Title: The Netherworld Witch
Author: Lisa Acerbo
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 08/25/2026
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Female/Female
Length: 79600
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, fantasy, young adult, bisexual, interracial, high school, fantasy world, elves, witch
Description
Mina Rubenstein has a secret. She doesn’t just sketch elves; her drawings transport her into the kingdom of Auralon. Once there, the princely Callon informs her the king has vanished, dark forces are rising, and Mina is the Netherworld Witch. According to the prophecy, only she can shape the ethereal darkness into anything imagined, find the missing monarch, and save the realm. Mina never asked for magic, let alone a destiny, but refusing Callon’s plea to save his father could doom Auralon.
The only thing worse than her possible death at the hands of mythical monsters is junior year at St. Benedict’s Catholic School. When bullies target her, Mina’s best friend Ayden becomes her sanctuary and first love. But as the torment escalates, Ayden reaches a breaking point. Desperate and angry, she buys a weapon and begins talking about revenge.
Trapped between two worlds, Mina searches for peace in both. One world is filled with family, Ayden, and school. The other full of wild magic and Callon. As Mina’s existence at St. Benedict’s descends into pandemonium, she wonders whether her quest in Auralon is fate or a way to avoid the pain of reality.
Excerpt
The Netherworld Witch
Lisa Acerbo © 2026
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
Snow fell. Mina contemplated how she wanted to show this in her drawing. Snow changed the world. Everything quieted, boundaries blurred, soft edges seeped. A white hush cloaked streets, trees, entire towns. Familiar places were reinvented.
Snow was symbolic. A fresh start, a clean surface, a new beginning, but Mina’s snow, once pristine, ephemeral, and gossamer, was laced with blood. Black dots on the white sheet of paper made flakes heavy and unyielding. She continued to sketch. The flurries fell into Callon’s eyes, drenched his cloak, and hindered his success. The bands of white muffled the anguished cries and the death falls. It made horror beautiful from far away, but up close, evil was anything but pretty.
Mina pressed her charcoal pencil hard against the pristine paper. The elf’s now familiar features appeared intense, smeared with dirt and rage. Pain illuminated his eyes with each new line she rendered. “This is not what I want to draw.”
Chaos ensued. Warriors and mythical monsters clashed as snow and sleet slashed sideways. The princely elf battled goblins. Not one, not three, but four short, stocky, incredibly ugly creatures. Their faces were leathery; hair bulged from large bat ears and curled over most every other part of their bodies. Damp, sweat-soaked strands protruded through chinks in their misshapen armor. Sleet matted tangles down in abstraction over squat, muscular arms. Small and fast, furious, and deadly, the monsters surrounded the prince.
Mina wanted to stop sketching as much as she wished her heart would cease violently rattling in her chest. It was a drawing for God’s sake, but her pencil felt like a prediction and the outcome dire. She couldn’t see Callon hurt.
His gorget and leather armor were splattered with muck and mud, dripping and heavy. His hefty sword sliced through the first goblin’s skin as easily as it carved the white falling flakes. He staggered when another monster’s sword pierced his leg. She etched a gash down his thigh. Callon’s shoulders rounded with fatigue, yet Mina drew on. She couldn’t stop sketching, as much as she tried to pull herself away.
Ice amassed under the prince’s feet, sending him skittering. Blood and mud sprayed the ground burgundy. The warrior struck out, slashing in a circle to keep the remaining goblins at bay. He thrust his sword at one, giving another the chance to use his weapon as a spear. Callon parried and drove his sword into the gremlin’s chest. The monster squealed and fell.
The other two were upon him.
Callon’s blade pierced the winter storm of white. He was not the soldier his sister was, but a calm descended. He’d trained for this equally as hard as she had, and while she excelled at horsemanship, he did so in ground combat. He preferred to face his opponent and stare into their eyes, seeing the evil and feeling as if his sword carried out justice rather than violence. He locked eyes with one of the remaining two goblins, already envisioning its demise.
One monster, more reckless than the other, growled, spit, and swore in a language as rough and rude as itself. The stench of death from the slain devils warred with the odor wafting off the living ones. It brought tears to Callon’s eyes even as he attempted to breathe through his mouth. He assumed the goblin across from him was male, but it was nearly impossible to tell. The foul creature jerked forward, swinging a curved sword with ease, aiming at Callon’s midsection, ever so happy to gut him.
“I’ll see you join the others in eternal sleep.” He screamed above the battle roar that surrounded him and kicked away the fallen dead by his feet.
The two remaining demons moved into fighting range. He wielded his sword with muscle memory from all the long, intense training days with his sister, who had pushed him beyond exhaustion to hone his skills. Callon thanked Elarona for that practice now as he cleaved down and across, hitting the portly monster’s arm and severing it. The creature howled in pain and sank to its knees. The prince kicked out, his boot meeting the beast’s face. It fell over and he stabbed, ending its miserable existence.
The other goblin jumped on Callon’s back, ready to plunge a dagger into his neck. The elf grabbed the monster’s arm, blade slicing his cheek. He wrenched the weapon away and fell backward. He hit the packed snow hard, the impact jarring, and squashed the monster to the ground. The prince’s sword flew from his fingers. He twisted off the creature and scurried away.
The goblin crawled on arms and knees after him, yellow teeth chomping, moving faster than Callon could have ever imagined. Its claws grabbed at his pant leg and pulled him close. The elf pawed the slick and slimy ground littered with remnants of both elven and goblin warriors. His hand closed over a rock and when in range, the goblin’s teeth ready to sink into his leg, Callon smashed the stone against its head. The force of impact reverberated through him. He repeated the motion. The rock slammed into the monster’s skull, the squelch and shatter loud, the squeal of the beast deafening, until it fell limp.
Callon pushed away, stood, and scanned the battleground. It was no longer white even though snow continued to fall. Elarona cheered. The other elven warriors joined in the joyous war cry before turning to help the injured or collect bodies of the fallen for burial. The prince limped closer, anything but delighted. The battle was far from over.
Mina put a hand to her mouth, tears in her eyes, and stopped. She crumpled the drawing into a ball and hid it and the paper and pencil under her mattress. No one could know about it.
She stood, opened the door, exited her room, and waved to the orderly standing guard by the locked doors. She walked down the sterile hallway and into the waiting office.
Mina’s tongue stuck to the inside of her chapped lips, as dry as midsummer sand well above the tideline on a beach. The young and overeager doctor sat behind an organized desk where she attempted to interact, but Mina found the bookshelves overladen with psychology texts, including The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, more interesting.
“I have no idea what to talk about.” Mina slouched lower in her chair and battled through her first individual session. She was grateful her parents cared enough to find a place where she’d receive help but mortified that everyone at her high school probably couldn’t stop gossiping about her downfall.
“Tell me why you’re here.” The doctor in the shiny white lab coat had an equally pearly grin. She pushed a tissue box her way.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.” Mina pushed her tortoiseshell glasses up her nose. “I guess it all got to be too much.”
“Your parents said you were brave coming to them. They’re proud of you.”
“I wish I had talked to them earlier. The bullying was bad, the breakup hard, and it was all stressful, but the other stuff spiraled.”
“What do you mean?”
“The imaginary world with the elves.” Mina focused on the plant at the edge of the desk. “It all seemed real.”
“That’s a good place to start. Let’s explore what happened. There’s no judgment in this room. You can relax.”
She wanted that too, but her knees shook, and her leg refused to stop jumping up and down.
“How’s the journaling going?” the doctor asked.
“Fine.” Her gaze skipped around the room trying to find a focus, but all she saw were possible future sketches. Her pointer finger painted along her jeans, creating circles, ovals, and swirls.
“Tell me a little more. I asked you to put aside drawing and focus on writing down your thoughts and ideas to avoid confusing the real with the imaginary. Has it helped? Any misperceptions?”
“I let my imagination run wild in the past. I get it.”
“It’s much more complicated than that. It’s what we are going to try and figure out here.”
She understood everything the doctor was saying but missed Auralon so much and wanted to continue to sketch Callon, the pixies, Buddy, and the other world she longed to return to.
Her life here was a huge, hot, steaming pile of horse dung, and Mina had no idea what she was going to do about it.
*****
Session over, she walked back to her room, hand skimming the wall. It pulsed in response. A portion in front of her blurred and faded. A figure stood behind it.
The shadow held out its hand but then disappeared.
The wall solidified in front of her.
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Meet the Author
Lisa Acerbo is the Director of General Education and Liberal Arts at Post University. Her short stories and poetry appear in Scarlet, Sagebrush Review, Moonstone Arts, Poor Yorick Literary Journal, Ripples in Space, Universe in a Bottle by Flying Ketchup Press, Whatever Happened to Hansel and Gretel? by Fathom Publishing (a finalist in the 2024 Best Books Awards in the category of Fiction: Anthology), and Birds of Vermont Museum. When not writing, you can find her walking in the woods with her rescue dogs.
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