Welcome to The Hellmage Chronicles! The latest series from author Jennifer deBie and her first (public) foray into dark fantasy. Here you will find excerpts of Heretic, the first of the Chronicles, fanart from the fabulous Hope “Silver” Bobb (cover artist extraordinaire) and anyone else who wants to take a swipe at arting, and updates on the progress of the sequels as they happen.

Until then, brace yourselves.

The way is long and the path is dark, but darlings, it’s a hell of a ride.

In the vastness before time, there was a whisper.

A cold space between nothing and everything where darkness moved against teeth and rattled through claws.

When the universe exploded into itself, the cold exploded with it. Scattering the Children from Before the Beginning across the new-burning stars, to create and destroy, adopt and abandon as they chose.

When life crawled out of the oceans wrapping the small stone we inhabit, the Children looked on what had been and what would be with favor. They threaded the stone with rivers of power and chose from among the creatures staggering into the sun.

Those chosen were given lives beyond their brethren, and elements to bend to their will.

Some commanded the sun itself, carving its erratic path across the sky into the four seasons.

Some chained the rivers and seas, binding them to banks and beaches, no more would they rise and swamp their bounds without reason.

Some spoke to the trees, to the grass, to the soul of the forest itself, pulling seeds from the wild to command the very fruits of nature.

Some heard the voices of the other creatures, walking among the beasts and knowing no fear.

Some looked to the dead and commanded them to rise, bending bones and rotten blood to their whim and will, drawing power from pain, from death and ecstasy from these harvests.

The revels of the dead raisers and blood benders were looked upon without favor by their fellows, and thus they were cast down. To build their own cities, craft their own rivers, plant their own gardens, light their own skies and breed their own beasts, away from the mages whose powers lent themselves to other tasks.

Aeons passed.

The Children from Before the Beginning watched the blue stone as they watched all the universe.

The mages guarded humanity, as they had since realizing the frailty of their brethren, those who lived without powers and aged into their deaths.

The Hellmages guarded their secrets, their cities, their Houses, and their revels jealously.

As was their right.

—Excerpt from The Book of Old Bones, housed in the Library of Pandemonium