QSFer M.D. Grimm has a new MM fantasy book out:
Time travel.
For mages, it violates their number one rule: what the Mother has written, let no one unwrite. The Mother writes the destinies of the creatures on the world of Karishian. If her writings were undone, it is feared that Creation itself could be undone. The dark mage Morgorth takes this rule to heart, but there are others who do not.
Morgorth is about to claim a stone of power when it is stolen from him by a female mage he hasn’t seen in decades. As they struggle for the stone, she activates it, and Morgorth is unwillingly plunged into another time and another place. It isn’t long before he realizes what time he’s found himself in and there are a few familiar faces.
Most notable is a much younger version of Aishe. His mate.
Living with a tribe who will be massacred, caring for a young lad who will become his mate, and fighting a battle against a mage who can travel from past to future at a whim—Morgorth’s life has never been easy but now he must contend with the will of the Mother. Unable to change the future and the tragedies of Aishe’s life, he must decide what his role in his mate’s past will be, and ask himself one vital question: how does one defeat time?
The Stones of Power Book 4 – Revised Second Edition
Excerpt
The rustle of bushes and the snapping of tree limbs made me lift my head. It sounded like a stampede of animals was coming toward me, but before I could find the strength to stand, a dialen suddenly burst out onto the field where I sat. He didn’t see me. In fact, I’d never seen a creature run as fast as he did, under no other power but those of his own legs. I caught a glimpse of green eyes and sheer white hair.
Wait a minute.
He shot past me, and a startling revelation began to form in my head. The dangerous roar of a trulbar broke my train of thought. And, sure enough, an enormous female with a big, sturdy body, and wicked horns, charged out of the trees, at the same spot the dialen had come from. She didn’t notice me either, focused as she was on the dialen, and quickly gaining ground.
I was on my feet before I consciously knew it, running after both of them. Adrenaline allowed me to move, to act. With a surge of magick that burned my bones, I snapped my hand to the side, shouting a word. A punch of pure force smacked into the trulbar and sent her flying to the left, far into the forest. She bellowed in shock and rage but I knew she wouldn’t return. She wasn’t suicidal. As I shoved down my magick, the pain, nausea, and sheer weakness returned with a vengeance. I fell to my knees and gripped my head. Then I lifted my eyes to see that the dialen was still running. A dialen I knew very well, or would know in the future. I was firmly, irrevocably in the past.
Aishe.
Apparently, the young dialen had heard the commotion with the trulbar and turned his head, never slowing. But even as he whipped his head around in shock, he did the one thing I never thought possible. He ran into a tree.
He ran into a tree.
And knocked himself out, by the look of it. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been in so much pain and if the situation hadn’t been so dire. But my jaw did drop. I focused on breathing through my nose and out my mouth even as I continued to stare at the downed youth. He was young, no doubt about it. Not yet an adult, but not a child anymore. He was in that awkward stage of life, just past puberty. He was gangly and obviously not too sharp if he hadn’t seen that tree right in front of him.
This was bad. This was very, very bad. I had to leave, now. But I couldn’t. I could barely stay on my knees, my body simply wanted to keel over. I began to tremble violently and the nausea couldn’t be denied anymore. Even as I vomited, I managed to consider my situation even more. If I hadn’t saved Aishe, then he would be dead, no doubt about it. That meant I was supposed to be here. I was already written into the past, the Mother had this all planned out. But what was I supposed to do here? Other than find Drasyln and go back to the present.
I wiped my mouth as I heard footsteps approach me. Drasyln. It had to do with her. What was her goal here, in this time? What did she hope to accomplish? Why was this time significant for her? And why the hell hadn’t she killed me?
But, more importantly, how was I going to keep my identity, and our future, hidden from Aishe?
Author Bio
M.D. Grimm has wanted to write stories since second grade (kind of young to make life decisions, but whatever) and nothing has changed since then (well, plenty of things actually, but not that!).
Thankfully, she has indulgent parents who let her dream, but also made sure she understood she’d need a steady job to pay the bills (they never let her forget it!). After graduating from the University of Oregon and majoring in English, (let’s be honest: useless degree, what else was she going to do with it?) she started on her writing career and couldn’t be happier.
Working by day and writing by night (or any spare time she can carve out), she enjoys embarking on romantic quests and daring adventures (living vicariously, you could say) and creating characters that always triumph against the villain, (or else what’s the point?) finding their soul mate in the process.