Title Of Book: ForeSender Rebirth
Series: The ForeSender Chronicles Book 2
By: Adrian Murphy
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Sub-Genre: Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Colonization, Dragons & Mythical Creatures, Military Sci-Fi, Space Opera, Sword & Sorcery
Blurb:
A conspiracy’s dark heart. Invaders at the gates. A world edging toward annihilation.
When the portal Galindra helped protect transports her to a deadly desert, she can’t transform into her dragon self and faces ancient formless entities determined to devour her soul. A shocking vision offers fresh evidence about the fate of her missing mom, Rusty. Mere delusion… or the key to undoing her greatest sorrow?
Rusty’s powers are resurfacing. But she doesn’t remember who or what she is. She struggles to shatter the veil of amnesia and reclaim her past, all while evading capture or death.
As invasion looms, Galindra vows to find her mother, confront a killer, save her homeworld, and battle a trio of magic-wielding witches with one purpose in mind. Devastation.
Has she met her match?
ForeSender Rebirth is the second outing in Adrian Murphy’s gripping epic fantasy adventure series, The ForeSender Chronicles. If you enjoy ruthless foes with special abilities, cunning conspiracies, and perseverance despite crushing odds, then this story is for you. Perfect for readers who like a touch of hi-tech with their fantasy.
Pick up your copy and experience the exploits of Galindra, the dragon-shifter intergalactic sleuth, today.
Excerpt:
Chapter 1 ~ Mind Mutation
Deep Space
Prince Segmundus allowed himself a small smile as he watched the mind-altering ritual. The powerful process fascinated, awed, and pleased him.
A burly figure, Prince Cael-Rath, sat strapped to a chair in the hold of the longship Waveflyer. Segmundus chuckled, reveling in his captive’s earlier astonishment upon discovering that the vessel was traversing outer space encased in a bubble of magical energy, instead of plying the stormy ocean waves of his homeworld.
The prisoner groaned, his body jerking against the restraining straps. Segmundus knew the ceremony required a skilled mage and could be dangerous for each party involved. There were tales of the rite failing, driving both the subject and the practitioner into insanity. But no such concerns disturbed him in this case.
The mind-mutation procedure was a lengthy one, he recalled. Three mages stood around the captive, chanting in guttural, emotionless tones. Hooded and cloaked, the figures held their arms outstretched, hands and fingers extended, almost touching the nobleman’s ashen face and sweat-drenched brow.
All four were wrapped in a pulsating glow that appeared to have a life of its own. Bands of red, blue, and yellow elemental force swirled and flowed around them.
The air surrounding the foursome trembled. To Segmundus, it seemed the walls of the hold bulged and contracted in concert with the rising and falling of the chant. His teeth vibrated, as if someone had placed a tuning fork against his jaw.
The luminescence faded, and the witches lowered their arms, voices dwindling into silence. Cael-Rath slumped forward, the leather bindings straining to contain his unconscious bulk.
A figure turned toward Segmundus. Diamond-hard eyes glinted from beneath a wide russet hood, and when she spoke it was like the creak of ancient, rusty hinges. “It is finished. Now he is ours.”
Chapter 2 ~ Portal of Doom
Planet Calistra
Galindra’s eyes snapped open. The pale glint of starlight provided scant illumination amid the murk that met her eyes. Even at this late hour, she heard the clink of metal tools from outside as workers repaired Havenwood’s defenses following the troll attack. But it wasn’t the external sounds that woke her.
Her arm throbbed. Yet that was not surprising, she mused. Slasher, the troll mercenary leader, had fired a deadly harpoon that sliced into her wing in her dragon form. She had sent him to a fiery and much deserved death when he later refused to surrender.
No, something else had caused her to struggle from a profound slumber and toss the covers aside, heart thudding in her chest. She sensed a malignant presence, mortal danger lurking nearby.
The honeyed scent of beeswax filled the bedchamber after Galindra lit several candles. She dressed and crossed to a narrow window. All appeared peaceful in the broad square that fronted the Palace of Golden Boughs, in which she had the use of a chamber after yesterday’s battle.
Braziers supplied warmth and patchy light for the soldiers who patrolled the vast area. Her gaze lingered on the hulking shapes of Lieutenant Foyle’s metal wagons—hover-tanks as the strange warriors from Earth called them—then flicked to the distant town gate. She cast her senses wide, her fingers grazing the warm stone at the base of her throat, as she searched for the source of the threat.
A gasp escaped her mouth. The sensation came from within the palace itself, not from beyond. “The portal!” She strode to the door and flung it open, the protective spells she had placed on the room fading away as she left.
Torches flickered in wall sconces as she made her way along hushed corridors, nodding to the occasional member of the garrison. Although it was night, Galindra thought of rousing Barok and Paulus, but decided against it should the intimation of menace prove false.
She paused at the top of the carpeted staircase, closed her eyes for a moment, and strengthened the healing energy coursing through her body. As a dragon alt-form, her abilities enabled her to heal faster than non-magical beings. Despite this, she knew she needed more time to rest and recover, but could not ignore the pressing sense of danger. After a deep, calming breath, she hurried down the steps.
As she approached the portal chamber, she hesitated. The entrance was unguarded. Where were the sentries, who should be present at all hours?
Galindra narrowed her eyes, one hand resting on the tiny foresense gem embedded in her skin. The suggestion of peril was more pronounced here, potent enough to send a shiver up her back and across the crown of her head. She summoned her dragon staff, the flames flowing around her hands without burning them, and eased past the open doorway, senses alert.
The vaulted, high-ceilinged room which met her eyes was silent, empty. Oil lamps set at intervals along the walls generated spasmodic light. Several desks and cabinets stood to one side. By royal decree, an ever-present clerk was to record the name and other details of each portal traveler. None was visible now.
Booted heels clicking on the marble tiles, Galindra advanced toward the center of the space and halted. The gateway was rectangular, about the width of two doors, and reached almost to the ceiling. Its edges sparkled in a swirling multi-colored whirl.
Like all portals, this one existed as a semi-transparent shimmer, lacking physical substance, the far walls of the chamber seen as if viewed through a thick, clouded pane of glass. She recalled that fixed gateways drew power from the all-pervasive elemental energy and manifested in various shapes and sizes. No one knew why.
Galindra let her senses roam the room, but the impression was vague, indistinct, as if her abilities were being dampened, like a wet towel draped over her head. Thus her eyes, not her foresense, detected the first sign that all was not well. A series of dark, viscous blotches stained the otherwise resplendent floor tiles near the portal.
She bent her head for a closer look and sucked in her breath. Blood. Her gaze snapped to the large desk near the far wall. An object glinted in the fitful torchlight. The flames from the dragon staff revealed a shoe buckle on the floor, a torn piece of leather attached at one end.
A sensation of movement caused her to glance sideways as a figure appeared at the entrance. Galindra had a glimpse of fair hair peeking from beneath a wide hood adorning a blue cloak. Her eyes widened as she recognized the tattooed warrior from the attack at the fountain near Castle Grayrock.
The newcomer’s smile was lop-sided, menacing. She brought her hands together, the sharp slap fracturing the hollow silence. Both doors thudded shut, sealing Galindra inside even as she stepped toward her adversary. The portal activated without warning. A raucous gale sprang up, snatching at her clothing as it snuffed out the lamps and her dragon staff.
Books, sheaves of paper, and an ornate chair flew past, vanishing into the coruscating maw. A relentless force dragged her across the smooth tiles. Even the bulky wooden desk shook and shifted, its heavy legs scoring the polished surface.
Galindra was almost bent double, twisting around so that her back faced the surging gateway. She sank to her knees and flung her arms out, trying to wedge the fingers of both hands into a seam between the marble flagstones. It was no use. She had never seen a portal behave like this, and suspected the mysterious, blue-garbed mage was the cause.
Now she was at the edge of the maelstrom, struggling to break the invisible current’s iron grip, and felt her body crossing the threshold. A hostile thought, along with a cold image, insinuated itself into her mind. Before portaling, the traveler had to picture the destination in their head—if skilled in the practice of elemental energy—or seek the help of a guide. Each fixed portal was configured to only open to somewhere within the Continuum of Worlds.
“Amanthrea, home!” she forced from between clenched lips, picturing the gateway chamber in the capital cavern of her native land. But another instruction had superimposed itself on the portal, and she sensed the source: the blue-tattooed warrior. Her opponent was trying to send her to a different location, one not of Galindra’s choosing.
Colder than the blackest night, her body shivered in bone-penetrating chill. She was tossed onto a jagged rocky surface. Stars, too many to count, glittered overhead. She was on an airless hunk of rock—in the immense vacuum of space—instead of Amanthrea or elsewhere in the Continuum.
Lungs heaving, Galindra felt a faint breeze caress her back. She saw several shapes on the rough ground a few paces in front of her. Corpses, three of them, two dressed in armor. The missing guards and clerk. Somehow, the cloaked assailant had compelled the portal to send these unfortunates to a lonely demise. Galindra hoped they were already dead before finding themselves on this floating tomb.
She resolved not to join them. By reflex, her hand had touched the foresense gem at the base of her throat just before the aberrant portal pulled her in. The action saved her life, encasing her in a temporary bubble of energy and air, one that was now fast dissipating.
Galindra sensed the gateway was still active—and she was just within its radius—as if the underlying magic was responding to her desperate efforts to resist being abandoned to her doom.
She forced herself to her feet, turned, and stretched out a hand toward the portal. Its edges were flickering, unstable. It wouldn’t be long before it closed.
Unlike her uncle, Arch Mage Mirchelius, she did not have the power to manifest a magical gateway of her own. She focused her senses and realized that the hostile instruction was fading along with the connection. Breath rattling in her chest, she staggered forward and sent a final thought, the only one she could manage: Amanthrea!
Moments later, the portal flashed out of existence, leaving three forlorn bodies lying forgotten on the desolate asteroid.
What People Are Saying:
5 Stars – “Adrian Murphy has once again created a dazzlingly complex mash-up of science fiction and epic fantasy in crisp, precise prose with a military edge that could draw blood.”
5 Stars – “Interesting blend of Fantasy and Sci-fi.”
5 Stars – “Non-stop action across several worlds leaves the reader breathless.”
5 Stars – “Surprisingly thought-provoking for an action-packed fantasy/sci-fi/mystery. Very well done!”
5 Stars – “Definitely a Page-Turner.”
Meet Adrian Murphy:
ADRIAN writes clean (no sex or heavy swearing) fantasy and sci-fi action adventure.
He traces his love of storytelling to growing up in Ireland, where castles and history abound. He once lived in a town near Dublin with a tall stone tower built by monks in the 8th century as a refuge from marauding Vikings. Today he makes his home close to the beautiful shores of Lake Huron, Southwestern Ontario, Canada, along with his adorable cat, Mr. G.
Favorite authors include Lindsay Buroker, Brandon Sanderson, Tolkien, Heinlein, and Terry Pratchett. Their influences—and many others from fantasy, sci-fi, and mystery—inspire his stories.
Let’s Get Social
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The Book
WAHRHEIT is a huge, sprawling epic fantasy that features political intrigue, assassinations, mystery, adventure, battles, a little bit of fun, and yes, even dragons. It’s my take on those incredible stories that captured my imagination and took me on a ride I’d never forget. It’s packed full of colorful characters that fans love, faced with incredible adversity that they fight to overcome, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I hope this series goes down as one you remember forever.
The Truth is a weak thing. It has no power. The only power the Truth holds is the power we grant it.
For six hundred years, the kingdom of Wahrheit was ruled by an unbroken line. It rose on a wave of technology and magic and stood alone—a bastion of stability built on pillars of economic and military might. The nation and her people thrived due to the strength of soldiers and the protection of dragons.
But the line has ended—the king is dead.
Noble houses vie to carve out their own domains. Foreign armies march across Wahrheit’s soil for the first time in memory. Without leadership, the king’s army watches helplessly. The fae, a source of enchantment and treachery, work unseen to secure their share of Wahrheit’s blood. And far beyond the kingdom’s borders, a growing threat looms—an empire built to right a bitter wrong.
Only a small band of conspirators stand between the kingdom and chaos: Otto Tilly, captain of the king’s Dragon Knights, the steel fist that shields the weak. Gerhard Fisher, a spy and assassin, who owes more than his life to the former king. Ilse Brinke, the quartermaster, the keeper of the kingdom’s secrets and magic. The wizard, an ancient soul who understands the cost of failure. And by fortune’s curse or fortune’s favor, two orphans from the growing war must carry the kingdom forward. As has always been, the burden of the future lies across the shoulders of the young.
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