Darkness Rising (Excerpt)

Told from multiple points of view, DARKNESS RISING centers around three young heiresses of different cultures who, as the last healthy women alive, must choose between repopulating their world according to their gender-or saving it, because no one else will.

Long ago, the world of Naraka found peace by imprisoning the dark wisps in the Pits, where they could feed only on the souls of humans who fell from the cities which hung overhead. But when a greater evil threatens the wisps, the 8-year-old heiress Ostholygh defies convention by offering them sanctuary... inadvertently releasing an epidemic which turns every woman it touches into a killer.

Nine years later, three heiresses from Naraka's struggling kingdoms-the super-spy Nso, the hyperactive Rhafte, and Ostholygh, still haunted by her mistake-have been cryogenically frozen as part of an alliance which hopes to mend a decimated world. Upon waking, however, the three become the last healthy women alive in a world that has fallen to anarchy. Rhafte, whose fear of failure is only outweighed by her dedication to Ostholygh, forces her two headstrong allies to join forces, hoping to uncover the otherworldly truth behind Naraka's fall. But when they too begin to sicken, the Narakan men who remain believe their wombs are the key to salvation... and with other women turning to monsters around them and the dangerous wisps running free, time is running out in more ways than one. Although a pragmatic Ostholygh and a preconditioned Rhafte might see the sense in this last-ditch attempt to save humanity, Nso sees a world that has given up. And giving up, to Nso, has never been an option.