The Mystical Murders of Yin Mara (Maradaine Saga Stories, Book 1) by Marshall Ryan Maresca

 

Release date: August 2, 2022

Subgenre: Fantasy Mystery, Epic Fantasy

 

About The Mystical Murders of Yin Mara: 

 

Phadre Golmin and Jiarna Kay are perfectly matched. Both astounding intellects, sharing a passion for academic pursuits and each other. Traveling from the University of Maradaine to Trenn College in Yin Mara, they are excited for the opportunity to study magical and mystical theory with the famed Professor Salarmin. So when they come across a dead body that defies all logic, they should leave it alone. 

But Phadre and Jiarna tasted adventure in Maradaine, so the discovery of similar victims, paired with their scientific curiosity, makes the situation far too intriguing to ignore. Knowing that they alone have the knowledge to unravel the mystery, Phadre and Jiarna are determined to resolve it, no matter the cost to their academic careers.

 

Excerpt:

 

Jiarna’s instinct was to run toward the scream, and Phadre did the same, charging down the forest path back toward the pension. They matched pace, racing around to the back stables of the pension.

The scream stopped.

“Where is it?” Jiarna asked.

“It was a woman, I think,” Phadre said. “That way.” His hands were now charged with numina, crafting a nimbus of light around them. He went around the barn, and Jiarna followed right behind.

“Oh, dear saints,” Phadre said, and he reached out to prevent Jiarna coming around to see it.

She saw it anyway, and she wasn’t about to let him or anyone else spare her. But it was a horror.

The body— a man’s body— was on the ground. He was dead, that was clear— beyond dead. Jiarna had seen bodies in her vivisection classes, witnessed carnage and violence in the drug riot on campus, but… she had never seen anything like this.

The skin was gray, and resembled a burned husk. Dry, and pulled taut, especially around his mouth, exposing his teeth and tongue. His fingers were desiccated to the point where they looked like bone, hands curled in twisted agony.

And his eyes—

His eyes were gone.

This man died horribly.

“Phadre,” Jiarna said, her voice barely coming to her. “Did you see?”

“Exactly like this,” he said, looking around. “No one else around. I didn’t hear anyone run away.”

“Did you… sense anything?”

He clearly gathered she meant magically. Phadre didn’t have any particularly strong gifts for sensing numinic flow, but as a mage he had a fundamental connection to it.

“Nothing unusual,” he said.

Jiarna reached into her pocket, despite her trembling hands, and took out her eyepiece— the lenses treated with dalmatium salts. Putting it to her eye, she could see the numinic flow all around her. Phadre was swirling with it, concentrating at his hands and head. 

But around the body, nothing unique.

Phadre knelt down next to the body. “I would have sworn…” he said softly.

Two other people came running over. “We heard a scream,” one of them said. They were both wearing uniforms of the pension, and Jiarna recognized one of them as the valet who checked them in. He wasn’t the one speaking, though, as he had turned pale and sickly. He looked like he was going to throw up. The other man had the bearing of a manager, and looked like he was holding his wits together a bit better.

“We heard the same,” Jiarna said. “We found… well, look.”

“Jiarna,” Phadre said. “I think…. I think it’s Mister Dreshin.”

She knelt down, taking the eyepiece out. The face had been turned into a dry husk, but as she looked closer, it was clear that the dead man was, indeed, the caravan underboss.

“Poor soul,” the valet said. “You… you found him like this? Together?”

“Yes,” Phadre said. “We were walking out in the clearing, and heard the scream…” Phadre paused for a moment, then shook his head. “We heard the scream and both came running over.”

“We haven’t touched him,” Jiarna said.

Amazon | Artemisia House

About Marshall Ryan Maresca:

Marshall Ryan Maresca is a fantasy and science-fiction writer, author of the Maradaine Saga: Four braided series set amid the bustling streets and crime-ridden districts of the exotic city called Maradaine, which includes The Thorn of Dentonhill, A Murder of Mages, The Holver Alley Crew and The Way of the Shield, as well as the dieselpunk fantasy, The Velocity of Revolution. He is also the co-host of the Hugo-nominated, Stabby-winning podcast Worldbuilding for Masochists, and has been a playwright, an actor, a delivery driver and an amateur chef. He lives in Austin, Texas with his family.

 

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