BrettMichaelOrr

“You can bring back everyone you’ve lost. It will only cost your sanity.”

The king is dead, murdered by an interloper from the future—a manic copy of his own son, hellbent on forcibly reversing a disastrous timeline. The true Damian Roswald—a hedonistic crown prince bereft of magical talent—finds his comfortable life upended by his father’s murder and assassins from his own future.

“There are none left who can judge us, so we must be our own executioner. That is the cursed fate of those few named Damian Roswald.” 

With politicians plotting his demise, his royal cousins scheming for the empty throne, and warring churches tearing the grieving city apart, Damian must accept the tragedy of his countless futures—or else, find himself doomed to repeat them. But can a mere mortal decide their own fate in a world governed by almighty angels? 

“Find me, Damian Roswald. And I’ll tell you why the stars fell.”

For three centuries, even the wisest men have accepted that the night sky was once populated by ‘stars’—until a terrible calamity plunged mankind into a Dark Age. From the darkness, the Roswalds rose to power, but few know that the first crown was forged with the blood of a slaughtered god…

Damian must endure countless tragedies and the consequences of his own future actions to reach the peace he desires—but could the true threat be hiding not in his future, but in his own distant past?

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A Thread of Broken Fate

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS BEFORE THE DEATH OF DAMIAN ROSWALD

In a bedroom on the twentieth floor of the Palace, a young woman writhed in ecstasy, her groans loud enough to be heard in the corridor beyond. Her ample breasts heaved, red bites welling up around stiffened nipples.

Her uniform lay tattered upon the ground, torn apart in a frenzy of drink and lust. The man between her legs explored every inch of her being, and her breath escaped her in choking sobs of the purest pleasure.

A red-haired woman sat alone on her bed, pieces of shining armor at her feet. As she unwrapped the gauze from around her waist, she released a soft moan of pain as the warped and melted flesh of her stomach was exposed to the biting chill of the darkened room.

A mark of power—of sacrifice—that resonated with the great shard of the Heavens chained far beneath the mountains. The bandages fell away, white fabric stained yellow and red. The woman sobbed and fell onto the bed, her tears spilling onto the sheets, her breaths coming like a drumbeat.

In a street far away, buried in the shadows of eternal darkness, a blind man walked unhindered. His gait was confident, his cane tucked beneath his arm should the ruse be required once more. There was no place he could walk unfettered—every inch of the city was his possession.

He allowed himself a rare, genuine smile, as he thought of the satisfaction the morning light would bring. The shadows followed in his wake, like ink spilled from a bottle, chasing their master with fervor. The blind man carried onwards, unhurried, whistling a jaunty tune that was lost to the night.

In a private suite a dozen floors above the River Rose, a brown-haired young woman cried and sobbed and begged for mercy. She ducked as another bottle smashed against the wall behind her, and she curled into a ball on the floor, weathering the rage of her brother as a fisherman might weather the raging storm.

She cried in fear, and begged for the savior who turned his hand away, no matter how many times she reached for his aid. In this world, there was one unshakable truth—that no god, or angel, or devil, truly cared for the plight of man. And none cared for a woman.

Across the river, in an unsuspecting basement beneath a chapel, an artist cackled and laughed as he painted a new masterpiece. Bold strokes of lively red, and flashes of flaming orange, and notes of deep melancholy.

The madman stepped back from his canvases—from the lifeless corpses hanging from the ceiling—and laughed until his belly hurt, until he no longer knew whether he was screaming or his victims were still begging for mercy.

The midnight bells tolled, and the gears of Fate turned ever on.

midnight of pleasure and pain.