Anne L McMillen-Jackson

Assassins at war... A bloody guild war was the last thing Mya wanted. She nearly had it all: Lady T's endorsement as Grandmaster of the Assassins Guild, the emperor's gratitude, and finally someone who made her feel human... Now Lady T is dead, the emperor asks a favor that Mya dare not refuse, and Dee expects more from her than just friendship. It doesn't help that a cabal of assassins prefers an Imperial Grandmaster over an upstart from Twailin. What she doesn't know is that the rebel factions want more from her than just the Grandmaster's ring. Everyone wants something from Mya, but how much can she give before it kills her?

Continuing the award-winning Weapon of Flesh series, this is Book 1 of the second trilogy. This is Mya's story. One thrust of a dagger changed an empire. Mya discovers that donning the Grandmaster's ring does not make her master of the Assassins Guild, and won't keep her safe from the machinations of those whose power she has curtailed. The Tsing guildmaster refuses to pledge allegiance. The power-crazed priest, Hoseph, vows to see the Grandmaster's ring on the finger of a new emperor of his own choosing. Meanwhile, the true heir to the throne ignites class warfare with his new policies, earning the enmity of his own nobility. Alone in Tsing, a city simmering in intrigue and injustice, Mya struggles to overcome her ingrained fear and shattered heart to wrest control of the guild from those who view her as a usurper. But what chance does one woman have against an entire guild of assassins, much less a madman who can dissolve into shadow and kill with a touch? The Hunter has become the hunted...

Life after death can be hell. For over a year, Jundag has lived, and died, and lived again at the whim of Calmarel Darkmist. Soul-sick and weary, he longs for the eternal peace of death. But Calmarel covets Jundag's strength and fortitude, and devises a devious scheme to usurp those traits for her own profane ambitions. Unbeknownst to Jundag, his spiritual anguish is perceived by his long-lost friend and companion, Avari. Convinced that Jundag is alive, or that she is going crazy, she seeks out the friends who shared in the liberation of Zellohar Keep. Using the two cornerstones they recovered from the Nekdukarr Iveron Darkmist, they locate their friend, and discover a fiendish plot. The children of the Dark Gods are again planning to subjugate the surface world. But simple conquest is no longer their goal, only complete annihilation will satisfy their blood lust. Dragons and demons, Dark Gods and Darkmists all stand against the small troop of brave yet conflicted companions determined to save their friend from an eternity of torture, and their world from complete and utter destruction. But first, they have to go to hell.

Zellohar Keep is lost... Once the ancestral home of a glorious dwarven kingdom-a masterpiece of architecture, secure, secretive, and impregnable-Zellohar is now prison to a dark evil. The dwarves used the might of the cornerstones, conduits to the power of the elemental spheres, to forever seal the keep. But the minions of the Dark Gods are not so easily imprisoned. The squires of the Nekdukarr Lord Iveron Darkmist, a paladin of the death god, Mortas, have recovered the cornerstones. The enchantment has been broken. The doors that sealed Zellohar have been opened. The chaos of the Nine Hells has broken loose. Iveron Darkmist has resumed his campaign to devastate the surface world in a storm of destruction and death. With Zellohar as his fortress and the cornerstones to fuel his magic, he is invincible. All that stands in his way are a horse farmer's daughter, a superstitious tribesman, a defrocked priest, a demented dwarf and an elf curse with lycanthropy. The unwitting companions stumble into the Nekdukarr's plot, and are thrown into a conflict that threatens to obliterate all they know and love. Pursued to the corners of the realms, the companions flee the wrath of Iveron Darkmist. But even death is no refuge from the power of the Dark Gods.