The storm king, p.1
The Storm King, page 1
part #3 of The Lost God Series
THE STORM KING
THE LOST GOD BOOK THREE
SHEILA MASTERSON
Copyright © 2024 by Sheila Masterson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The scanning, uploading, or distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is coincidental.
Ebook: 9781960416087
Paperback: 9781960416094
Hardcover: 9781960416100
Cover Design and Ivy: Andrea Laguer
Hardback Case and Map Design: Mike Sisak
Editing: Erin at EKB Books
Proofreading: Mike Sisak
CONTENTS
A Note From the Author
Before
I. The Return
1. Cecilia
2. Evan
3. Xander
4. Evan
5. Rainer
6. Cecilia
7. Evan
8. Cecilia
9. Xander
10. Cecilia
11. Rainer
II. A Faceless Villain
12. Xander
13. Cecilia
14. Xander
15. Evan
16. Cecilia
17. Xander
18. Cecilia
19. Evan
20. Rainer
21. Xander
22. Cecilia
23. Xander
24. Rainer
25. Cecilia
26. Xander
27. Rainer
III. To Make a King
28. Xander
29. Rainer
30. Evan
31. Xander
32. Xander
33. Cecilia
34. Xander
35. Xander
36. Rainer
37. Xander
38. Evan
39. Cecilia
40. Xander
IV. Death of a Memory
41. Rainer
42. Cecilia
43. Evan
44. Xander
45. Evan
46. Xander
47. Cecilia
48. Rainer
49. Cecilia
50. Xander
51. Evan
52. Cecilia
After
The Adventure Continues June 3, 2024 with…
Review it ebook
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Sheila Masterson
To all those who have pulled themselves back from the abyss by sheer force of will.
And to those who have come for us in every darkness and sat with us until we could walk out on our own.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Dear Reader,
THE STORM KING deals with mental health struggles (including grief, depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation), fertility issues, war, violence, threat of sexual assault, death, profanity, and explicit sex. I’ve attempted to treat all sensitive topics with the utmost care, but this content might still be challenging for some readers. Please take care of yourself.
Happy Reading,
Sheila
BEFORE
XANDER
The first thing Xander Savero learned in hunter training was how to protect what was vital.
Before anything else, hunters learned to defend what they couldn’t live without: the throat, the gut, the lungs, the heart.
He defended them in a fight. He defended them in the woods. He even defended them in sleep, curled into a ball with a blade under his pillow.
That training was only exacerbated by the hypervigilance of spending his formative years behind enemy lines.
It was fitting that forgetting that important lesson was his downfall. He’d simply expected it would be a blade, not a beautiful woman, that broke him.
Xander had forgotten everything he’d learned when he fought Cecilia Reznik in the wild, instantly opening his stance to her. No doubt she’d noticed and assumed it was a move meant to bait her, but he knew it was a mistake. It was involuntary, as if his heart knew to make room for her, as if his magic recognized hers and bent to it, as if his body had understood something numinous that connected them even then.
Even in sleep he couldn’t help but let her in. Many nights he woke sprawled wide for her to curl into, so her cheek could rest just above his heart.
Love was a thief, robbing him of something he did not know he possessed. It could only happen that way—like a crime—a thing that happened entirely without his permission but cost him all the same.
He’d faced down many enemies, and nothing scared him as much as that beautiful girl with a bow in her hands who had the unique ability to steal his heart before he even noticed it was gone.
Xander stared at the letter, his name written on the front in Cece’s loopy handwriting. He was equal parts terrified and excited to read it. He darted down the hall before Evan could grab him and drag him into yet another exhausting meeting, and paused in the corridor leading to his parents’ old rooms.
The air seemed stiller, perhaps even colder, as if marked by the memory of their deaths. Shaking off the chill, he continued down the dim hall past the doors that led to sitting rooms with furniture carefully wrapped to protect from dust, until finally, he reached their bedroom.
The door groaned open, and he stepped inside, pressing his back against the wood as if bracing for ghosts. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that he found none.
He walked across the room, knelt next to the fireplace, and pulled aside an old bookcase to reveal a small passageway. Crawling inside, he slid the case back into place behind him and scrambled down the short corridor to his secret sanctuary. Dust tickled his sinuses and he fought off a sneeze.
Daylight cut long triangles into the stone wall above his head as he rose to his feet in the small room. Though the castle was full of passageways, this was a simple hollow that led nowhere. He’d found it as a boy when he’d been trying to learn all the passages as well as Davide knew them.
A lump formed in his throat, the memory rising in his mind out of nowhere.
Davide, so much taller than him, all gangly limbs and awkward elbows, trying to fold himself into the space beside Xander. His brother had riffled through the collection of books before smiling at Xander. “What does it feel like? The storm magic?”
Xander snapped back into the present, a dull pain pressing behind his eyes. He was still so unpracticed at memory recall, but he was grateful for every glimpse, no matter how it wore on him.
He looked at the stack of magic books still sitting on the short table in the corner. He’d stolen them from the royal archives after his magic saved his life and his father had discouraged his pursuit of it.
“You’ve already made yourself a myth. What do you think will happen if you go out and start practicing your magic?” Damian had said. “You’ll become just another witch struggling for control. It would be foolish to let everyone see your weakness. Focus on combat instead and become fearsome enough to gain the respect of the army you will someday lead.”
Though his father had a point, it was lonely having so much magic brewing in his body and no idea how to channel it. The king didn’t care about his restlessness, so Xander threw himself into combat training and spent his free time reading magic books in secret. Over time, Davide helped add to his collection, encouraging Xander when no one else was looking, which was the only time an heir could be seen defying the king.
Xander laughed to himself as he brushed his fingers over the satchel of dried herbs from when he’d tried his first spell. It had not come nearly as naturally as storm magic, but his mother’s mother had slipped him a few simple things to try. This space had been where he hid his practice.
Now he was hiding again, but instead of dodging his father or his guards, he was hiding from his responsibilities.
When Xander was young, Castle Savero felt like a prison. He couldn’t walk down the hall without his guards or Evan on his tail. He couldn’t turn a corner without people bowing to “Prince Alexander.”
He’d hated that enough. But when he had started training and had shown such promise, his joy was dashed when Davide reluctantly admitted that none of the hunters were fighting him with full effort because he was the prince.
Everywhere he went, the world catered to him, while at the same time he wasn’t allowed to be his true self. Most of who he was needed to stay a secret. That was why spying suited him so well.
He liked anonymity. For once he could prove his skill without the world catering to him. The challenge of stealing information from sources without them even realizing they’d given it up was thrilling. In Argaria, he was placed on a pedestal and never really given the opportunity to shine. No matter how he saw himself, the kingdom and even his own father saw him as a spare. He asked to go to Olney at fourteen to do the one thing Davide could never do. His parents fought about it for days, his father immediately seeing merit in the idea, his mother adamant that he was too young. In the end, King Damian won, as he always did.
Xander was eager for the freedom of being unknown and no task would better cleave him from his old life while still making him a hero. He could not be a better king than his brother, but he’d always been a better fighter and a more charming liar.
He warred with opponents, he warred with who he was, and he warred with being the expendable son. Fate had a sense of humor in making him a very reluctant king.
He picked up the intricately carved wooden box beside the herbs, opened it, and looked at the stack of Cece’s letters inside. He hadn’t been brave enough to respond to a single one. Over the past few weeks he’d hidden in the passageway to read them, as if he could hide from the hurt of missing her. He’d only tucked them away to keep Evan out of his business.
The newest one burned in his palm. He wanted the comfort of her words.
The chain beneath his tunic shifted. Xander pressed a hand to his chest, the metal of his wedding ring warm on the jagged scar above his heart. He could not wear it on his hand and deal with the whispers about his state of mind, but at least he could keep some small piece of her close to his heart.
He’d been alone his whole life but now he felt lost without her. Cece broke him open and he was uncertain how to close and heal over such a wound. If he had designed the woman of his dreams, he couldn’t have done a better job. Her biting wit, her intelligence, her skill with a blade and bow. She was a perfect combination of deadly beauty and courage. She’d ruined him.
How had he let it happen? Years of training flew out the window the first time he kissed her. He knew then he’d sacrifice anything for her. He might not have been willing to admit it, but he knew.
He hadn’t realized that would mean losing her and his mind. He hadn’t realized there could be a torture as potent as protecting her love for someone else, because the loss of Rainer would wreck her more than the loss of Xander. It was a brutal thing to know, and yet he’d endured it for her.
Because she was it. She still was.
A stunning goddess had ripped out his still-beating heart, even as she’d literally sewed the wounded organ back together.
She was the first person he’d ever shown his heart to, and she would be the last.
“This is what love does. It makes you the sharpest weapon to cut those you love. It leaves wounds that can’t be healed. Love makes both of you weak,” Cato had said.
The trickster was right about that. It had wrecked both of them.
It had also saved them. If Xander hadn’t loved Cece so much, he never could have protected her weak spot from Cato. If she hadn’t loved him so much, she wouldn’t have been able to bring him back from his brush with death. She wouldn’t have had the faith in him that he could come back from losing his mind. It was little consolation, but it was something.
Xander’s deal with the trickster god, Cato, had cost him everything. Even his own mind had been lost to him for a while. Though Cato’s influence and corruption vanished the moment he stabbed Xander on the beach, there were times Xander wondered if it was lost still.
Xander had been working with a tutor for months to cultivate his own memory witch abilities. He wanted to recall in precise detail his history with all his loved ones who had died and the short time he shared with his wife.
Ex-wife. He shuddered, his chest suddenly too tight to draw a full breath. The word was violent—carving him hollow with the memory of the shattered look on her face when he’d told her their marriage was over.
At times, the vivid memory magic made the loss so visceral it felt like he was back in each painful moment—his mother offering her blessing on his wedding night, Davide protecting him to the end, watching Cece die—but it hurt him more not to see them. Remembering was hard, but forgetting might as well have been forgetting himself. He had never seen himself as clearly as he did when reflected in their eyes.
For three long, cold months, he’d filled his nights with alcohol and a parade of what-ifs.
If he hadn’t been gone so long, he would have noticed the change in Davide sooner. If he’d been there, maybe they could have ruled their kingdom together. If he hadn’t made a deal with Cato to keep Cece to himself, she might have chosen him anyway.
It would be easy to blame Cato for all of his problems, but he knew they were mostly of his own creation.
Most nights he kept the dark at bay by drinking himself into oblivion. Others he walked the grounds until he was too exhausted to think anymore. The rest of his time was spent alone in his room as if sitting vigil for the love he lost. Some nights he sat in the guest suite, where he and Cece had spent their first night as a married couple, and stared at her wedding dress. It still faintly smelled like her and he wondered if that scent was magic or a curse.
Evan had tried his best to pull Xander out of it, but there was nothing that drew him from the depths of his pain.
Then the letters started.
Every week, a new letter from Cece arrived. They were tentative at first. Short little notes about things happening back in Olney.
Did he hear that the Olney Huntgames were postponed? New trade routes were being discussed with Novum. Would she finally get to cross the sea and see the moonrise city of Estrellas? Was he okay, and if so, why did he not say goodbye?
Over time they got longer. Sometimes it was like she spilled everything in her heart onto those pages in rambling tales that made him laugh before making him miss her so desperately it felt like his chest would cave in. Other times they were clever, carefully constructed and beautifully written. Her years of reading and telling stories were clear in her craft.
Still, others were haunted and heartbreaking and told of the immense grief and guilt that she felt for surviving when so many others died and when she’d caused so much death. Those were the ones that broke him because they were honest and unguarded, the ink dotted with tears. He imagined her pacing the gardens in Olney in front of the bench where they first spoke.
At first, he’d thought she was just writing for his sake—out of some misguided sense of pity. Over time it became clear that despite choosing to spend her life with Rainer, she still missed Xander’s comfort. She still counted on him to see her darker side without judgment. He knew she wanted a reply, but he had no idea what to say. What was between them felt unfinished and tenuous and he wasn’t sure what his careless words might do.
Not writing back was the easiest way to shove down the little bit of hope that reared up every time one of her letters arrived. He busied himself with trying to run the kingdom, but it was hard to care about anything.
Xander never wanted to lead, and he constantly felt like he was doing something wrong. He saw the disapproval and disappointment on the faces of his advisors, heard the constant jabs about how he’d spent more of his life in the court of their enemies than their own.
It was all made worse by the murmurs that he wasn’t really his father’s son, but a bastard child of the queen and her consort who didn’t deserve the throne.
His people didn’t trust him and he didn’t blame them. Xander didn’t trust himself anymore.
After spending months under Cato’s mind control, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever trust himself again. He knew what was true and what Cato had planted, but all the memories still existed and they filled him with guilt.
He couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse that his love for Cece hadn’t faded at all.
A knock on the bookcase made him jump.
“Are you going to hide in there all night hoarding your letters?” Evan called.
