Showing results for "Time" in Dark Fantasy

Magic has been outlawed for almost a century, and anyone caught wielding it or bearing its mark is executed. Which is why I know every day could be my last. I'm marked for death. My skin bears the branding of the moon. I just thank the stars that it's not somewhere visible. For one night, I willingly put myself in danger, picking a stranger to lose myself in before I begin my life of servitude to the crown as a member of the King's Guard. But the man I thought was a stranger turns out to be the Blade of the King, Thorn, my new boss.

Magic is the key...but will it save them, or consume them? For Natalia, there is no choice. Trained as a battle mage, she has the potential to be the most powerful spellcaster the family has ever produced. Yet their price is too high. Meanwhile, Athgar's life is about to change forever. On the day his village is burned to the ground, his magical potential is released by the very fire that nearly consumed him. He is driven by revenge until he learns he may not be the only survivor.

Only 1 percent of the population is blessed with magic affinity at birth. Fewer still have high enough affinities to rule. Ian’s decemancy eclipses all, granting him ultimate control over Death. He conquers cities with a thought and turns them into ruins with a gesture. But overwhelming power isn’t enough to escape the time loop or reveal its purpose.

He thought it was the end, and his gun sat ready to make sure. But an oddball offer from his last friend comes at the literal last second. Curiosity gets the best of him, and he finds himself sucked into iNcarn8, a game claiming to be a whole new life. Now, as Montana, the larger-than-life tank warrior, he has one more last time to get his life right.

As the months in the time loop seem to add up without end, Zorian forms alliances with acquaintances old and new in an effort to solve the mystery of the loop and save his city—maybe even the world—from destruction. But while his mage skills develop and he pursues more advanced and unusual forms of magic, Zorian must battle necromancers, fanatical cultists, and vicious creatures—all while avoiding the attention of the lich who could kill him...permanently.

There's an underground black market for arcane things. Akin to the trade in rhino horns or tiger bones, this network traffics in remains of gryphons, faeries, goblins, and other fantastic creatures. When her fiance Vince goes missing, Angela Gough, an American criminology student, discovers he was a part of this secretive trade. It's a big-money business-shadowy, brutal, and sometimes fatal. As the trail leads her deeper into London's dark side, she crosses paths with a crime lord whose life is dedicated to collecting such relics.

A devastating attack by the lich Quatach-Ichl has left Zorian and Zach reeling as their remaining restarts tick away. As they recover, they make preparations for their final confrontations with Red Robe, the lich, the primordial being, and the invaders—all within the shadow of a question they can’t answer: can Zorian and Zach both survive outside the time loop? When the time loop is broken, sacrifices will be made, bonds will be tested, and trust will be more important than any magical skill or power—and even then, success is not guaranteed.

Sam Ryder's life already sucks, and it's about to get worse when he's fired from his dead-end job as a programmer. He's about to head home to escape into his favorite RPG, Alien Civilization, when he's offered a thrill ride on a death machine by a gorgeous woman straight out of one of his games. Before Sam can say "WTF?", he's been whisked away to a dark world of monsters and goddesses, his body transformed from Outcast to Warrior, the second level on a ladder that may eventually carry him all the way to Demigod.

HARRY NOLAN is an expatriate American, making a meager living as an illustrator for a low-paying magazine, but his life is upended when he is assigned to illustrate an anonymous article about the death of a god—because a centuries-old French brotherhood, the sauteurs, are determined to suppress the story the article tells. The sauteurs have burned the magazine’s office and killed the editor, and Nolan has the only surviving copy of the article. The author turns out to be a local writer named ERNEST HEMINGWAY, who—at first—tries to distance himself from the article and its lethal consequences.

Raina Bloodgood has one desire: kill the Frost King and the Witch Collector who stole her sister. On Collecting Day, she means to exact murderous revenge, but a more sinister threat sets fire to her world. Rising from the ashes is the Collector, Alexus Thibault, the man she vowed to slay and the only person who can help save her sister. Thrust into an age-old story of ice, fire, and ancient gods, Raina must abandon vengeance and aid the Witch Collector or let their empire—and her sister—fall into enemy hands.

When the Veil spits me back out, no one is more shocked than me that I survived, but I'm not the same person anymore. Not even close. I'm also no longer in the Kingdom of Eaorin. Somehow, I've ended up in the mystical fae realm of Illeoria, and I quickly discover that everything I thought I knew about the fae is horribly wrong. As I try to figure out how I got here and what I'm supposed to do now, my enemy is by my side every step of the way. Tormenting me. Tempting me. If he doesn't kill me, the fae realm just might.

A group of mountain climbers, caught in the dark, fight to survive their descent; in the British countryside, hundreds of magpies ascend into the sky, higher and higher, until they seem to vanish into the heavens; a professor and his student track a zombie horde in order to research zombie behavior; an all-girl riding school has sinister secrets; a town rails in vain against a curse inflicted upon it by its founders; and much more.

Isaac Thoma lived to see the last handful of survivors defeat the demonic champion. He is now alone, his past in ashes, the last and most powerful human on a blighted Earth. But what if he could go back? Hurled back in time, Isaac has one chance to change it all. A chance to warn humanity of their impending doom. A chance to stop the [System] before shortsightedness and lust for power can render humanity extinct.

Welcome to the Five Isles, where war has come in the name of the invading army of Sor Sevier, a merciless host driven by the prophetic fervor of the Angel Prince, Aeros, toward the last unconquered kingdom of Gul Kana. Yet Gault, one of the elite Knights Archaic of Sor Sevier, is growing disillusioned by the crusade he is at the vanguard of just as it embarks on his Lord Aeros' greatest triumph. While the eldest son of the fallen king of Gul Kana now reigns in ever increasing paranoid isolationism, his two sisters seek their own paths.

Stories creep through Scrying Hollow—whispers of a great beast. Come dusk, the first howl catches the wind and rustles the trees. Make haste, for it's no wolf bounding through the Hollow. The Hound comes for you. Liliwen, the eldest daughter of the Valet family, knows the tales well. You see, her father was the first to die to the Hound. Seven years later, heartbreak threatens again when Liliwen's brother is ambushed by the beast. Eviscerated and barely alive, her brother escapes and stumbles home. Once more, death waits upon Liliwen's doorstep.

In a world darkened by deceit, the truth is a light that won’t be dimmed—even when it illuminates Lorian’s betrayals more starkly than I could ever want to see. They call him the Bloodthirsty Prince. His reign of terror has left a trail of blood across this continent, a trail that intertwines with my own past—not even my parents were spared from his merciless slaughter. To save my brother’s life, I agreed to another bargain with the fae prince. Now, I’m forced to work with him, to travel to the fae lands, to spend my every waking moment with the man who betrayed me.

Ashok Vadal was once a member of the highest caste in all of Lok. As a Protector, he devoted his life to upholding the Law, rooting out those who still practiced the old ways and delivering justice with his ancestor blade Angruvadal. None was more merciless than he in stamping out the lingering belief in gods and demons among the casteless. His brutality was legendary and celebrated. But soon Ashok learned that his life to that point had been a lie. He himself, senior member of the Protector Order, was casteless. He had been nothing more than an unwitting pawn in a political game.

As secrets of Castle Ravenspire come to light, Elise and Valen discover their enemies hold more power than they ever imagined. It will take more than blades to defeat them: fulfilling a dangerous request from Valen’s imprisoned brother, destroying a prophecy of fate kept in the hands of Elise's brutal sister, and an unwilling alliance with a shadowed thief from a neighboring kingdom that might end in victory or more death. Blood is calling. War will answer.

The Saint of War spares the life of a servant girl so she can fulfill her destiny as the kingdom’s greatest warrior in this short story of love and loyalty by New York Times bestselling author Alix E. Harrow.

Before the demons invaded, Nathan had everything he ever wanted. Women, power, magical talent, wealth, a fortress full of loyal soldiers. Now, a beautiful demonic general offers him a choice: Die; or start a new life with her in the past and rewrite history. Nathan accepts and is sent back in time to before the end of the world.