Wish quartet the comple.., p.1
Wish Quartet- The Complete Series, page 1
part #0.50 of Wish Quartet Series
Wish Quartet
Complete Series
Elise Kova
Lynn Larsh
Contents
Copyright Page
A Letter from the Authors
Map of the Society’s Mansion
Map of North America (2057)
Introduction
Prince of Gods
1. The Beginning
2. Ten
3. Nine
4. Eight
5. Seven
6. Six
7. Five
8. Four
9. Three
10. Two
11. One
12. The Beginning, Again
Society of Wishes
Dedication Page
1. Lone Star Republic
2. The Society
3. Capital D
4. Error 404
5. Dangerously Easy
6. Because Magic
7. Wish
8. Gift of Time
9. Not Real
10. Ready, Aim, Fire!
11. Broken Mug
12. Contentment. Not Happiness.
13. Rec Room
14. Shewolf’s Mission
15. Paris
16. Penthouse
17. Bellhop Bet
18. Catacomb Heist
19. Tomato
20. Great Depression
21. Severity of Exchange
22. Almost Like Permission
23. Burnt Inside
24. A Dangerous Deal
25. Cold Hands
26. A Bribe Named “Sopapilla”
27. Hospital Room
28. Greentouch
29. Clean Slate
30. Obsidian Circle
31. Black Door
32. Blink
Circle of Ashes
Dedication Page
1. Not a Drill
2. Shattered
3. Stand Down, Soldier
4. Mugicha
5. Takako’s Wish
6. Restrictions
7. Waiting Game
8. Late Night Visitor
9. Seven-Hundred and Thirty
10. If Looks Could Kill
11. Easy Peasy
12. Hotshot
13. The Craftsman’s Plan
14. Ken and Goofo
15. Useful Skill
16. ESP
17. A Step Up from Prince
18. Needs and Brodies
19. Julia
20. Man Made Reckless
21. A Moment of Peace
22. Plan C
23. Target Practice
24. Twelve Hours
25. Together
26. Breaking and Entering
27. Final Hope
28. We Wait
29. Please
30. Their Last Meal
31. Draw Straws
32. Favoritism
33. Snow’s Choice
34. Until the End
35. One-Seventeen A.M.
36. Goodbye
Birth of Chaos
Dedication Page
1. Life on a Leash
2. Too Soon
3. The Bone Carver
4. Complicit Survival
BTCOTS NOTES 1
5. A Single Eye
6. Palm, Meet Desk
7. Special Place
BTCOTS NOTES 2
8. Breakdown
9. Wood Grain
BTCOTS NOTES 3
10. Springtide Pillars
11. Fletcher
12. Wanting In
BTCOTS NOTES 4
13. Nowhere Safe
14. You Again
15. Trade
16. Signatures
BTCOTS NOTES 5
17. Only From Me
18. Will It Break?
19. Age of Gods
20. Off the Wish
21. The Final Pieces
BTCOTS NOTES 6
22. Comfort
23. Dark Water
24. Pan’s Room
25. Finally
26. The Clock Reaches Zero
27. Fragmented Data
28. Dragonback
29. Far From Over
Age of Magic
Dedication Page
Age of Magic World Map
1. Far From Over
2. Just All Right
3. Vampire Cream
4. A Brief History
5. Alley Encounter
6. Champion
7. On The Run
8. Ready To Jump
9. If You Don’t, I Will
10. Sapphire Bridge
11. Samson’s Pain
12. A Royal Audience
13. Impatient
14. Broken Table Leg
15. The Person I Love
16. Daydream Of Longing
17. King’s Deal
18. Coming Out Alive
19. To Protect
20. Misdirected Assassin
21. Final Demand
22. No Other Options
23. Unconventional Transport
24. Together Again
25. Chaotic Castle
26. I’m Here
27. Their Plan
28. Dress For Dinner
29. Eat Up
30. Time To Destroy Something
31. A Cheap Magic Trick
32. The Final Moments
33. Reunited
34. Oblivion
Epilogue
About the Author: Elise Kova
About the Author: Lynn Larsh
Also by Elise Kova
Acknowledgements
Book One
Book Two
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and events in this book are the products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the authors.
Published by Silver Wing Press
Copyright © 2019 by Silver Wing Press
All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.
Cover Artwork by Elise Kova
Editing by Rebecca Faith Editorial
eISBN: 978-1-949694-03-1
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-949694-07-9
A Letter from the Authors
On behalf of Lynn and Elise, thank you so much for reading our book! Your support enables us to continue to weave stories that we hope you enjoy for years to come.
We also hope that you secured your copy of this book legally.
Did you know that the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal? Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.
Make sure all your books come from a verified retailer, publisher, or the author themselves, and not an illegal download site. Do your part to help protect authors so we can keep making the stories you love.
To find all retailers where you can obtain a physical or digital copy of this work legally, please visit Elise’s website: http://elisekova.com/books/
Introduction
Before you begin reading, what kind of a reader are you…?
Do you enjoy reading chronologically?
If you’re a reader who wants to read a story in chronological order, or with as much information as possible on the characters and their history, Lynn and I recommend starting with PRINCE OF GODS.
Or, do you like to stay guessing while you read?
If you’re a reader who enjoys looking for clues and hints about the characters and their world. Or, you like to read in publication order. Then read PRINCE OF GODS between BIRTH OF CHAOS and AGE OF MAGIC.
Or, read it whenever makes you happy!
We hope you enjoy!
The Beginning
If she had the ability to bleed, Destruction’s feet would have been scraped raw.
The forest floor dipped under every brutal and frantic footfall, twigs and rocks slashing at her bare feet. There was no recognizable path and she was left to push through the trees and flora, feeling them scratch at her—knowing they would leave no mark.
Even with the greenery acting as camouflage, the environment blurring past at a speed that should easily have separated her from her assailants, Destruction felt them. Encroaching. Fueled by an unnatural force that she knew all too well.
Despite her relatively newfound autonomy as an independent entity in the universe, a twin sensation flowed through her veins.
Destruction reached for the lowest hanging branch of a nearby tree. Using the momentum of her sprint, she swung herself upwards, ignoring the way the rough bark slid against her palms. It was a simple feat, tucking her legs beneath her and jumping from one branch to another, only settling once she’d covered a substantial distance from the ground.
It was then, her back against the trunk of the tree and both legs hanging on either side of her chosen branch, that Destruction let herself relax for the first time since they’d begun chasing her hours ago.
At least relaxing was what she wanted to do.
A spike of magical energy rushed through the trees, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand. Destruction leapt to her feet and balanced on the branch with ease. That sickening mix of Chaos’ magic and the mortals’ essence was growing stronger. They’d been following Destruction’s scent since her escape f
An arrow embedded itself into the trunk barely an inch from Destruction’s face.
She turned, drawn to it by instinct, just in time to see the arrow evaporate in a puff of pink smoke. Before Destruction could inspect the projectile Chaos had no doubt touched, another arrow impaled her through the gut. Destruction was sent free-falling to the forest floor and taking more than one branch out with her on the way down.
Pain. Her ribs shattered against a limb, the arrow freed of her stomach as another branch ripped through her. Destruction felt every wound, superficial and fatal, mend itself and shift back into place with sparks of magic and surges of adrenaline. The moment she hit the ground, nearly fifty feet below her, she was already bouncing back onto her feet and into a sprint.
Pain lingered, but her body relished in the destruction, singing despite near-death, with a power that no other entity could command.
She stretched her magic around her, sent its tendrils out into the trees, sensing not two, but five mortals, all carrying the same heavy burden of Chaos’ influence. And all were right on her tail. The one with the arrow had caught her off guard; Chaos’ reach was now expanding to their weaponry. But she wouldn’t let it happen again.
She wouldn’t give Chaos the chance to lure her back in.
Determined, she dug in her heels, spinning in place. Until they died of exhaustion or from Chaos’ magic tearing them apart, the poor mortals would chase her to the ends of the world. The best she could do was offer them a swift, clean death. Yet while that mercy also carried the fringe benefit of ending this foolhardy chase, Destruction’s motivation waned the moment her assailants burst through the branches.
Her stomach churned as a human child emerged. A boy, with eyes sunken and black and his skin turned ashen. There was no telling when Chaos had gotten her hands on him, but he was more like a mortal shell left to do Chaos’s bidding than anything resembling a human.
“You can’t escape what you are. What we are!” the boy cooed, a familiar sound more painful than the gaping wound in her middle trying to mend itself.
“Why do you run from me, darling?” an old man said as he emerged from the branches to stand by the child. Black veins crawled up his arms and neck. His voice was raspy, though the inflection caused Destruction to shudder as if nails were running down her spine. She knew its true speaker.
When Destruction laid her eyes on these mortals—from the ashen boy to the walking corpse that was the archer who was the last to emerge and face off against her—she did not see humanity. Destruction saw the magic of her other half.
No, it ran deeper than that.
Dripping from their blackened eyes was the echo of a familiar force that she, too, had once possessed—what now felt like long ago, when she was still one with Chaos as the ancient goddess Oblivion. Destruction’s memories were hazy of her time as Oblivion (being torn asunder into two demigods would do that) but she recognized that raw power.
“Join with me again,” the woman hissed with words that were not her own.
For the briefest of moments, with a visceral, involuntary pang, Destruction thought of giving in. Cease this endless fight for control, for autonomy, and rejoin as one. Yet, something wouldn’t let her. A voice all her own screamed in objection and those screams were tearing her apart.
“No, I won’t. I won’t!”
Destruction collapsed in on herself, gripping her dark hair with both hands. Her bare feet dug into the forest floor, her magic crackling down her legs and into the earth. The ground shattered like glass and rose to hover mid-air before imploding with sparks of raw energy. Destruction felt more than saw the shockwaves extending from her and toward each mortal, obliterating tree and rock alike.
Sinkholes as black as cosmos opened in the fissures around them and swallowed them whole. She had never forced her magic into existence in such a way, but she couldn’t deny how natural, how intoxicating, it felt. She was quickly sobered, however, in watching the child’s final agonizing moments before he too blinked out of existence.
Then, the forest was quiet for the first time in what must have been hours. Days, possibly. Mortal time was such a slippery thing. The mortal races seemed to live a whole life in the span of a divine breath.
Her first steps were shaky, her feet digging deeper into the cracked and softened earth for purchase, but she was soon running again. She ran until she no longer heard the animals deep within the forest panicking at the attack. She ran until the essence of tainted humans began to fade. She ran until every trace of Chaos had begun to dissipate out of her system, leaving her truly alone once more.
She ran until she could barely breathe, her feet stumbling into a clearing that stretched in a wide arc around her. Destruction collapsed onto her back at the center of the glade, amidst the tall grasses, and let the sense of solitude wash over her. Solitude, and the still ever-present adrenaline from such a catastrophic release of her magic.
The forest clearing stretched around Destruction like a cocoon of its own world—a horizon of trees encircling a field of dewy grass, expansive sky looming dark and flecked with stars above. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend it was a haven from Chaos’ mortal slaves. But the gods, too, were still undoubtedly on the hunt for her scent. It seemed as if the whole world were out to track her down.
Yet, as beautiful as false safety could be, closing her eyes made that whirlwind of energy in her chest, the euphoria of power, the lack of direction with which to utilize it, grow more pronounced, hyper focused. So, her eyes stayed pinned on the sky instead. Or, more specifically, on each bright, pinpoint of light.
