Book I

Ashes of Neon

One brother will destroy the world. The other, might be able to save it. But neither know of each other, or their fates. 

Tbis coming-of-age story, is set in a world where magic is rare, technology raises cities into the sky, and the planet is dying. These fifteen-year-old brothers, Lydaer and Kain, have a long way to go before they learn about their destiny, but their story starts here. 

Tragedy follows Lydaer, who’s made an orphan a second time as his adoptive parents abandon him and blame him for the death of his adopted sister. He’s as ordinary as can be, and finds himself enrolled in an academy for the Primordial Arts…

Kain worships the heroic Emperor Heir, only to witness a terrorist attack that takes the Heir’s life. His father is blamed for the regicide, and Kain’s privileged life as the son of a State Consul is upended.
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The story is perfect for fans of genre-bending authors like Leigh Bardugo, Jay Kristoff, Brandon Sanderson, and Tamsyn Muir. It’s inspired by classic epics like Dune, Star Wars, and the Books of Earthsea.

Excerpt from the latest draft of 'Ashes of Neon'

Prologue

Mother

The cries of her babies underscored the savage storm that raged over Angelus City. She wanted to shout for help, to plead for it, but knew her screams would only reach the ears of those hunting her.
 
She stumbled through piles of concrete shards, around boxes of reinforcement mesh and buckets of wires and plaster, a baby in each arm. The whole wing had recently been closed for renovations, but only the demolition crews had started any work. She was surrounded by disassembled rooms and pulled-down corridors; some walls were stripped down to nothing, but frames lined with ducts and wiring. Still, the dark, rubble-filled construction zone was better than the luminescent hallways of the functional hospital wings. She preferred the quiet dark to the corridors crowded with doctors, nurses, and cameras.
 
After turning a corner, she almost tripped over a heap of steel rods, then stopped as she stared out at the other skyscrapers stretching into the night. Like the internal partitions, half the outer walls had been torn down. The only thing between her and a ten-storey drop were plastic sheets billowing violently with every shift of the wind. 
 
The city’s ambience clamoured within reach, bustling and breathing between gusts and gales. Engines droned, horns blared impatiently, and people yelled at each other from the sidewalks. Angelus never slept; it was the city of eternal insomnia.
 
She recoiled as red splashed around her. The inky black scurried into shadows as the ominous light flickered, pulsing a deep scarlet. Usually, she hated the darkness, fearing what dwelt there, but the flashing lights and distant sirens meant that they were closing in on her. She’d hated the dark all her life; yet it couldn’t match the dread of what was coming. Cursing at herself, more with growls than words, she searched for an exit.
 
She ran. The red lights illuminated the obstacles in her way as she hurried down the dilapidated corridor that stretched parallel to the exposed exterior wall. Only when she got to the end did she allow herself to look back.
 
Nothing. Except a shiver crept along her back.
 
He was coming. She felt it.
 
She burst through a tarp that dangled from an archway and found herself in a vast, open space. The wrecking crew hadn’t progressed much, so the area was still somewhat identifiable as a waiting room. The skeleton of a large reception desk spread across the rear wall, and rain came down through the plastic sheets flapping in gale-force winds. Two towers of chairs filled the room, rickety pyramids of plastic and metal that, with a touch, might scatter across the floor.
 
Then she saw a flickering blue light, a shining beacon among a sea of red. It took her a moment to realise it was an exit sign. She had found her escape.
 
She hurried toward the exit, shushing the babies, though their cries only grew louder for it. She reached the doors, and what little hope she had dissipated into despair; they would not open. She braced her feet, tucked her boys close, and then, like a siege ram, drove her shoulder hard into the doors, then again, then a third time. She threw all her weight against the doors once more. They remained steadfast. All she had for her effort was a throbbing pain in her shoulder.
 
Her eyes darted in all directions, searching for another exit, but there was nowhere except back.
 
“Ma’am?”
 
A voice echoed through the deserted wing, crackling from the outdated loudspeaker system. “We need you to return to the nativity room. We need to ensure your sons are healthy. Security has the floor on lockdown, ma’am. Let them help you.”
 
They didn’t want to help her; they wanted to take her boys away. To keep them. Her sons belonged to her, and she to them. The Perfect had ignored her when she told him he was after her; the nurses grinned politely and continued their work. The security guard, whose attention she’d managed to gain, had given a condescending tilt of his head and kept on his way. No one had believed her.
 
She turned back the way she had come, only to kick her foot against something hard. A sharp pain curled up her ankle from her toes, and her knee buckled, but she stayed standing. “Trinitydammit!” The words came through gritted teeth as she looked down at a toolbox. She winced in pain as she put weight on her foot, but carried on.
 
Her boys’ cries were so loud that the approaching footsteps sounded far away. The rhythm of raindrops against the building quickened. The only reprieve from the constant beat was a clap of thunder that reverberated between the skyscrapers.
 
She hobbled forward, then spun around. The plastic behind the reception desk fluttered, trying to tear itself away from its fixture. Something behind it glistened. She limped towards it as quickly as possible.
 
As she tore the plastic back, Angelus City greeted her. Millions of bright lights struggled to keep the heavy darkness of the night from engulfing the city. She made the mistake of looking down; the scaffolding leading up along the side of the hospital was slick from rain.
 
She stepped into the loud night, and the storm seized her. Wind tore at her clothes, and the rain had soaked her through. With every step, the scaffolding shifted beneath her feet, as if it were deciding whether it wanted to come apart. She looked down and saw the city spread in its indifferent brightness, thousands of lit windows, dozens of Neon billboards and hundreds of car lights.
 
A wet haze blanketed the city. Beyond the skyscrapers, there was nothing but a dense blot of night. Angelus was one of the largest cities in the world. Yet, it was minuscule compared to the goliath storm of rain and thunder that was bearing down upon it.
 
As she reached the roof, the sky cracked open.
 
For a moment, she thought the sun had broken through the night or that she’d witnessed some grand demonstration of magic and power. She saw the city spread out around her, a web of metropolis, the culmination of industrial and societal advancement.
 
The lightning faded, followed by a thunderclap so deep it shook her very bones. Her babies’ cries got louder, as did the storm.
 
She hobbled over the roof, looking for an exit. There was nowhere else to go. The rain fell hard. She shivered, teeth chattering, and something hollow flooded her chest, dread soaking her through.
 
There was no door, no exit, and no other way down.
 
Her parents had been religious, only in so much as they attended church like good Trinity-fearing people. They’d never prayed outside of service, and neither had she. Now, on her knees, she prayed, as if her life and those of her sons depended on it.
 
To the Light, to the Dark, and to the All and Everything.
 
She begged only for her sons to be okay.
 
If Trinity heard her pleas, she’d never have known. The storm roared down, not harder or heavier, but indifferently. 
 
She held her baby boys close, wanting their last memory of her to be infused with warmth.
 
“I love you.” Her soft voice cracked, lost among wind and rain. “My little princes. Kain,” she looked lovingly at the black-haired boy. “Lydaer,” she grinned at her white-haired son. “My beautiful boys.”
 
Her fingers stiffened until she couldn’t feel her babies anymore, then her whole body was numb. She shivered uncontrollably until the winds softened. Her babies calmed, and the drizzle thinned to a gentle weeping.
 
She didn’t see or hear him, but she felt goosebumps tickling the back of her neck, the temperature around her dropped, and the rain slowed.
 
He was behind her. 
 
His familiar ghostly existence wrapped around her. “Your fate is. Was. Decided.” His broken sentences sounded as alien as always. “All fates. Decided.” His words cut through the storm with ease, as if the night belonged to him.
 
“Please…” she looked up from her knees.
 
“You birthed the Seeds. You are done.”
 
“They need me. I need them.”
 
Nate was tall and gaunt; his skin seemed thin and stretched over nothing but bone. His eyes were hollow, devoid of the love she now realised he had feigned for her while she was pregnant. He had found her living on the street, young and alone, except for the twins growing inside her. Nate took her in like a guardian angel, sheltering her, feeding her, giving her a home. But the moment her sons had left her body, so too had kindness left his.
 
He was neither furious nor sad; Nate looked down at her like one would gaze upon an insect.
 
“I loved you,” she whispered. Her parents had kicked her out when she got pregnant. Nate had been a better parent than they ever had. He was her saviour. When the rest of the world gave her nothing, Nate had given her that which mattered most: hope.
 
Now, he took it away.
 
Nate leaned close, his pointed face almost sitting on her shoulder. “You would show love. When you should despair. And despair. When love.” He coughed. “That cannot be their path.” His words were guttural.
 
“I’m their mother!” she hissed. “You’re not taking them!”
 
“My child,” Nate smirked, “Already. I have.”
 
She looked into Nate’s soul and saw nothing.
 
Silence surrounded her; all she heard was her own heart racing.
 
She pleaded one last time, but choked on the words.
 
“Universe is only spectrum.” Nate coughed, and then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Protected by cores.” He licked his dry lips. “Their war…Peace.” He coughed again. “The Cores need life. They are seeds. Seeds of Equilibrium. Living a cycle, eternal.”
 
“My boys…”
 
Nate granted a thin assent.
 
“That cycle. Ends.” A gleam of light was in Nate’s eyes as he said this last word.
 
She could make out the sounds of heavy boots ascending the scaffolding; she hoped they’d help her, but knew they wouldn’t.
 
“My princes are the ‘seeds’…?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“For what end? To save people?” She asked, confused.
 
“They will.” Nate paused. “Kill. Everyone.”
 
She refused to let her sons live in a world where they would be killers; if she couldn’t have them, neither could he. In defiance of the universe, she threw herself forward. Her foot ached, and her shoulder throbbed, but she knew it needed to hurt only a moment more. She scrambled to her feet and ran for the edge of the building, babies held close. She tasted her tears in the rain as water streamed down her face.
 
And she jumped.
 
Strong hands snatched her from the edge. Two mountainous men pulled her back and threw her hard onto the roof. Her whole body ached, and the roof spun. Her head hit hard against the concrete. The babies screamed as the storm raged on.
 
Still, she thrashed. Her motherly strength was almost a match for the two men.
 
Almost. 
 
A Perfect walked towards her with conviction; it was the doctor who had delivered her sons. His face had been bright and kind, but now it looked troubled and sad. Behind him, strangers held her children.
 
“Please,” she breathed. “He’s done something to them – he’s doing something.”
 
“Who?” the Perfect asked, pulling a needle from his pouch.
 
“Nate. Nate is -”
 
It was too late. She felt a prick in her neck.
 
The word dimmed.
 
The cries softened.
 
Her heartbeat slowed.
 
Three days later, she was dead.