mouthed. Three minutes was a gift.

“…Mr. Walton made a snide comment about not applying myself and I said, ‘Just kill me, it will solve all my problems…’”

And…?

“…And then I went to get Starbucks! I always sneak out to get Starbucks.  Everybody does it.  Nobody cares!”

It wasn’t a real threat. Someone overreacted. The relief washed over me like an icy flood. Not a real threat.

“Mr. Walton hates me!”

“Tia, I’m about to go into the gate. The school wants to call the cops.”

“What? Why?!” 

“If this happens, things will get very complicated, and I can’t help, because I’ll be inside the breach. I need you to return to school and fix this.”

“I was already on my way! I’m almost there.”

I started toward the gate.

“I’m walking into the school building right now.”

“Kiss their ass, do whatever you need to, but make sure you fix it. I love you.”

“I love you too.  Mom…”

The gate loomed.

“Here we go,” Melissa muttered.

“I have to go, Tia.”

“Mom!”

“Yes?”

“Don’t die!”

“I won’t,” I promised.

“Remember,” London called out. “We go in together as one, we come out together as one. Nobody gets left behind.”

The mist swirled around my legs.  I hung up, took a deep breath, and stepped into the dark.

#

Stepping through the gate felt like trying to push your way through dense, rubber-thick Jello.

I blinked, trying to adjust to the low light.

A stone passage stretched in front of me, illuminated by patches of bioluminescent lichens, moss, and fungi.  They climbed up the walls, glowing with turquoise, green, and lavender, some curling like fern sprouts, other spreading in a net like bridal veil stinkhorn mushrooms.

The otherness slapped you in the face. It didn’t look familiar, it didn’t smell right, and it didn’t feel like home. The hair on the back of my neck rose. Fear dashed down my arms like hot electric needles. I wanted out of this gate. The urge to turn around and run back to the familiar blue sky was overwhelming.

This burst of panic used to happen every time I entered a breach. I’d tried everything in the beginning: counselling, breathing, counting, cataloging random things I saw… My primary prescribed some Xanax, which I couldn’t take because it was strictly off limits for gate divers.  Slowed the reaction time down too much.  

Medication wouldn’t have worked anyway.  Nothing had worked until one week we got a cluster breach.  Four gates opened simultaneously in close proximity, and I was the only DeBRA in range. I went through four breaches in forty-eight hours, and by the middle of the third my panic switch got permanently broken. This anxiety was an unwelcome blast from the past, and it needed to go away right now.

It was probably the residual stress from the school call.

“Alright,” Melissa called out. “We have a limestone cave biome. The assault team found a large chamber with promising mineral deposits, so we’ve got a bit of a hike. Watch your step. Do you remember how Sanders fell into a crevice and got stuck, and we spent ten minutes pulling him while he was farting up a storm and giggling? Don’t be Sanders.”

Sanders, a tall bear of a man in his mid-thirties, chuckled into his reddish beard. “I didn’t have chili this time, I swear!”

A light laughter rippled through the crew. Melissa was going right down her playbook: item one, put everyone at ease the moment the crew stepped into the breach; item two, reach the mining site; item three, profit.

“We have Adaline Moore with us this morning. She is the strongest DeBRA in the state, which means if there is good pay in this hellhole, she will find it for us,” Melissa announced. “Another day, another dollar. Isn’t that right, Assessor?”

“That’s right.” I matched her tone. “Living the dream.”

Another ripple of laughter.

“Once more…” one of the miners called out.

“Don’t you say it!” Melissa growled. “You know better!”

“…into the breach!”

“Damn it, Hotckins!”

The guild superstition held that if you said the line, you would come out alive, but you would kiss the chance of a big score goodbye. It didn’t matter.  Someone always said the line.

 “I swear if you jinxed us, I will fire you myself…”

Aaron looked at London. The blade warden nodded, and the massive tank started down the passageway, moving fast.  Time was money. The mining crew followed, keeping the three equipment carts in the middle, the strikers guarding the flanks like border collies obsessed with their herd.

I joined the flow of people. Melissa walked on my left and London on my right. Elena, the assault team’s scout who’d come back to escort the miners, fell in step next to London. Lean, with a harsh face and blond hair pulled into a tight ponytail, Elena didn’t walk, she glided.

In theory, being on the mining crew was the safest part of the gate dive. Safe was a relative term.  Walking across a narrow beam over molten lava was also safe, as long as you didn’t fall.

“Doing okay?” London murmured.

“Yes,” I lied.

“Is Tia alright?”

“Yes.  She’s a smart kid. She will handle it. Thank you for the three minutes.”

“You’re welcome.” He glanced at me, his eyes concerned. “Not feeling this one?”

“No.”

Gate divers were like ancient sailors. We ventured into the unknown that could kill us at any moment. In the breach, survival depended on luck and intuition, and our rituals were an acknowledgment of that. We knocked on wood, we muttered lucky sayings under our breath, and we trusted our instincts.  My instincts were pumping out all of the dread they could muster.

“Anything specific?” London asked.

“It makes my skin crawl.”

“Don’t worry,” he promised quietly.  “I’ll get you out of here in one piece.”

I glanced at him.

“I mean it, Ada. The only way you go down is if I’m down, and I’m really good at surviving. We get in, get out, and you can go home and sort the kid issues out.  Tomorrow will be like this never happened.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded.

Ten years had passed since Roger had abandoned us. I’d been on my own for a decade, taking care of the kids, paying the bills, surviving.  Every decision in my life was up to me, and I made them without support or any help from anyone else. I’d become used to it, but London just reminded me how it felt to share all of that with someone. Someone who cared if you lived or died.

This was the worst time to wonder about things. I promised my daughter I would come back. I had to concentrate on that.

The passageway forked.  We turned right. Hotchkins, a short, dark-haired man, spraypainted a backward orange arrow on the wall.  He would do this every time we made a turn.  It was a proven fact that people running for their lives had trouble orienting themselves.

Ahead a glowing stick shone among the rocks.  Beyond it eight furry bodies sprawled on the ground in a puddle of blood. My foot slid on something. A spent shell casing.  The cave floor was littered with them. The assault team had made a stand here.

We passed the bodies, skirting them to the sides. The dead things were large, about the size of a Great Dane, with long lupine jaws and massive feet armed with hook-like claws. Their pelts, chewed up by bullets, were shaggy with blue-grey fur. They didn’t look like anything our planet could’ve spawned.

“A variant of Moody’s stalkers,” London said. His voice was perfectly calm.

“Yeah. There were a lot of them, and they are spongy. They soak up bullets like they’re nothing and keep coming,” Elena said. “And they spit acidic bile.”

“Good to know,” London said.

“We did our best to clean up, but the place is a maze.” Elena kept her voice low. “Passages going everywhere, so we may run into some. We didn’t see anything more advanced until we went much deeper, so there is that.”

“No worries,” Stella offered from behind them. “Bear will let us know if anything is coming.”

Elena gave her a cold smile.  “I will let us know if anything is coming.”

“Don’t pay her any attention, Bear,” Melissa murmured. “She didn’t mean anything by it.”

Bear twitched her right ear. One day I would pet that dog.

Elena kept gliding forward, her face portraying all of the warmth of an iceberg.  Her talent was heightened hearing and vision, which put her into scout class. If she concentrated hard enough, she could hear a person murmuring behind a closed door two floors above. But as awesome as Elena was, I would trust Bear over her any day. There was a reason every guild brought canines into the breaches. The transdimensional monstrosities wigged them out, and they let us know when something came near. Dogs were the best early warning system we had.

Elena was a young scout.  Her talent had manifested two years ago, and she was still in the edgy, prove-yourself stage. More experienced scouts made friends with canine handlers and carried dog biscuits.

At least she was conscientious and took her job seriously. Some combat Talents looked down on miners.  As I heard one hotshot put it, “We’re going to kill monsters and save humanity.  Have fun digging up magic rocks.” He was very surprised when he didn’t get his bonus at the end.

Magic rocks assured everyone’s paychecks and produced resources for weapons and armor.  Mining crews had to be protected at all costs, and both mining foremen like Melissa and escort captains like London held a lot of sway in the guilds. Without mining, guilds would not exist.

Ten years ago, when the first set of gates appeared out of nowhere near the major population centers, they’d taken humanity by surprise. We’d cordoned them off so we could carefully study them and before anyone had a chance to adjust, the gates burst, spilling a horde of monsters into the world.

We knew a lot more about the gates now. Beyond every gate lay the breach, a miniature dimension stuffed to the brim with monsters. That dimension connected Earth and the hostile world like a gangplank linking two ships. The breaches were how the enemy got from their world to ours.

Every breach had an anchor, a core that stabilized it. Once the breach appeared, the anchor began to accumulate energy.  When it got enough, the gate would burn through the fabric of our reality and rip open, releasing the invaders into our world to rampage and murder everything they came across. The more dangerous the breach was, the longer it took to burst.

There was a brief period, anywhere from a few days to a few months from the moment the gate appeared, when the monsters couldn’t escape yet but we could enter the gate from our side. It gave us a chance to extinguish the anchor and collapse the breach. The moment a gate manifested, the clock started ticking.

At first, destroying the anchors was the sole responsibility of the military, but it quickly got prohibitively expensive. Casualties were high.  And it was discovered that the breaches contained a wealth of materials: strange ores, medicinal plants, and monster bones with incredible properties. Resources that could aid our fight and make us stronger. It wasn’t just about destroying the anchors anymore. We had to strip the breach of anything valuable before it collapsed.

Pretty soon it became apparent that the very first gate rupture altered the world. Some said the gates released a virus, others speculated that it was some undetectable trace element that entered the atmosphere. Nobody knew for sure, but in some people it awakened the kind of abilities that previously only existed in myth and fiction. The Talents. Faster, stronger, almost magical.

The Talents banded into guilds, and governments around the world began to outsource the gates to them, taking a percentage of the profits. Economic and security crisis solved at the cost of volunteer lives.

The cave passage kept branching. Left, left, right, another right, each glowing with swirls of colorful lichens and fungi. Elena was right.  This place was a maze.

By now, the process of gate diving was almost routine. As soon as a gate appeared, it was graded, its threat level measured, a government assessor like me assigned, and the appropriate guild was contacted. The attack began with the assault team, heavy hitters with combat talents, who entered the gate and cut and burned through the miniature pocket dimension until they found the anchor and destroyed it.

While the assault team worked their way to the anchor, the mining crew came in and stripped the breach bare, extracting anything that could be of use and would help humanity keep fighting. Each breach’s resources were unique and precious. That was where I came in. My job was to assess the space, guide the mining team, and make sure that the government got their 30% cut.

Once the anchor was destroyed, the breach began to degrade and then collapsed, usually within twenty-four hours. Hopefully everybody got out alive, and when the next gate appeared, we would do it all over again.

Ahead Aaron stopped.  Finally.  It was time to earn my paycheck.  The sooner I found something of value, the sooner we all got out of here.

Dread curled around me like a cold snake. I could just turn around and run back to the gate, quit, and never go into any breaches again. I could absolutely do that. But then whatever this breach held would stay in it instead of becoming weapons, armor, and medicine.

I took a deep breath and followed the miners to do my job.

To be continued on Monday.

We are looking for an artist to help us with images. Somebody who is good at quick digital sketches of environments, mostly caves. Contact Mod R with your portfolio at modr@ilona-andrews.com

The post The Inheritance: Chapter 1 first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Tuna and Oliver had their annual visit to the vet for vaccines and physicals. Here is Tuna being the king of everything at the vet office.

He has no shame. Or dignity.

Tuna, predictably, was lovely to the vet, let his blood be taken, sat like a rock for vaccines, and has normal bloodwork.

I would take a pic of Oliver for you but I have no clue where he is. He is hiding. Oliver is allergic to life. He is allergic to cedar, he is allergic to Texas, he is allergic to food additives commonly found in cat food. He has constant nasal discharge, which means he sneezes a lot, he rips his hair out, which I clean daily, and he can only eat Royal Canin Sensitive Stomach food, because everything else he throws up.

Oliver was here at some point. This is 24 hours of me not cleaning that chair. I will get to it after that post.

Oliver will not eat special cat treats, tuna out of the can, or vet cat bribe treats. Only Royal Canin. That’s it. Also, he loves Meow Mix kibble, which he cannot have, because he regurgitates it right back out.

Oliver is also the reason why I have furniture covers on everything. Not only that, I have doubles, so I can swap them when company is coming. I cannot stand pet hair on furniture. It drives me up the wall so I religiously clean it with a special tool.

In case you are wondering, this works. Skip the small one, just get the bigger one.

Oliver hid in the carrier at the vet, had to be forcibly removed, and they could not draw blood even after putting him into the kitty bag. We had to leave him at the vet so they could sedate him with gabapentin. Finally, blood was drawn and the results have come back. He has IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disorder, which we already suspected. He also has a UTI. We picked up an antibiotic for him, which we have to squirt into his mouth twice a day.

Oliver fights for his life every time we wrap him in a blanket to give him medicine. Every time that happens, he truly believes that we will murder him. Given a chance, he will claw you bloody and bite, and I just wish there was some way to make it less alarming for him, but there is not. So now, when he sees either of us, he runs and hides.

::exhales:: Oliver is a lot. He is now classified as elderly and he doesn’t react well to change. He is a sweet, clingy kitty, and I was the one who took him out of a cage in PetSmart, so he will have a home with us for the rest of his days.

Also a lizard got inside two days ago. Charlie killed it – we know this because he brought us the still twitching tail – which we confiscated. We looked for it at the time but couldn’t find it.

We found it this morning, safely tucked under a large dog pillow. It had begun to rot and it stank. I’m washing the pillow cover and contemplating if I should give up and throw the whole pillow out.

I’m supposed to be writing today, and I’m not feeling it. But I really want to get this novella done before the end of the month.

::pretends to gird loins::

Don’t write, don’t eat. Onward! To cleaning cat hair, putting pillow cover in the dryer, and then writing like the wind.

The post The Struggle Is Real first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

The dramatized adaptation of Burn for Me, first novel in the Hidden Legacy series, will be released next week by Graphic Audio.

GA expect a similar release schedule for Hidden Legacy as for Kate, with a new installment every couple of months or so. They will be adapting all seven books in the series: Nevada’s trilogy, the Diamond Fire transition novella, and Catalina’s trilogy. They will also include the bonus unpublished Arabella POV blog exclusives: A Misunderstanding and The Cool Aunt.

Without further ado, the first samples from Burn for Me, fresh of the sound design table.

Mad Rogan abandons his hermit orchid and joins the Baylors for a meal:

Neva and Rogan meet Bug – the voice transformation is aweeeesome!

It’s an all-new director and cast, which I know you want to check out – GA have updated the list on the Burn for Me page I linked above.

The new team have had the same level of collaboration and insight from Ilona and Gordon as Nora and her team for the Kate adaptations. Pronunciations clips with HA’s preferences, advice on voice casting, insight on characters, what our favorite scenes are etc. But a reminder here as always that Graphic Audio are their on business, who approach the authors and buy adaptation rights to these works, so all creative and commercial decisions are ultimately theirs.

House Andrews do not commission them for these audio books. The GA dramatized full-cast adaptations will never replace the traditional, one-narrator audio books released by the authors and their publishers.

I have covered in more detail how to buy and the accessibility of the GA app in this post, which you can also supplement with the Graphic Audio Help FAQ on their website.

Audiobooks.com are also running a promotion for 70% the dramatized GA adaptation of Magic Slays until the 1st of May. A chance to complete your collection if you don’t own it already!

Happy listening!

The post Exclusive Samples of Burn for Me from Graphic Audio first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

This is long, so table of contents:

• The Origin of LitRPG
• The Inheritance and how is it different
• What is happening with other series
• A recommendation for a cute comic.

The Origin of LitRPG

As everyone knows by now, I’m a massive Solo Leveling fan. I’ve read the manhwa before the anime was ever announced and then reread it several times. Right now, with the anime release on Crunchyroll (we are up to 2 seasons), it is enjoying unprecedented popularity and some people credit it with starting the Hunter subgenre of LitRPG.

The premise of LitRPG is that somehow the protagonist enters a game world, usually loosely based on an MMO structure. In Massively Multiplayer Online games, players usually must choose a class that defines how they play the game. For example, tanks have heavy shields and armor. They are hard to kill so they taunt the enemy and bear the brunt of the attack while DPS (Damage per second) classes deal damage, and healers cast restorative spells. Players organize into guilds with strict hierarchy.

In the Hunter subgenre of LitRPG our world becomes a video game. Portals open in random locations, leading to dungeons, which, unless conquered in time, will unleash monsters upon the world. Some people mysteriously awaken to magic powers. They are usually called Hunters and they are ranked according to their ability. Hunters band into guilds, and guilds assault the dungeons. It’s World of Warcraft in real life, complete with a system window that announces when you go up a level and shows you your numeric stats like Strength and Agility.

As much as I love Solo Leveling, it didn’t originate the term “hunters.” The first mention of this system in comics actually comes to us from 2012 manhwa called I Am A Noble.

Sorry, Sung Jin-woo, you are not the first. Just the most handsome.

Unfortunately, there are no legitimate translations of I Am A Noble – please do not link pirate sites with machine translations – but there are plenty of other manhwa titles that fall into this genre. Here are some of them in no particular order. I have read all of these, and some are good, some I liked less. You can find them at your usual manhwa places like Webtoon, Tapas, Tappytoon, etc.

• Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint
• Kill the Hero
• The Druid of Seoul Station
• The World After the Fall
• The Worn and Torn Newbie
• The Player Who Can’t Level Up
• Hoarding in Hell

I’m going to link a list here: Hunter/Dungeon/Gates, but there are others, more comprehensive ones.

But the question is, where did this set up originate? What inspired it? Well, World of Warcraft is obviously one of the ingredients. The game came out in 2004, and at its peak, in 2010, had over 12 million subscribers. It also spawned an entire generation of successors. But what else happened near that 2012 mark?

On August 16, 2011 Ready Player One came out. This book was everywhere. NPR, USA Today, CNN, Entertainment Weekly, translated into 37 languages, available in 58 countries… It was a global phenomenon. If you somehow missed it, it’s about an 18 year old kid whose life is awful, so he chooses to live a completely different life in an online game. This book hit like a meteorite. Although, it is not a strict LitRPG in a sense of classes and quests, it was, without a doubt, the driving force behind the development of the genre.

When Ready Player One came out, LitRPG did not exist as a sub-category. So when did LitRPG became a thing? Who originated this term?

The term LitRPG was coined by… a bunch of Russians. I present to you Magic Dome Books. LitRPG is their bread and butter.

From their website:

LitRPG is a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy which describes the hero’s adventures within an online computer game. LitRPG books merge traditional book-style narration with elements of a gaming experience, describing various quests, achievements and other events typical of a video game.

The defining feature that sets LitRPG fiction apart from traditional portal fantasy is its use of interactive gaming language, such as the inclusion of various system messages, players’ stats, items’ characteristics and other elements appreciated by gamers. The narration in a LitRPG novel has to abide by the rules of a game while filling it with conflict and drama as the hero tries to survive in this new environment.This “book meets game” experience proved to be exactly what many gamers-turned-readers were looking for in a novel. 

LitRPG books are not the same as traditional game novelizations. As a rule, LitRPG books are set in fictional game worlds which are entirely their authors’ invention, such as D. Rus’ AlterWorld or V. Mahanenko’s Barliona. Also, their use of gaming elements and attributes sets them apart from traditionally penned game novelizations.

Initially unrecognized by traditional publishing, the genre kept growing, gaining a truly insatiable readership that devoured such cult series as Sword Art Online, Ready Player One and The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. In 2012, Russia became the first country in the world where the genre was officially recognized, receiving its current name – LitRPG – and its own place in libraries and book shops. Since then, dozens of new game-set novels have been published in Russia, some of them national bestsellers such as Play to Live by D. Rus and the Way of the Shaman by V. Mahanenko.

So they tell us right here what these writers were inspired by. Sword Art Online is a series of Japanese light novels that began as a webnovel in 2001, which was picked up for publication in Japan in 2009. This is one of those “overnight successes” a decade in the making. SAO didn’t get an English translation until 2014, but really gained in popularity when the anime adaptation came out. The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor began as a South Korean webnovel from Kakao, which began in 2007 and ran until 2019. It is a massively popular series, which spawned a comic adaptation and its own mobile game.

Both series featured virtual reality. In SAO people were playing a multiplayer game and found that they were unable to log off and in LMS a poor Korean student plays a popular new game to earn some money for his grandmother and ends creating a lot of beautiful art and eventually becomes a central figure in a power struggle over the game.

The third title mentioned is again Ready Player One, which was inspired by arcade games of 1980s. If we were to dig deeper into 1980s, we find…

Well, yes, technically, it is similar. But we are looking for something else. Something where people went through a portal and ended up in a game with specific classes and quests… Something with the portals…

And there you go. The first true expression of LitRPG on screen in 1983. Why Cavalier? Why not a Paladin? Never understood that.

Okay, fine, that was a screen adaptation. But what about the literary equivalent?

This is a tougher call, because again, we are looking for very specific things: classes, portal, game setting, quests, and so on.

I’m going to say Quag Keep by Andre Norton.

In early 1970s Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were working on a new game called Dungeons and Dragons and they couldn’t find anyone to publish it. So in 1974 Gary Gygax partnered with Don Kaye and formed TSR, which published Dungeons and Dragons in that same year.

Two years later, Gary Gygax invited Andre Norton for a session in the new setting he was developing called Greyhawk. Quag Keep was the result of that session. It came out in 1978.

I had to grab the description from Wikipedia, because the one on Amazon is terrible.

Martin, a player in a game of D&D, touches a figurine of a warrior, and is unwillingly transported into the body of Milo Jagon, a warrior in the city of Greyhawk. Milo/Martin gradually meets others likewise transported to this world. Bound together by forces they do not understand, the players struggle to trust each other. Under the compulsion of a geas, everyone is forced to go on a quest. They eventually confront the one controlling them, the Gamemaster, and battle with him to regain control of their lives. Although they win, they find that they cannot return to “reality”, and must remain in Greyhawk. Rather than splitting up, they realize they make a good team and decide to continue their adventures together.

We do not have the literal system windows of the online game. Other than that, this hits all the points: players are portaled, they have classes, they must accomplish quests, and they band into a party.

But what about Dragonlance Chronicles? Nope, that doesn’t fit. First, it was commissioned by TSR in 1983 to promote the new campaign setting, so Quag Keep predates it, and second, it’s a novel set in Dragonlance with characters original to that world. There are no players.

Sadly, Quag Keep bombed. The critics disliked it, so it is one of the lesser known Andre Norton’s works.

But what about the portal fantasy? When did that start?

I love you, please don’t make me pull Lewis Caroll out. That is another post.

Here is a list from Goodreads. It’s pretty comprehensive, but it doesn’t include pseudo portals like H.G. Wells’ Time Machine or Edward Bellamy’s 1887 Looking Backward 2000-1887. Fun fact: Bellamy was the first to introduce the concept of credit cards in fiction.

When we market books, we have to hit the here and now references. While we might phrase things like “this work will appeal to fans of isekai” or “this work will appeal to fans of hunter LitRPG,” we are doing this to appeal to a new generation of readers because saying things like “This is like Chronicles of Narnia and Princess Bride made a baby with Game of Thrones and then gave it to Locke Lamora to raise” is confusing.

So what about the Inheritance? How is it different?

There are things that bug me about the Hunter subgenre specifically in its current LitRPG iteration. If we really dissect it, a lot of the genre deals with existing within a static system. Your class is set. Your abilities are set. You can get new abilities but only within the system parameters.

Sometimes you gain levels, but only in your class. Sometimes you can game the system and unlock something unexpected due to prior knowledge or chance. Sometimes you cannot improve at all. In Solo Leveling, Sung Jin-woo is the only person able to level up. In that world, if you “awakened” to your powers as Rank B, it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you will stay Rank B. He is the only exception.

LitRPGs generally fall into two categories: either succeed within the system and be the best at playing the class you’ve chosen or disrupt the system and become the best badass there is who answers to no one, while the rest of the people remain in their assigned roles. There is a simplicity in it: you can earn experience, have tangible progress in levels, and be assigned a course of action by the system.

If you were coming from an environment where generations of people have given up on upward mobility without inherited wealth, or a country where the government exerts pressure to keep you in your lane and your designated role, this type of system might be familiar and appealing, in part because sometimes it carries a subversive message.

Setting the social implications aside, if you look at the list of the manhwa I linked above or at Magic Dome Books, you can note something interesting. In the word of Cordelia Cupp, “What’s with all the dudes?”

This genre usually features a male protagonist, typically between 17 and 25. There are occasional older protagonists, but again mostly male. There are occasional exceptions, as always, and there are more women in books than in manhwa, but in general they are harder to find. Recently I stumbled on a LitRPG manhwa, which had a female protagonist. She had the housekeeping talent. I’m sure it was meant to be just part of the current trend exploring the cozier side of LitRPG, but the hero is kicking butt left and right because he is the best hunter who ever lived and our girl is making his bed so he can nap.

A couple of months ago, I saw a tutorial video, where two women were having an awesome time trying to nuke the Matron of Glennwood in the Enshrouded. (If you are interested, here is the link to the video.) I very much enjoyed watching them try to kill her. It kind of confirmed my theory that most of the time inspiration is accidental.

For these reasons, The Inheritance is not a true Hunter LitRPG in the strictest sense of the word.

A Little Housekeeping

Unfortunately, not every story is suitable for the online serialization. Serialized stories need to be fast paced and tightly focused so people don’t get lost. This is why serializing Hugh 2 was very difficult. It was complex and required revisions as it was being written due to the layered motivations of the protagonists. None of the projects we have currently sketched out for our existing worlds would work for serialization.

The Inheritance was conceived and structured specifically for online reading. It was meant to be a serial from the start. We are about 2/3 of the way through, so it’s mostly written. It’s our gift to you this spring because there will be very little content on the blog as we dig into our massive workload.

The Inheritance will be posted probably twice a week and in its entirety. It connects to nothing, it requires no prior reading, and it will likely be a one-off, so there probably won’t be a sequel.

There are no Easter eggs. We would never troll the BDH. Trust us.

After its run, The Inheritance will be available for sale for you to keep, probably as part of Small Magics 2, which will be collecting various free fiction from the website.

We understand that some of you are upset because you would like the free stories to be available in ebook format faster. It takes effort and time to put it all together into a cohesive anthology, and we have to have enough content to justify the price and especially the audio edition. We do not want to short-change those of you who are visually impaired or who prefer your fiction as an audio adaptation. It is difficult to book an audio narrator just for a novella-length work. There has to be significant word count for it to be worth their while. We would want to have the narrator at least booked before the ebook comes out, so we can give you an ETA.

PS. ModR suggested adding recipes our characters cook at the end of Small Magics 2. Is it weird to have recipes from our books in an anthology? It feels kind of weird.

The Top Dungeon Farmer

In conclusion, thank you for sitting through my TED talk. To make up for it, I thought I would show you my current manhwa Hunter favorite. Behold the unbearable cuteness.

The Top Dungeon Farmer. Yes, it is that adorable. Look at those bunnies! He gets a killer monster bear later and it is also adorable. I must say, I don’t care for the cat. Anyway, there are 80+ episodes, most of them free on Webtoons. If you need a distraction where nothing super horrible happens, this might do the trick.

PS. It should really go above where we talked about our world turning into a video game. There is, apparently, a real life condition called Game Transfer Phenomenon. BBC explains more. So who knows, perhaps we will start assigning classes to ourselves some time in the future.

The post Lit RPG: The Origins, The Inheritance, and Other Things first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

April 18, 2025

We are at war.

This war is not about wealth, resources, or a difference of ideology. It’s a war of survival. The very existence of humanity is at stake.

The moment the first gate burst, sending a monster horde to rage through our world, it brought us unimaginable suffering, but it also awoke something slumbering deep within some of us, a means to repel and destroy our enemy. Powers beyond comprehension. Abilities that are legendary.

The war is ongoing. If you are a Talent, your country needs you. The world needs you. Be the hero you always wanted to be.

Take my hand and answer the call.

Elias McFeron

Guildmaster of Cold Chaos

The post The Inheritance Begins first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

It’s no secret that Grace Draven is one of the best writers of modern fantasy romance. I could talk about her books all day.  Her plots unfold against the backdrop of enchanting worldbuilding wrapped in lyrical prose. Her worlds have texture and that elusive fairy tale quality that many writers chase and never manage to acquire.  But for me, it’s all about the characters.

A lot of speculative fiction can be sorted into two broad categories: ordinary character in an extraordinary world and extraordinary character in an ordinary world. The Hobbit, Labyrinth, and Alien are examples of the first, and Sherlock Holmes, House, and the entire superhero genre are examples of the second. 

The Wraith Kings series falls firmly into the first category.  There is Brishen, a prince of the Kai, who is a prince in the name only. There is the heir, and the spare, and Brishen, you go stand over there.  Then there is Ildiko, who is a niece of the Gauri king.  One day these two find out that they are to be married. They are not consulted about this.  They have no power to alter this decision.

To make things worse, they are not of the same kind. Brishen’s people have more in common with the drow, and the Gauri are firmly human in the traditional sense of the world.  The customs, the diet, everything is dramatically different. 

There is something so refreshingly ordinary about watching these two trying to navigate this arranged marriage. They are so relatable, and they take so much care with each other’s feelings. 

There are several books in the series now, and recently Grace added a new novella to it, titled Black Hellebore.

Brishen and Ildiko return in this latest addition to the world of the Wraith Kings.

To protect his people and save his kingdom from destruction, Brishen Khaskem made an unthinkable sacrifice, stripping all but the youngest Kai of their magic in order to transform himself and four others into powerful Wraith Kings who would battle the ancient malice known as the galla.

But victory comes at a high price. The loss of their sorcerous heritage is a bitter consequence for the Kai. When an unexpected enemy threatens the lives of his beloved wife Ildiko and his adopted daughter, the queen regnant, Brishen may pay the highest price of all. What will be the ultimate cost of reviving a dead legacy and regaining a lost hope?

A tale of trust and deception.

Amazon BN Apple

Did you know Black Hellebore was out?  Yes, I didn’t either.

To celebrate this book birthday, I’ve imposed on Grace and made her sit down for this interview with me.

Interview with Grace Draven

Could you tell us how the world of Wraith Kings came to be?  What made you want to write that first book?

Aww, thanks for the kind words, m’dear. I’d easily givel into the temptation of fangirling the storytelling juggernaut that is Ilona Andrews, but I know that isn’t why we’re here. Let me just say, before we go on, that I will never shop in a Costco or a Sam’s Wholesale the same way again after reading Innkeeper.

As to your questions, well you had a hand in that. Remember all those years ago when you declared “You need a website. I’ll make you one?” (Thanks for that, by the way) Well, I figured I’d try to bring traffic to my sparkly new Ilona-created website by posting a first-draft short story of no more than 12k words total to the blog section of the website for folks to read for free. One chapter a week (or maybe every two weeks, depending on my schedule). I remember telling my longtime editor, Evil Editor Mel, “It’ll just be a short story. I’m calling it RADIANCE. No more than 10k words tops.” To which Mel replied in the most doubtful tones, “Riiiiiggghhht.”

A few weeks into this plan, and I told Mel, “I think this is going to be a novella.” To which Mel replied, “Is that so?”

Spring forward a couple of more months, and I announced to Mel, “This is for sure shaping up to be a novel.” To which Mel replied, “You don’t say?”

After Mel (and my then second editor and principal brainstormer, Lora Gasway) edited RADIANCE and I officially published it to the various retailer platforms, I told Mel, “I have some ideas for a book #2.” To which Mel replied “Just send it on when you’re done.”

Once EIDOLON went live, I went back to Mel and said “Sooo, I’m certain this will be a 6-book series.” To which Mel oh-so-patiently replied, “I’m in for the long haul.”

And a long haul it’s been. Ten years, three completed Wraith Kings novels, three more to go, and several Wraith Kings novellas and short stories later, and I’m still on an adventure of discovery with these characters and this world. What a helluva ride.

What is it about Bishen and Ildiko that keeps you coming back to this series?

I’d have to say it’s the hope in a solid, long-term relationship. These two people are, first and foremost, each other’s best friend. When you combine the passion of romantic love with the grace and devotion of platonic love, you end up with magic that has staying power. I’d like to think that’s what these two have. Exploring aspects of their lives through the lens of that connection within a challenging, often violent world stretches my creative muscle and honestly, just makes me smile every time I write these two.

Could you tell us about Black Hellebore?

BLACK HELLEBORE is a revisitation of Brishen and Ildiko after the events in THE IPPOS KING (Wraith Kings, book #3). Brishen is now the regent of the Kai kingdom still reeling from the demonic invasion of the galla, the destruction of their capital city, and the wholesale loss of their magic (except for the youngest in their population). The world isn’t as safe from the galla as the Wraith Kings had hoped, and a desperate Kai with a plan to regain their lost heritage will do anything to succeed, even if that involves destroying all that Brishen holds most dear.

Could we look forward to more Wraith Kings in the future? 

Yes. Definitely. I currently have two works-in-progress going, including THE NOMAS KING, which is book #4 in the Wraith Kings series.

Where do you see this series going?

As I mentioned earlier, this is a planned 6-book series with novellas sprinkled in between. 

Will you branch out to other couples or stay with Bishen and Ildiko?

I love writing Brishen and Ildiko, but the arc of their particular story was started in RADIANCE and completed in EIDOLON. I revisited them again in BLACK HELLEBORE because, honestly, I missed them. However, the remaining books in the Wraith Kings series will focus on other characters already introduced in RADIANCE and EIDOLON, specifically those Wraith Kings who fought with Brishen in EIDOLON. Each one of those kings gets their story, and the third book in the series, THE IPPOS KING, is already out. I really loved telling the story of the jovial yet deadly Serovek, his passion for the formidable Kai warrior woman Anhuset, and their mission of mercy to protect an imprisoned Wraith King.

We are very curious about your writing process.  What is a typical writing day like for you?

Fractured, full of distractions, loud, and the absolute definition of catch-as-catch-can. I write whenever I can carve out the time (which is limited and precious). So that can be at 7:30 on a Saturday morning or 2:00 a.m. in the wee hours of a Wednesday. I mostly write at my desk which is tucked into a corner of the game room which is the pass-through to one bathroom and two bedrooms. It’s also the brawling space for four rambunctious dogs as well as the hang-out for two college kids and any of the friends or boyfriends that drop by to visit. When it gets too wild and loud, I’ll grab a spiral notebook and handwrite in the bathroom, my car, the backyard deck and one time in the laundry room while I was waiting for a particular load of laundry to dry. Tuning out is my super power. The glamor…it never ends.

Taking the story from a concept to a published book is a long and involved process. How does that usually work for you?

I’m a pantser, or a discovery writer (whichever term you prefer). I start with a nebulous plot idea, a stronger character idea and it’s off to the races. Character is always “louder” in my head than plot. I’ll have the spine of a story, but plot for me solidifies gradually, fleshed out and informed by a mountain of research that I do for every single book. When it comes to research for a book, I definitely adhere to Hemingway’s iceberg theory in which the reader only sees the tip above the surface, while underneath is the bulk of the iceberg or the unseen foundation that gives the story its heft and solidity. When I research, I build a house. When I don’t research, I build a house of cards.

I will often draft any and every expert in a particular topic into helping me understand how something is done, something is made, something works. The long-suffering Mr. Draven is on the receiving end of most of this. He’s had to explain to me how to fix the engine of a dirigible, how to use various types of weaponry from medieval to contemporary, and how to sew a pair of leather boots. Those are just a few examples. He blocks scenes with me as well, battling vacuum cleaners with broom sticks and rolling on the floor of the foyer in a simulation of dodging a horse while on the ground (during which my delighted dogs instantly dog-piled him on each occasion). God bless supportive spouses.

Once the story is done, I down a celebratory shot of bourbon or single malt, dance around the living room like a mad woman, call Mel to scream joyously in her ear, and announce to the family that as far as me cooking dinner is concerned…NOT TONIGHT, SATAN!

Then I email the entire mess to Evil Editor Mel for the king of all editorial passes we both fondly refer to as The Full Evil .

Do you have a concept editor and what role do they play?

Evil Editor Mel wears a lot of editorial hats for me, and this is one of them. Typically, she doesn’t see the manuscript until I’m ready for her to do a Full Evil on it, but I will often message with her or call her to discuss some things. And as you’ve experienced firsthand, I’ve leaned into you for help in seeing my way out of a predicament when I’ve wrapped myself too tight around my own axel to see the fix.

And of course, the most important question: what’s next?

I love the Wraith Kings world and writing in it, but sometimes other worlds call to me, so I’ll take a detour on occasion. While I am working on THE NOMAS KING, I’m putting most of my focus during 2025 on writing and completing a fantasy romance titled THE BLADE MAIDEN. This is the first book in my planned Blade and Dagger trilogy and is centered around one of a set of identical twins who act as enslaved bodyguards to a possessed princess. Resigned to a life of bondage alongside her twin, Solunada soon discovers she must save a priest-king and his Otherworld kingdom from annihilation while also trying not to die at the hands of the assassin who loves her.

Oh, and she has a Girl Scout meeting on Tuesdays.

Just kidding.

Grace recently updated her website and because we are friends, I found out that she is reviving her newsletter. Apparently there will be a bonus scene sent out to newsletter subscribers at the end of next week, and it will be an intimate scene, so if you haven’t signed up, now is your chance. Grace’s site is at gracedraven.com and here is the link to her newsletter.

The post Grace Draven and Black Hellebore first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Sookie, the old bulldog, has to have canned dog food in the wake of her surgery so her mouth can recover. She absolutely loves it. She gobbles it up, and then we suffer.

Yesterday, as I was trying to catch up on a novella we are working on, because we need another release this year, Sookie was in a rare form even for her. It went somewhat like this:

The cave passage stretched in front of me, a narrow tunnel painted with bioluminescent swirls of strange vegetation. It split about twenty yards ahead, with one end of it curving to the right and the other cutting straight into the gloom. 

Fart,

The pale green and pink radiance of the foreign fungi and lichens didn’t illuminate the darkness, but made it seem even deeper.

A cold draft flowed from the tunnel, bringing with it an odd acrid stench.

Fart.

Bear whined softly by my side. Whining seemed entirely appropriate. I didn’t want to go into that darkness either.

Fart.

“We don’t have a choice,” I told the dog.

Something rustled in the darkness, a strange whispering sound.

Faaaaaart!

Bear hid behind me.

“Some attack dog you are.”

Fart, fart, faaaart.

I posted about my woes on Facebook, because I wanted to share the glamor. This morning, Facebook delivered this gem to me.

We knew she was a special dog, but we had no idea that her gas troubles were high quality content. We feel so privileged to share it with you.

The post Quality Content first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.