Dreams of the Doom-Witch

My current fantasy project. It’s in the final stages of proof-reading and editing, soon to be submitted to agents!

Dreams of the Doom-Witch is a fantasy adventure that brings the golden age of exploration to the border of grimdark as a wide cast of characters clash with each other, monsters, and themselves.

Altha is the Empire’s hero, paragon of duty and law, inheritor to vast fortunes, and he’s just come back from war a victorious disgrace. To redeem his honour and resurrect his father’s plans to control the world’s most valuable shipping lane, he travels to a vast forest at the edge of the world. However, instead of finding decunor, a mysterious mineral that has fuelled the Empire’s expansion, Altha’s entitled will is met with failure. As rival houses join the scramble for decunor, old enemies ally with the indigenous sylvans, and his only friend goes missing, Altha begins to lose himself. A plan hatches from his madness, yet it demands he commits the only sin he knows – treason. The cost? His sense of self. The risk? Everything, the fortunes of his house included. The payoff? Victory.

Meanwhile, Altha’s brother Del, groomed to be studious and diplomatic, begins his studies at the Empire’s magical academy, a part of his father’s plans to scale the ladder of houses. Yet Del has a hidden motive: to research the dark magic his father has unearthed. However, without access to the libraries he needs and when his tutors start reading his mind to further their own ambitions, Del must adapt to not just advance, but to survive. Through stealth, deception, and embracing the memories he has buried, Del begins to learn the sinister truth about his father, and that there is more to his own magic. Just when he thinks he has found a way to step out from the darkness of his father’s shadow, Del is expelled and summoned to meet the Immortal Emperor. Do they know what he has uncovered, and if so, what really awaits him in the throne room?