Serpent Queen

Book 4: Angel Sworn

by Jeff Wheeler

Genres: Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

Cimree’s restored memories have shattered everything she thought she knew—about her past, her power, and the fate of a dying world. The twisted magic that birthed monstrous abominations is spreading, and she alone understands how to stop the devastation. But knowledge is useless without allies. To save humanity, she must persuade a rival band of Angel Sworn to stand with her—warriors who would rather see her dead and claim dominion over the survivors and the newly blooming Gallows Tree.

At the foot of the impenetrable Tirich Mir mountains lies Koa, one of the last bastions of humankind. There, Cimree, Trinati, and Uorsin hope to rescue the remaining Angel Sworn held captive. Instead, they walk into a trap.

Cimree soon finds herself the victim of a deception set in motion before the Queen Mother’s death. For the fallen ruler named a successor—an heir far more ruthless and calculating than anyone suspected. In the shadowed tunnels, Azra and the others are ensnared in betrayals so intricate that even he cannot unravel them in time.

Alliances will fracture. Truths will be used as weapons. And as monsters close in from every side, the Angel Sworn must decide who they truly are.

Release date: July 14, 2026

Publisher: Oliver Heber Books

Print pages: 293

Sample

Metamorphistry rests upon four pillars—philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics. The first pillar is the synthesis of knowledge of earth, water, and salt. The second supplies a full understanding of all that is fiery or airy in nature, how time, light, and distance weigh on perception; and how comets portend the future. The third consists of an adequate explanation of the properties of the four elements—that is to say, the entirety of the whole cosmos, including beings made of spirit and intelligence—and an introduction into the art of their transformations. Finally, the fourth shows the practitioner those virtues that are necessary up until his death to promote the transformation, and should support and complete the three other pillars. Every transformation of man into beast is a combination of the above. Thus knowing the properties, I theorize that any mutation can be reversed. —The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus

Prologue The Coliseum of Vaud The fall of Vaud—three months after the fall of Ecbatana Theo walked hastily and quietly down the corridor, his heart in his throat as he passed blood-spattered corpses and claw marks gouged into the stone walls of the coliseum interior. He reached the door he sought and waved his ring over the iron handle, which began to glow. Theo gripped it and pulled on the heavy oak door to slip into the room beyond. When the door shut behind him, he leaned back against it, breathing fast and sighing in relief. He pulled the druid stone from his pocket and commanded the entity held within to glow. The room smelled of various reagents and chemicals, but he saw it was undisturbed, thank the Maker. An assortment of books lined the shelves, each of which he had written. Theo was a prolific writer, and going back as far as he could remember, he had enjoyed spending countless hours summarizing his thoughts on the properties of magic and nature. One of the books was on the grafting magic of the angel sworn gleaned from his childhood living in one of the intermountain villages in the region once ruled by the Queen Mother. Though he wasn’t in his study searching for books, he couldn’t help but pause to admire the gold inlaid on the spines revealing the various titles. The Theoretical Imposition of Comets on Crop Health. A Study of the Transformation of Moth Beetles. The Pyrophoric Fruit. He rubbed his forehead, memories of writing each one crowding his mind. Theo went to the bookcase nearest his desk, where he secured the more dangerous ingredients in his study. He twisted a ring on his finger, revealing a tiny key, and slipped it into a lock hidden among the books. With a quick turn, a series of tumblers clicked and clacked. When it was safe to open, he pulled on the front, and the top half of the unit unfolded, revealing a series of glass vials…some filled with liquids, others with grains of deadly poisons. His fingers were jittery as he reached for the stoppered vial full of quicksilver. He tucked the vial into the pocket of his doublet and patted it. Then he closed the cabinet doors and reset the trap, waiting for the lead balls to slide back into place. He was about to leave, but he paused, then went to his desk and opened it, drawing out the scionwood wand he stored there. He’d paid handsomely to acquire it years earlier. He slid it up his fur-lined sleeve and anchored the tip inside the cuff so it wouldn’t be easily shaken loose. Once he believed it was secure, he went back to the door, and his stomach gurgled with dread. He knew the coliseum was overrun with hideous wolf creatures. The gladiator games, which had attracted vast sums in revenue from gambling over the outcomes, were no more. The loud, raucous crowds that had caused the coliseum to shudder with the noise of their cheering had ended. The furnaces that had heated the majestic structure during winter were silent and cold with no one left to tend them. Few people remained at all, and all that loss had come from one source. The first gladiator exposed to the metamorphic disease had been brought to Vaud weeks previously. He’d had a swipe of silver on his arm, a wound that hadn’t healed right. And then he’d transformed into one of the vicious wolf-men and had torn through the ranks. He’d been subdued, of course, when the transformation reverted him back to a human form. Locked away in one of the many cages in the underground part of the coliseum. Only, all those he had injured, not killed, contracted the disease as well, and each had suddenly transformed and begun to maim and kill the guards. And the disease had spread again and again. Theo paused at the door, summoning his courage. He licked his lips, as sweat trickled from his bald dome into the wreath of hair above his ears. He extinguished the druid stone and put it back in his pocket. He waited for his vision to adjust to the darkness again and blew out a held breath. Patience. Since no other light source was in the room, he waited the requisite time for his pupils to dilate. Finally, he released the locking mechanism and carefully opened the door. The stink of rotting flesh intruded. He peeked out into the corridor, found no one there, and edged out through the smallest opening he could before he closed the door and locked it. He’d walked perhaps ten paces when a low growl behind him revealed he’d been discovered. Theo steadied himself. He slipped his hand into his pouch attached to his belt and grabbed a handful of powder. The wolf-man charged at him, slavering and snapping its jaws. Theo whirled and flung the gray powder at it, then extended his other hand and summoned a blast of blue flame from his fingertips. He gritted his teeth in concentration, trying to subdue his instinct to flee, and soon the gray powder burst into white-hot combustion. The wolf creature shrieked in pain as the fire engulfed it and the light blinded it. Theo raced away, knowing the noise and the light would draw other creatures there. In fact, he heard the skittering of claws on the stone flooring ahead of him. He hurried to the archway leading to the stairs and began to take them two at a time, his heart pounding like a hammer as he ran. The light and the cries of the monster behind him drew attention. He made it to the next level and raced upward. He heard one of the monsters pursuing him up the stairs and huffed even harder. He didn’t want to waste another 

handful of the magnesia dust—a supply he would not be able to restore since all the caravans had ceased. His left knee throbbed with pain from the run up the stairs, making him wince. But he managed to reach the door at the top, pushed his way through, and shoved it shut just as the wolf creature crested the final stair. His eyes widened as he listened to its claws savaging the wood. He backed away, gulping air, and then turned to rush down the corridor in case it managed to open the door. Theo made it to the next doorway and once he had touched its different trigger points, the door opened. He slipped in, and as he started up the steps, he heard groans of pain from the man trapped above. Theo was mopping his sweaty head with a handkerchief he’d snatched from his pocket when he reached a once opulently furnished room with a private balcony. The interior had been thrashed and upended by the man chained to an iron ring in the middle of the floor. Glancing at the dove in its cage suspended from a rafter, Theo saw that the rope was still and the dove was calm, which meant a transformation of the man was not imminent. “What took you so long?” the man—a nobleman, with a proud olive-skinned face and unruly hair—demanded angrily. His shirt had claw marks in the front, revealing a set of four silver scars that maimed the skin of his chest. His pants were ripped as well. But the damage didn’t end there—his pants were in tatters from his own struggles against what he was becoming, his well-made boots had been carelessly kicked off, and his stockings showed the wear of his constant writhing on the floor. “I was nearly disemboweled,” Theo cried, as he hurried to one of the tables at the side of the room. He used a napkin to deliberately wipe away the magnesia dust from his hand and recaptured as much of it as he could before returning it to the pouch tied to his belt. “Did you bring it?” “I did.” Theo removed the vial of quicksilver. 

“Give it to me.” “A moment, if you please.” He walked over to the window and checked outside. The landscape was pale with snow as a blizzard raged, explaining the shiver-inducing temperature in the room. Theo went to the fireplace, but the man scolded him. “Stop! I already feel like I have a fever.” “But I don’t,” Theo answered. “I’m cold.” “You don’t understand what I suffer.” “You are right. I don’t.” Theo knelt by the grate, scooped a few heaps of coal onto it, and then used the flame from his hand to ignite it. Soon the little glowing bricks were emitting an amiable quantity of heat. “Give it to me,” the man pleaded. The noise of an owl hooted from the roof outside. That was a new sound. Another one, farther off, repeated the call. With the gladiator games over, how long before the coliseum reverted back to a state of nature? When the man-made pillars and halls would become the lair of jackals and screech owls? Theo walked over to the man whose name he didn’t know or care to know, who groveled for the flask of quicksilver. “Please. Anything...anything to end this madness.” Theo handed over the vial, then retreated to a chair, pulling out his little notebook as he watched. The nobleman uncorked the tiny vessel and grimaced at seeing the liquid metal inside. Quicksilver was quite toxic. No one had drunk it willingly before. The man stared at it, a grimace twisting his mouth. “We never suspected this would occur when that beast was brought in a cage.” “Hmmm?” Theo grunted questioningly. “They took it to Ecbatana for the revenant to play with.” “I heard the golem killed the revenant. But isn’t that impossible?” “Who knows? All we understand is that it learned. It learned metamorphistry. And it created these abominations that plague us. But what will happen when every last man and woman is ripped apart and destroyed? What is the result when you cannot die and cannot bear the taste of meat? When only blood will satisfy?” Even intense heat, like that from magnesia dust, couldn’t destroy the wolves. They still regenerated and became whole again. The nobleman was wise to consider the possibility of what would take place when all the prey was gone, and the predator couldn’t die. Theo kept a little cyanide pill in his necklace for just such an emergency. He’d rather kill himself than risk such an end. The man lifted the vial to his lips and began to swallow the quicksilver in hasty gulps, groaning at the taste. Theo wondered what the globs of liquid metal felt like on the way down his gullet. The man finished quaffing until all was gone, then tossed the glass aside, shattering it. “How do you feel?” Theo asked. “Like I’ve a lead weight in my belly,” he said with a wrinkled nose. Theo observed the man as he became increasingly agitated. “My throat is burning,” he groaned. “My thoughts...my thoughts are muddled. It hurts to breathe.” “Anything else?” Theo asked after inscribing the symptoms in his notebook. “Nnnggghhh.” The nobleman moaned, holding his stomach. He began to writhe and convulse. “Interesting,” Theo murmured, jotting down more of the symptoms. It was an incredibly high dose of quicksilver. Breathing the fumes of quicksilver was often fatal, but ingesting it? What would that do? But nothing had killed these creatures so far. No poison had worked. “Aaahhhh!” the main wailed, thrashing on the ground. Theo had continued taking notes while watching the man in his torture. He guessed it had been a half hour or so. Spasms began next. Violent, rocking spasms. He twitched and groaned, his legs pumping uncontrollably. And then he sighed and lay still. Not even breathing. Theo leaned forward eagerly. He rose from the chair and cautiously approached. The man’s chest hadn’t moved. The silver claw marks were gone from his skin. He knelt down and touched the man’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. He found none. Giddiness began to churn inside him. He couldn’t wait to draw his scalpel, to cut the fellow open and examine what had happened internally. How would his organs look? Would the quicksilver still be in his stomach? Was there a property to quicksilver that had countered the curse? Theo was anxious to study it further. The balcony window suddenly shattered, and a man in angel sworn armor marched inside. Theo gaped in shock at the sudden arrival. Fear surged inside his chest. He hadn’t seen an angel sworn since he was a child. The man grabbed Theo by the fabric of his tunic and cloak and dragged him to his feet. “I’ve been watching you,” the angel sworn said with disdain shining in his eyes. “Archangel Jodocus will want to meet you now. You’re coming with me.” “But we can’t leave. We’ll be torn apart!” Theo exclaimed. “I summoned another owl,” the angel sworn sneered. “We’ll be flying there.” He lay a drawn sword against Theo’s neck. “Try that fire on me, and I’ll make you repent it. There’s a creature Jodocus wishes you to kill. Another abomination.” ...