by Olivia Ash
Copyrighted Material
Copyright © 2018 by Olivia Ash.
Cover and art copyright © 2018 by Amalia Chitulescu
Book design and layout copyright © 2018 by Olivia Ash.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from S. M. Boyce, L. L. C.
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1st Edition
Books by Olivia Ash
Nighthelm Academy
City of the Sleeping Gods
City of Fractured Souls
City of the Enchanted Queen
Demon Queen Saga
Princes of the Underworld
Wars of the Underworld
Mistress of the Underworld
Sentinel Saga
By Dahlia Leigh and Olivia Ash
The Shadow Shifter
The Demon Prince
The Rogue Alchemist
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City of the Sleeping Gods
Book One of the Nighthelm Academy
Olivia Ash
Wispvine Publishing
Book Description
Nighthelm is a city of lies, and Sophia is the greatest lie of them all. Though she has saved the city hundreds of times, the people of Nighthelm don’t even know she exists.
Found wandering the Witch Woods as a child, everything about Sophia is a mystery. With no memories and no family, she’s raised in secret by the professors of Nighthelm Academy… all of whom know far more about her than they’re letting on.
But Sophia does know one thing: she’s a contritum, a magical being with a broken soul. Her very existence is illegal, and until she finds the other piece of her soul, her uncontrollable magic will only grow more deadly and untamed.
As Sophia races the clock to find her other half, her magic growing more wild by the minute, she discovers three men who hold a mysterious sway over not just her soul, but also her heart.
The problem? She must lie. No matter what happens, she can’t tell them who… or what… she is.
Strong and dangerous, powerful and commanding, each of these men make her body react in traitorous ways. Bit by bit, she feels herself becoming whole around them. But for the life of her, she can’t figure out which of them has the missing piece to her soul… or how he got it in the first place.
To make matters worse, it becomes clear someone broke her soul on purpose… and she’s on a warpath to figure out why.
In a world rife with heartbreaking betrayal and intricate spells, the magical creatures of the Witch Woods are closing in on Nighthelm. They all want one thing…
…Sophia.
The monsters of the Witch Woods have discovered what she is, and they want to slit her throat. They’ll kill anyone who stands in their way… especially her men.
To save her men and finally heal her broken life, Sophia has only one choice… she will fight. And damn it all, she will win.
City of the Sleeping Gods is a full-length reverse harem novel. Get ready for a breathtaking story, steamy romance, mind-blowing magic, one kickass heroine, three gorgeous men, lots of toned muscles, fights to the death, and edge-of-your-seat action.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
You’re Missing Out…
About the Author
Chapter One
Sophia
Sophia crept through the thick, oppressive darkness of Witch Woods with one mission in mind: recon.
She was to see what creatures lurked about in the foreboding forest, to go and do what even the castle’s elite guard didn’t want to: travel the Witch Woods at night. Her orders: don’t engage, merely observe, no matter what she saw—pesky fairies, playful water sprites, angry minotaurs, or even malevolent grimms.
It was the same every time. Train all bloody day, observe all bloody night. Grindel liked his rules.
However, this time, she couldn’t just sit idly by.
Not far off the main dirt road that dissected the woods, she crouched behind two, thick twisted oak trees. She peered through the thick foliage of some blackberry bushes. Twenty feet away, in a narrow thicket, a small pack of grimms feasted on stringy, red meat clinging to long bones. Those were not animal bones. They were too long and too thick.
Sophia’s skin crawled as she watched them snarl and gnaw on their meal, moving about like toxic fog. Then she spotted a small girl, tears streaking her face, sitting inside the dirt circle they made with their undulating, shadowy bodies, their swirling essence mingling as if one entity. Sophia knew the girl was there in the event they got hungry again, and they would.
Grimms were always hungry.
She’d learned that first-hand when she startled a small pack during one of her first patrols of the woods. They had made short work of a burrow of hobs. Twenty, small, twisted and half devoured bodies of the mole –like creature had been scattered about the ground and they were busy trying to dig up another burrow. The sight had left her feeling queasy.
Sophia absently rolled her shoulder, remembering the day a grimm had bit her in the shoulder, almost paralyzing her with the venom they spewed and debated her options. Grimms were evil, pure and simple, with nothing to redeem them. She was sick with disgust, concerned because she’d never seen a pack so close to the high, stone walls of Nighthelm. The vile things usually stuck to the deepest and darkest part of the woods, away from human contact.
There hadn’t been a human attack in years. She knew that much because she was usually the o
ne who prevented such tragedies.
Instead of flouncing around in pretty dresses and courting boys her age, she was out here saving the people of Nighthelm from so many monsters that they would never fully understand what she’d done to keep them safe, and at this rate, they would probably never know she even existed. She was a lone soldier in the night with a terrible power that made her a danger to the very people she had spent her life protecting.
Her mentor’s voice echoed in her head, telling her to do nothing. To move away. To leave the grimms be. To leave the poor girl to her fate.
Sorry, Grindel, she thought. Not gonna happen.
Sophia couldn’t let the girl die. Once upon a time, she’d been in that girl’s shoes. She remembered being little and alone and frightened with no one to save her. Some nights her dreams would tear her heart and mind apart. Dreams of pain and death. Dreams she couldn’t quite grasp when she woke. They were like smoke through her fingers. But she suspected they were more memory than imagination despite what Grindel and Headmistress Mittle told her.
Sophia had a choice to make: defy her orders and probably get a whipping, or let the girl die.
It was an easy choice.
A soft crinkling of broken, dried leaves behind her drew her attention. The sound was indiscernible to most humans, but Sophia was not like most. She didn’t move a muscle as the sizable, softly glowing, green creature stepped out from behind the giant trees and slid in beside her. The yakshi was her most trusted companion.
“What took you so long?” she said, as she patted her friend’s flank.
He nickered and rubbed his fox-like head against her, careful that he didn’t impale her with his antlers. It was his version of an apology.
She put an arm around him and drew him close. She whispered in his twitching ear. “You need to grab the little girl.”
He snorted in defiance, and in argument. If he could speak English, she knew he’d be telling her, “No, I will stand by your side and fight.”
“I know you can fight, Haris. I know you want to fight beside me, but I can’t control my magic and rescue her at the same time.” She looked him in the eye. “Do it.”
He rolled those oblique yellow eyes of his and blew hot air at her through his nostrils.
She shook her head, rolling her eyes, a hint of a smile toying the edges of her lips. “Don’t be a brat.”
He snorted again, his sign that he’d accepted what she’d told him to do.
She gritted her teeth, body aching for battle, eager to move and slice open the monsters. Slowly, she drew her sword from the scabbard strapped to her back. The enchanted inscriptions carved into the blade glowed red at her touch. Through the crimson haze she counted the grimms. She was vastly outnumbered. Ten to one. To kill this many creatures, she would have to tap into the darkest part of herself and the magic she hid inside. There would be pain, and lots of it, but she knew she couldn’t leave the little girl to die. She wouldn’t. Grindel would punish her for engaging the grimms. Or, at least, threaten to punish her with a lashing or two. The most punishment he’d ever given her was extra circuits on the obstacle course, or once, he made her dig them a new privy. None of those were real deterrents.
She summoned light into her other hand, silent as a ghost, invisible even to the stealthy grimms, and then attacked in a whirl. Forest magic swirled around Haris’s lean form like green mist as he burst through the line of grimms, swept up the girl onto his back, and flew out of the pack again to safety. Once he was gone, Sophia let her magic fly from her hand as a distraction. The light magic struck one grimm in the back, making it shriek but doing little damage, just as she took up her sword in both hands and swung at the first grimm in her sight.
The blade sliced through the pulsating smoke. The grimm turned toward her, looming over her like a living, breathing thunder cloud. Its three sets of glowing, violet eyes glared at her with malice. Slowly, it opened its gaping maw to reveal razor sharp teeth and elongated fangs that dripped with stinging venom. The putrid stench of its breath wafted over her and she pulled back, wincing from the burn in her nostrils.
The foul odor brought a memory with it.
She was a little girl, running. Panting with fear.
Sophia swung her sword again, slicing through another of the creatures. Despite the effort of cutting down the creature that was like slicing through tar, her arms never shook from the exertion. She trained for this. This was what she was meant to do.
A memory flashed through her mind again.
Her skin crawled with foreboding and evil as she tried to escape… what, she didn’t know.
Pivoting on her right foot, she swung low and then up. The grimm shrieked, its smoke form swirling violently as the steel penetrated flesh beyond the black veil.
Blood. Rivers of it. Splashing over her bare feet.
Two grimms swarmed her, mouths gaping, venom spewing. She ducked under their grasping claws, and came up with another swing of her sword, rewarded with more howls of pain.
Their screams mingled with one that pierced her mind. One from her past. For a brief moment, she hesitated as the past tore into her.
Red blooms on her toes. A screech rips from her young throat.
Something inside her breaks.
Her hesitation cost her. A grimm’s razor-like claw slashed through the sleeve of her tunic and scratched her skin. The sting was instant. Wincing, she pulled back to regroup. She briefly looked down at her arm to inspect the wound. Spots of blood stained the linen.
Seeing the blood reminded her of the first time she got cut by a sword, training in the field with Grindel. She’d been slow then, only ten, and a year into her training for a chance to renter society, to overcome her wild and untamed power, so that she was controlled enough to be around other humans. Now she was stronger and pushed against the magic trying to bubble up, keep it down and contained, but she was still not fully in control yet. This was why Haris had to get the little girl out of harm’s way—out of her way—to make sure the little girl wouldn’t die.
The grimms crowded around her, snarling and snapping at her with their lethal jaws. She looked at each one, calculating her next move. A fierce cramp in her gut caused her to recoil. She took a step back as something inside her shifted and grew. A collective change came over the grimms, as if they sensed the energy vibrating deep inside her body.
Even then, she felt the fracture. The constant shifting and cracking deafened her. The pressure between the two sides swelled, pushing at her body from the inside out. Pain whirled within her chest. Heart felt as if it was on fire. That was where it always started.
Sophia closed her eyes and crouched low in front of the grimms. A blistering ball of fragmented magic swelled in her gut. Whirling, spinning, expanding. She gritted her teeth, tasting blood in her mouth. Hot tears leaked from her eyes. Still clutching the hilt of her sword in one hand, she clawed at her tunic with the other. She was burning. The stench of sizzling flesh filled her nose.
She tried to contain her magic, to push it down, but it was too powerful, too hungry for destruction. A scream tore from her throat as her broken magic overtook her. It ripped through her body, burning away her clothes, and exploded outward, scorching everything in its path within a fifty-foot radius. Trees, bushes, and a few grimms were wiped out of existence.
Weak, and no longer able to hold herself up, Sophia collapsed to the ground, naked, skin slick with sweat, body shaking uncontrollably. Although her vision was spotty, she blinked up at the leader of the grimm pack hovering above her. She pretended she could go again, pushing up slightly with her hands to attack, and tried her best not to show how utterly exhausted she was. But it was useless. She was in no shape to do anything else. Her savage magic did enough damage. To her. To the grimms. To everything around them.
“You,” it rasped, its voice grating in her ears, but she was too weak to cover them, “hurt us. You use mountain magic against mountain people.”
She shook her head,
confused, because the mountain folk comment made no sense—she was just a broken human, but she could see how her vast stores of fractured energy could be mistaken for mountain magic. This was bad, though, since grimms held grudges for life and were relentless in their pursuit of vengeance.
“We curse you.” Its body twisted and coiled its smoke form into itself as if in extreme pain. “We will never forget.”
Then, with one, loud, blood-curdling growl, the remaining pack of grimms converged as one and disappeared into the surrounding trees, leaving Sophia in the charred remains of the woods she incinerated. In deep pain, with the last of her energy spent, her glowing skin faded to normal and she collapsed. She fought to stay conscious, but she’d never been able to stay awake after an episode.
As she sunk into the darkness, she thought about how she was what the world she protected hated: an “anima contritum,” a broken soul, or someone with great magical potential who experienced deep trauma early in life. Long ago, her magic had literally cracked and had become uncontrollable. By law, all anima contritums were to be put to death. Only Grindel, training her in secret, saved her life.
