The Ashes of Time

As the plague spreads further throughout the northern realm of Raylinette, guards pile corpses ever higher under the burning flames and citizens rage through the streets willing to do almost anything to stay alive. The plague is getting stronger. Zombies are supposed to be vulnerable to fire, but they are lasting increasingly longer.

The Prime Minister has died leaving the Princess Q幨la Darkstar in charge, but struggling between her duties, a profound sense of failure, and the desire to hide her demonic identity, she lets her indifference seduce her into inaction.

When Time Master Chess Delvingson arrives determined to stop the demonic power behind the disease, Q幨la feels increasingly pressured to do something even as she is more afraid of her secrets being revealed, for the Delvingsons are what Q幨la calls faithful--that is, they are good Paladins responsible for guarding against evil. Evil like her.

Chess Delvingson has left behind his own time and with it, a dark power closer to his heart than he would ever realize. Chess's android, Sera, has foretold that the apocalypse is only a few years away. Even in Q幨la's time, no one knows who brought the apocalypse. But, they know the Dark Sword of Amorithia, a demonic blade that sucks the soul from anyone defeated by it including those who wield it, all except for the one person that will bring the apocalypse, will have a role. Chess is powerless to stop what is coming. It is inevitable, but he believes there is a reason he has been sent to the future to save Raylinette from its plague.

The pressures of expectation clash with the novel situation, challenging all that seemed clear. The apocalypse is more than one undead outbreak. The Gates of the Underworld will open, releasing the demons who create undead, but it is prophesied that the Ashes will also escape and devour everyone and everything, even time. The prophecy does not seem that real when the apocalypse happened over a thousand years before Q幨la's time, yet her time is more connected with Chess's than it would seem. Now, the past is the future, and the fate of time lies in the interplay between swords and ash and how a demon and a paladin respond.