Excerpt 1: A Kingdom of Roses and Magic

Get A Copy of A Kingdom of Roses and MagicThe Great Apocalypse2000 Years AgoThe Forbidden Forest Kingdom, Aurora RealmEri Hoshi, the Great White Sage of Yamato, watched as eight Great Ones, all fair beauties of the aurora realm, filed up the stepping stones toward the platform above. Her eyes—bloodshot and red from the lack of sleep for these past months—shifted to the one leading, Yuki Hoshi of Yamato, her eldest daughter whom she had created from the dust particles of snow using her magic.Yuki’s long, dark hair fluttered elegantly in the gentle breeze as she regally led the other seven Great Ones to their sacrifice.Behind Yuki was Akari, Eri’s second daughter, whom the sage forged from the dust particles of an inferno of fire. Like Yuki, the blonde-haired, newly-wedded beauty Akari walked up the stone stairs regally, knowing very well that soon she—along with the other seven Great Ones—would be no more, their physical bodies would be disintegrated once they released their qi cores from within their beings.As she followed her older sister, Akari thought of Maximus, her husband of three days, the man she loved with all her heart, the man she was willing to sacrifice her life for.This was for him and his world.Right at this moment, she knew that he was somewhere in the north at the edge of what was left of the Aurora Realm, doing his utter best with his dark power to form a shield to protect this world from its own destruction.Akari felt Yuki’s hand clasped over hers and held it tightly for a moment. She glanced at her sister and noted tears brimming in Yuki’s dark brown eyes. Instantly, her own blue eyes started brewing and her slender body quivered with the overwhelming emotions that suddenly hit her.She was never going to see her wonderful sisters again. Nor their endearing mother Eri. And of course, her beloved husband Maximus and their dog Isaac.She sucked in a shaky breath to prevent herself from collapsing right there in front of all the other Great Ones and the White Sages.“It’s all right,” a gentle, soft, ethereal voice echoed in Akari’s thoughts. “It’s all right, Akari. I’ll make sure to protect you. I’ll protect you all. I promise.”Akari sucked in another deep breath as she nodded.“I know you will, my love,” she said quietly and softly under her breath to their youngest sister, a qi core their mother had forged from the particles of stardust.Beside her, the bright multi-color orb gave out a warm aura, easing Akari’s overwhelming emotion of fear, and calmed her down.Stardust was an unofficial name the sisters had given to their youngest, because that was all she was, an orb of glowing stardust. Despite what she was, Stardust was the strongest of the nine greats ones. In fact, she was The Great One, holding the most powerful pure qi with infinite abilities and possibilities. Though she had not evolved and gained herself a physical body, Stardust could understand and communicate with all the Great Ones and their mother Eri via telepathy with her qi alone.Yuki said, “Come here, my love.”The orb moved in the air and hovered near Yuki. The warm energy radiating from Stardust, as usual, eased Yuki’s fear and uncertainty.She said, “Please protect their souls.”Stardust’s voice echoed in Yuki’s thoughts, “I will protect everyone’s soul. Don’t worry, Yuki. I will ensure that yours will return to your husband’s side. I know he means a lot to you.”Yuki chuckled sadly, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Yes, he means a lot to me. Please, do that. Do whatever it takes to return my soul to Philip’s side.”“Hmm. I will.” Stardust’s voice echoed, full of conviction and certainty, which pleased Yuki.Sometimes Yuki wished she couldn’t feel fear or uncertainty, like their youngest sister Stardust. Then again, once you’ve evolved and acquired a physical body, those sorts of emotions came along with it.Fear. Anger. Shame. Pity. Envy. Sadness. Courage. Joy. Trust. Love.Love.Yes, she loved her husband. So much so that she was willing to sacrifice herself to protect him and his world. Only, she wished that she had more time, both to spend with him and to break that blasted spell that bitch Queen Hilde had put on him to control him.God, if only she had found out sooner, then he wouldn’t have blindly turned into a raging narcissistic man who was only obsessed with one thing, her.But it was too late now. There was no time for her to figure out how to release that Obsession Spell, because the realm was on the verge of being annihilated and her full attention and power was needed here.Her thoughts drifted to the seven demon lords, her friends who had aided her through thick and thin since they had saved her that fateful night not long ago, when Queen Hilde had ordered a hunter to murder her in the depths of the woods near the border of the McFarland Kingdom.If the lords hadn’t happened to chance upon her, she was sure she would have been very dead. And Philip, who had already started courting her and brought her to his kingdom then, would be none the wiser, believing that she had left the palace of her own free will.Every time she had problems with Philip or Queen Hilde, she had turned to the seven lords, and they, without asking for anything in return, had gladly helped her.Yuki turned her attention to Stardust.God, how she wished that Stardust, too, had formed a physical body. She wanted the sister to experience the wonderful feeling of being in love.She knew that the seven demon lords were attracted to Stardust. It was hard not to notice, since every time Stardust tagged along during her visit to the seven demon lords, with Stardust hiding her core within Yuki’s own heart, the lords all acted smitten with her and vied for her attentions and affections.If only they knew that the girl they were attracted to was Stardust, not Yuki. But alas, it was too late now, as Stardust herself was about to perform one of the greatest challenges of all, the gathering of eight pure qi cores to create a never-before made highest tier magic barrier that would not only protect what was left of this world from destruction, but form an ecosystem that would sustain life for hundreds and thousands of years to come. A performance that warranted the end of Stardust’s own existence.Yuki’s heart went out to her youngest sister.Stardust,The Great Onewith the strongest pure qi.Yuki reached her hand out and lightly stroke Stardust.The sister glowed even brighter, like a small sun, which told Yuki that she was pleased with the affection. If Stardust had a physical body, she would be grinning and blushing, no doubt.Once all the Great Ones took up their positions and formed a circle in the eight directions, Lord Aslan McTavish, the king of the Forbidden Forest, one of the most powerful beast shifters of the Aurora Realm, climbed the steps.On the platform, he turned his attention to his beloved Bella, an alluringly stunning silver-haired beauty, his young wife. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly.Her face buried against his chest, Bella murmured, “It’s all right, my love. It’s all right.”“No matter where you are after this, Bella,” he said softly. “I’ll find you. I will bring you back to me.”When he released her from his embrace, Bella stood on tip-toe and gave him a kiss on the growling mouth of a beast-mask that sat ever so perfectly on his face.“I love you,” she said softly.“I love you, too,” Aslan replied.Watching them, Akari wished that Maximus was here, too, at least to say their last goodbyes, once again.Yuki, too, wished that Philip was here with her. Yet, she knew that it was impossible, as he was currently being detained and restrained by the white sages to keep him from going blind with rage and leading a revolt against all this farce,as he believed it to be.Eri said, “It’s time, Lord Aslan.”Aslan nodded and stepped back from Bella. Then he headed toward the center of the stone platform, which had been carved with magical spells of ancient signs, symbols, and scripts. Surrounding them, too, was a stonehenge, a circle of standing stones carved with magic spells.Stardust—in her glowing orb—came to Lord Aslan and rested on his awaiting hands.As Eri and the rest of the white sages watched in anticipation and anxiety, the eight Great Ones spread out their arms, and instantly their pure qi of dust particles released from within their beings. The energy then was directed toward Stardust and she started absorbing the power. The more she gained, the brighter and stronger she became.Suddenly, a voice shouted, “Yuki! Stop it! Don’t do it! Stop this stupid nonsense now.”It was Philip.Standing there, her physical body becoming weaker by the second as she continued to release her qi, Yuki wanted to laugh in both joy and sadness. So, he’d managed to escape the high tier prison cell after all, to stop her from performing this madness of a sacrifice.She knew he was still pissed off, and in a rage, thinking that this was some sort of a conspiracy created by the seven demon lords to gain world dominance.She didn’t respond to him, of course. She couldn’t afford to. Performing this very important task required her full attention, after all.Hence, she continued to release her qi, and as Philip made a big scene, rushing up the stairs intending to tear her away from her position, Yuki release the last bit of what was left of her power.At that moment, as the white sages obstructed Philip’s path, the Great Ones released their cores into the air, eight glowing orbs hovering in midair, bursting with brightness. Instantly, their physical bodies collapsed onto the stone floor like lifeless dolls.Philip swung his hands and bashed one white sage in the chest, sending him flying back and colliding against the stonehenge at the back. He used his leg to kick another on the stomach, sending that one flying back and hitting against another stone.Freed, he rushed up the stairs onto the platform and then to Yuki. There, he gathered her lifeless body into his arms.Above him, Yuki’s core—along with the others—floated toward Stardust.Once Stardust absorbed all the cores, the physical bodies of the eight great ones began to disintegrate, their body parts breaking into small fragments of particles.Philip stared wide-eyed in shock at the sight. Voice shaking, he released his dark qi and commanded, “Dark Sage Protective Barrier.”Instantly, the hue of a dark shield formed around him and Yuki, thus protecting her body from the disintegration process.In the middle of the circle, Aslan—with Stardust in his hands—ascended to the sky so high that no one could catch sight of him with the naked eye. Hovering there in the stratosphere and using his magical, powerful sight, he could see the vastness of what was left of their world, with the edge of the realm crumbling, and the decaying Aurora qi core—the magic nucleus that powered their world and gave them life—breaking, shattering, and exploding beneath them.To the north he saw Prince Maximus Kavanagh, a black wolf-beast shifter and heir to the Kingdom of Lyria. He was in his wolf-beast form as he released his dark qi and shot the energy up to the sky. Behind him, thousands of his soldiers, clad in armor, supported him, releasing their own red, orange, or yellow qi toward him, feeding theirs into his.To the north-east was the demon lord Geoffrey Lancaster, the East, Noah Wakefield, the South-East, Felix Worthington, the South, Caleb Harrington, the South-West, Victor Rutherford, the West, Ethan Sherwood, and the North-West Aaron Lancaster. All seven powerful lords were in their demon forms, their bodies bursting with dark, sinister power as they released their qi into the sky. Behind them in each location were thousands of their soldiers, releasing their own qi—red, orange, or yellow—as support, feeding the qi to their masters.In the center of what was left of their dying world, Aslan released his own dark qi and combined it with Stardust’s pure ones. From the distance, a great bright light formed and burst, spreading far and wide across the land with a loud echoing hum. The force was so strong that every individual being within the land felt the power of the qi.High above the sky, the pure qi met and instantly connected with the eight dark ones belonging to the seven demon lords and Prince Maximus in the respective eight directions across the edges of the land. The connection formed a bond, with bright bursts of electrifying sparks, like lightning exploding across the sky, and the aurora barrier suddenly materialized, as if out of thin air, spreading far and wide; the colorful radiance danced and sparkled like stars.Beyond the newly made magic shield, the already crumbled land turned to dust and gas, becoming a part of the cosmos once again.Inside the barrier, what was left of life was saved, and the surviving, displaced civilians—of many different natures and manners—gazed at the sight of the colorful aurora barrier in awe, as a newfound hope rose within their spirits.Across the lands, the citizens—who had gathered in the cities, towns, villages, and even in their own homes with families and friends to pray and spend what was left of their ending time with their loved one—now cheered, with tears of hope and joy.This was not the end yet. Their world was saved. They had survived the Great Apocalypse.They all watched, wide-eye and in awe of the beautiful, new Aurora Barrier as specks of magic dust particles sprinkled like rain, some landing on their faces and bodies.During all this, Stardust continued to release her qi in the form of dust particles to strengthen the barrier until there was nothing left of her, until her light diminished and she was no more, with her qi core completely consumed.Empty handed, Aslan descended to the ground once again, and Eri walked up to him. She gave him a pat on the shoulder and said, her voice shaky and with tears in her eyes, “You’ve done well, Lord Aslan.”Aslan nodded and touched the sage’s shoulder gently in return. He knew it was as hard for her as it was hard for him. She had just lost her three daughters, after all, and he, his wife.“You’re all mad!” Philip shouted, which drew both Aslan’s and Eri’s attention to him.“What have you done to my Yuki?” His eyes widened as he nodded his head, as if convincing himself. “That’s right, it’s those bastards’ fault. They talked her into this. Those demon lords of Acaedien.”Eri said, “She’s gone, Philip. Yuki is no more. And it isn’t the demon lords’ fault. If anything, they figured a way to save our world. While you blindly went into a rage and threw a tantrum like a spoiled brat, the seven demon lords and Prince Maximus risked their own lives and hundreds and thousands of their soldiers’ lives to protect what is left of our world from annihilation.”“Lies!” he snared, shaking his heads. “All lies!” He hugged Yuki’s body tightly against him, as if afraid she’d be stolen from him again. “I’ll bring her back. No matter how difficult or how long it takes, I’ll bring her back, and I’ll swear here and now that I will never rest until I destroy those bastards for starting all this.”With that, he stood, and with Yuki’s dead body in his arms, he headed toward the exit, mumbling to himself like a madman.Eri shook her head as she watched him go. “He is too far gone. That Obsession Spell on him is too strong.”Aslan asked, “You know he has such a spell on him?”She nodded. “Cast by one with a very dark power, one that I do not wish to cross paths with.”Aslan nodded in understanding. “Then it’s best to leave him be.”Eri nodded. “For now,” she said.* * *Get A Copy of A Kingdom of Roses and Magic