Today, we’re very excited to share an excerpt from Dark Star Burning Ash Fall White by Amelie Wen Zhao!

Dark Star Burning, Ash Fall White is the sequel to Zhao’s Chinese mythology inspired novel Song of Silver, Flame Like Night. Before we dive into the excerpt, let’s check out the official blurb and find out what’s in store:

The epic sequel to Song of Silver, Flame Like Night. A fast-paced, riveting YA fantasy inspired by the mythology and folklore of ancient China.

Years ago, the Elantian colonizers invaded Lan’s homeland and killed her mother in their search to uncover the Last Kingdom’s greatest the location of its legendary four Demon Gods. Lan’s mother devoted her life to destroying the Demon Gods, and Lan is determined to finish her mission. Yet, there are others searching for the gods, too.

Zen knew his soul was forfeit the moment he made a deal with the Demon God known as the Black Tortoise, but he’s willing to lose himself if it means saving the Kingdom–and the girl–he loves. But to crush the colonizers who have invaded his land he needs more power than even a single Demon God can provide. He needs an army. And he knows exactly where he can find it–in the undead army his great grandfather lead decades ago.

The Elantians may have stolen their throne, but the battle for the Last Kingdom has only begun.

Dark Star Burning, Ash Fall White is due for release from HarperVoyager on 14th March. You can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org

PROLOGUE

And when the first of mankind gazed upon the Light of the Creator and his Angels,

he felt awakening in his blood the magic of metal: power to be used to bring Light

to a world which saw only darkness.

—The Holy Book of Creation,

First Scripture, Verse Thirteen

Elantian Age, Cycle 12
Where the Rivers Flow and the Skies End

Snow fell over the temple in the mountains. It coated the white pines in the gray of ash and froze over the once- burbling rivers. Silken drapes hung still between open-fretwork eaves of a hall whose waterfall no longer streamed. In the quiet of a winter caught in rosewood and rock, sky and ice, came the sharp sounding of metal boots.

“High General Erascius. I bring news from our scouts.” Erascius set the Hin tome down next to the Elantian translation he’d been working on. The metal bands on his wrists gleamed in the gray sunlight as he lifted his head, hair the white of snow, skin the pale of milk, ridged with scars from a still-healing wound.

“Speak,” he commanded, the word a sharp puff of his breath in the cold.

The White Angel, a patrol assigned to the Elantian army at the new base on this mountain, bowed his helmed head.

“Our scouts have searched the School of Guarded Fists and the pe- riphery. There is no trace of a star map, a musical instrument, or the Azure Tiger.”

Erascius found himself fixating on the irritating way the Angel’s armor glinted as he delivered this. His breath came quicker as his anger licked up like white-hot flames.

One month. One entire month spent in search of the Azure Tiger—one of the Four Demon Gods that gave the Hin im- mense power—and nothing to show for it. They, the Elantians, had crossed the Sea of Heavenly Radiance to bring light to this fallen kingdom, to take it and its resources under the wing of the great Elantian Empire. They had toppled the Last Kingdom’s emperor and eliminated most of the magic practitioners of this land—save for a handful. Most pressingly, during their attack on the last school of practitioning last month, they had let escape a boy and a girl, each of whom had bound to themself a Demon God: the Black Tortoise and the Silver Dragon.

The two had nearly singlehandedly taken down the entire Elantian army during the battle. And they might have, had they known how to fully use the Demon Gods’ powers.

This had put the Elantians in a compromised position and driven Erascius to focus on finding one of the remaining Demon Gods for himself. They had traced the Azure Tiger to this School of the White Pines, but the Hin practitioning masters had set it free before the Elantians could capture it.

The deaths of all those Hin masters had been little consolation for the loss of the Tiger.

“No trace of the boy?” he drawled. “None yet, High General.”

“And the girl.” His voice had become dangerously soft. “What of the girl?”

“Last spotted by a western base. They followed her until she disappeared into the Emaran Desert with two companions.”

“When was this?”

“Several days ago, High General.”

The metal cuffs on his forearms flashed as Erascius pulled on his metal magic—magic that had once punctured the weak defenses of the Hin Imperial Army and qì practitioners like arrows through parchment. Magic that had expanded the Elantian Empire across this vast, resource-rich kingdom within a matter of weeks.

This was what differentiated the Elantian magicians from the vast majority of the Elantian army, and why they com- manded while others obeyed. The Royal Magicians had been chosen by divine intervention to channel the power of their god. And there was no magician more powerful than Erascius. Through the different-colored cuffs on their wrists, the strongest of other Alloys might have wielded the magic of two or three metals. Erascius wielded that of thirteen.

With thirteen, Erascius held the power to secure the universe.

But not enough power by far to face two Demon Gods.

With a flick of his mind, he flung the White Angel into the air by the man’s steel armor, and held him there. Slowly, he began to squeeze the armor like a tin can. As the patrol began to choke, eyes popping and mouth gaping, Erascius thought of the pet fish the governor of this kingdom kept in his cushy palace in the Heavenly Capital.

“Several days,” Erascius said smoothly. “My top priority—a prize that could tip the perilous scales our rule rests upon— and you take several days to report to me? You, a White Angel, appointed as an elite member of the Elantian Empire?”

The Angel’s legs kicked the air; his lips, turning blue, were moving as he tried to speak. “. . . The . . . governor . . .”

One more second and Erascius would have pulled the man’s heart from his chest, summoning the metal present in the man’s blood with his magic. But he paused at the soldier’s rasps.

“The governor has a message for me?” he said, and with a slow, deliberate twirl of his finger, he sent the patrol crashing to the floor. The man’s blood splattered the slate-gray stone, worn smooth by thousands of years of Hin feet.

Trembling, the Angel pushed himself onto one knee. His armor was dented, no doubt still crushing his ribs and squeezing his lungs—Erascius could feel the seeping blood and the broken bone from where he sat—but the man valiantly recited the message between gasps of air.

“The governor . . . asks . . . for an update . . . on quashing the Hin . . . rebellion . . .”

By now, Erascius’s irritation had reached a simmer. He held the governor in no more regard than he did this wriggling worm of a man before him, but the politician had been appointed by the Elantian king, across the Sea of Heavenly Radiance, who had been crowned by the Creator. Erascius was born unto this earth to serve the Creator through the king, and he had to believe the governor, too, held a role in that service.

Rebellion, the governor had called it, the word ringing in this hall of the conquered, amongst the Hin’s tomes and histories and dynasties of practitioning knowledge. Erascius didn’t like that word.

He waved a hand. “Tell the governor to continue his games of politics and economics. I will focus on winning this war for us. And send for Lieutenant Lishabeth. We make for the Emaran Desert by sunset. I want word out to every single base west of here to be on alert for the Hin girl. We find her, we find the star maps, and we find the remaining Demon Gods.”

Erascius turned back to the Hin tome, barely noticing as the messenger limped out, leaving a trail of blood. Winter Annals, he’d translated, the Elantian language striking left to right before him, straight and true like a sword as opposed to the messy waterfall spill of Hin characters. The book contained a history of the clans, banned across the Last Kingdom’s book- houses by the Imperial Court. There was a single page Erascius had focused on, and it had given him all the information he needed.

He leaned over, the gold on his fountain pen gleaming as he finished the chapter, then leaned back to survey his work.

The Binding of the Demon Gods. Half the key to this new universe he’d stepped in to conquer.

And the other half . . . Erascius lifted his gaze west, beyond the silk curtains and a colorless winter sky framed in the rosewood fretwork of the temple hall.

The other half lay with the girl. It was she who held the star maps, the maps that led to the Four Demon Gods. It was she they needed to find in order to conquer this land.

“Run, my little singer,” he whispered, the wind snatching the words from his lips. “Run far and fast, for I am coming. ”

I will find you, Sòng Lián.

Dark Star Burning, Ash Fall White is due for release from HarperVoyager on 14th March. You can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org