God Storm Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Coco Ma

  E-book published in 2021 by Blackstone Publishing

  Cover design by Kathryn Galloway English

  Illustrated map by Jimmy Ma

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion

  thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner

  whatsoever without the express written permission

  of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations

  in a book review.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental

  and not intended by the author.

  Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-982527-46-4

  Library e-book ISBN 978-1-982527-45-7

  Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / General

  CIP data for this book is available

  from the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  To Miron,

  The Orion to my Asterin, and the truest

  and most honorable friend

  I’ve ever had the privilege of having

  Prologue

  Down and down and down . . .

  He couldn’t remember the light. Here, the deepest of shadows gave way to a murk that seemed only a little less menacing, a little less sinister. The sky never lightened beyond a bruised purple before it darkened to an impenetrable, inky gloom.

  To think that he had reached for that gaping blackness instead of fleeing far, far away and never looking back.

  . . . and down and down and down and down . . .

  How many days had passed? How many hours had dragged by since that fateful moment when his heart had told his body to move, to move, you idiot, to hurl himself without hesitation into that swirling, infinite void—

  . . . and down and down and down and down and down . . .

  The portal had devoured him, and he had begun to fall. Ribbons of shadow entangled him, strangled him, laughing and singing and whispering to him in tongues he couldn’t understand.

  He wouldn’t stop falling. Couldn’t stop falling. The shadows laughed and stole the screams right from his throat. He tried to keep track of the seconds, but he never made it past one thousand before losing count. He wondered when this would end, how it would end, if it would ever end at all—

  The world flared white for the briefest second, and when he came to, the ground was moist against his bare face, filling his nostrils with the scent of rain and something he did not recognize.

  Orion Galashiels pressed a kiss to the land and thanked the Immortals.

  Then he rolled onto his back, closing his eyes as he sank into the wet ground, and breathed.

  When he opened his eyes, he looked up into the dark heavens and thought them more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before.

  With a smile, he lifted a hand toward the constellations scattered above as if to capture them.

  The ground rumbled, low thunder in his ears. Orion had no chance to react when clods of dirt erupted skyward, slamming into his shoulder and arm, enclosing him in a death grip of mud and rocks before wrenching him down. He struggled to free himself as the ground began to swallow him. To bury him alive, one limb at a time.

  Heart hammering, Orion let out a desperate cry. His fingers plunged through the roiling dirt, searching for his pocket and closing around his affinity stone. He held it aloft in triumph, but the moment he uncurled his fist, it crumbled to dust right before his eyes.

  “No,” he choked out. Dirt filled his mouth and nostrils, suffocating him. No, no, no, no—

  In a burst of blinding light, his magic exploded from every pore of his body. The ground shied away from his radiance, relinquishing its hold upon him at last.

  Blood roared in Orion’s ears as he scrambled up the sides of the crater that had formed around him, clawing at straggly roots to haul himself out. Once clear, he ran for all hell’s worth, his skin still pulsating with magic, certain that the ground would seize him once more if he so much as faltered for a second too long. Only when he couldn’t bear the burning of his lungs did he finally slow—and thankfully, the ground didn’t try to gobble him up.

  Resisting the urge to vomit, Orion took in his surroundings. Trees of silver towered over him on all sides, glimmering with iridescent bark, their filigree leaves tinkling prettily in the breeze. Still panting for breath, he braced himself against a trunk but recoiled immediately. His hand came away slick, coated in an oily sap that reeked like hot tar. Upon closer inspection, he realized with horror that the sap was moving, churning and writhing in agitation along his palm, lapping at his fingers like tiny maggots.

  Once again, his magic surged forth, this time with a scorching heat that sizzled the sap right off his skin and sent it skittering back up the tree trunk.

  Orion stared up at the sliver of sky just visible overhead through the dense tangle of branches. Ragged exhales tore at his lungs as he tried to calm the fear coursing through his veins.

  Everything was alive here. The rocks, the dirt . . . even his magic. It felt almost foreign in his body, as if he had suddenly sprouted a new limb. Here, his magic needed not bend to his beck and call. It refused to be summoned, controlled. Gone was his loyal hound, his most reliable tool—replaced with something primal. Wild.

  Something powerful had always dwelled deep inside him, his skin, his blood, his soul. But now, it was free. Orion could run from the forests and the monsters within, but he couldn’t run from himself.

  And that was the most terrifying thought of all.

  He still tried, though. He ran until his legs gave out, until he collapsed in an exhausted heap and hit his head on something sharp. White starbursts exploded across his vision. His groping fingers came away scarlet, and wherever the droplets fell, small red blossoms sprang forth.

  As the world blurred beneath his half-closed lids, the shadows began to sing anew, their voices pouring over him in honeyed waves. There was no laughter this time, only a soothing, haunting melody filling his ears as the shadows wrapped him into their satiny midnight folds.

  The ground shifted beneath him, and his consciousness faded as he heard the fwip fwip of something flapping.

  He dreamt of flying, of being carried far away by great wings of darkness high above a city of daggers and blood.

  So warm.

  “Well, well . . .” a voice like syrup purred from above him, rich and full of sin. “What do we have here?”

  Orion finally regained consciousness and let out a loud groan, his head pounding.

  Whispers ghosted the air, fleeting and incomprehensible, but apparently the voice could understand them. There was a deep chuckle. “A present? How gracious of you all. And such a pretty one, too.”

  Orion cracked open his eyes at that, blinking blearily before squinting in the direction of the voice, gaze tracing up the sharp edges of a suit outlining muscled arms and broad shoulders. The top two buttons of a pristine white shirt had been carefully and carelessly undone, revealing a smooth collarbone flecked with tattoos. He drank in the delicious slope of a neck and a chiseled jaw before finally laying eyes on the face of the most beautiful man he had ever seen in his life.

  The man’s features could only have been carved by the hand of an Immortal. The blade-honed definition of his face was balanced by full brows and a supple pink mouth softer than chrysanthemum petals in full blossom. Coiffed hair the black of pitch gleamed beneath a jeweled circlet of silver ivy adorned with butterflies’ wings.

  “Tell me your name, pretty thing,” coaxed the man, gloved fi
ngers cupping Orion’s jaw, gentler than a summer’s breeze. His eyes were twin dark stars, luminous as the brightest constellation yet promising eternal night.

  “O—” He coughed. “Orion.” It occurred to him that he was reclining in the man’s lap, his neck and the crook of his knees draped over velvet armrests. “Orion Galashiels.”

  The man’s lips quirked. “How charming. And what are you doing in my kingdom, Orion?”

  Orion’s brow furrowed. Confusion cloaked his mind, his already hazy memory shrouded by a curtain of fog. He came up empty, his lungs aching as though deprived of air. He fumbled for his next words, and even then they felt stilted on his tongue. “I . . . I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

  “I must say,” the man murmured, “you were quite fortunate to have ended up here with me . . . instead of in the hands of some other nasty beastie.” He stroked a finger sensually from Orion’s jaw up to his cheek. “You can thank my shadows for that.”

  Orion shuddered, unable to tear himself away from those dark eyes. “Don’t,” he breathed. “Don’t touch me.” The man paused and withdrew his hand, something like perplexity flickering behind his expression.

  A sense of conflict bubbled up within Orion. What right did he have to deny anything from a being of such beauty? He fought against himself. He wanted to quip, to break the tension, but he could summon neither the words nor the courage. In the end, all he said was, “Sorry.”

  “What for?” The man tilted his head, and the butterflies’ wings crowning his brow fluttered. “Demanding respect is nothing to apologize for. Would you like to get up?”

  Orion considered and then shook his head slowly. His legs might as well have turned to jelly.

  “If you’re certain.” The man peered at him. “What lovely eyes you have . . .” Quicker than a heartbeat, those black eyes flashed the blue of glaciers, but quicker still they returned to normal. A trick of the light? “Like the northern seas of the Mortal Realm.”

  “Wait.” Mortal Realm? Growing dread filled Orion’s gut. “Where—where am I?”

  The man’s smile widened into a wolfish grin. “Why, you don’t know?” He spread his arms wide, and when Orion turned to look, the air around them seemed to melt, shimmering like a mirage to reveal an obsidian city leagues below, with vicious spires for towers and arches of steel suspended midair, extending into oblivion farther than the eye could see. Rivers of scarlet and one of glowing envy-green cut across the land. Rising in the distance, Orion spotted a cluster of mountains pocked with waterfalls cascading gold.

  From over the horizon, a swarm of birds approached. No, Orion thought to himself. With a start, he realized they weren’t birds at all, but butterflies—thousands and thousands of black butterflies, rising over the city in a tidal wave of dark-tipped wings to block out the strange constellations above.

  A gentle breeze weaved into Orion’s hair, gentle and soothing. “You’re in the depths of the Immortal Realm, little mortal,” said the beautiful man.

  Orion lost all words, all the air in his lungs. “Are . . . are you a god?” he asked hoarsely, still breathless.

  The man leaned down. “I am no mere god, Orion Galashiels,” he said with a soft, wicked smile. “I am King Eoin, Ruler of Darkness, and this is my home.”

  Orion’s eyes widened and King Eoin lowered his voice to a velvet whisper.

  “Welcome to the heart of the Shadow Kingdom.”

  Chapter One

  The sun glared off Lux’s gleaming ebony coat, almost blinding, but the wind stole the afternoon’s warmth and kicked up the leaves strewn beneath the maple trees lining the avenue.

  Asterin Faelenhart welcomed the wind’s chill even as it nipped at her exposed neck and collarbone, every inch of her bare skin prickling. The hem of her skirt ruffled as they trotted, but the skirt itself didn’t so much as stir. Half a dozen maids had helped her into the largest and most elaborate gown she had ever worn. A hundred folds of cream-of-gold taffeta supported by countless layers of crinoline spilled over Lux’s haunches and teased the ground with her stallion’s every proud stride. Sheer lace ran up her arms, and tiny ivory roses adorned the off-shoulder neckline. A fur-trimmed cloak billowed from her shoulders and she wore soft, supple leather gloves, but both accessories were more for style than protection from the cold.

  Normally, she wouldn’t have bothered with such formal attire—but this was her first official public appearance as Queen of Axaria, after all, and nothing could have made that more clear than the diamond tiara nesting atop her head, each icicle-like spire reflecting the sunlight in a thousand dazzling kaleidoscopic bursts.

  “Make way for her Royal Majesty Asterin Faelenhart of Axaria and the Queen Mother!” Captain Eadric Covington called from his massive steed, Grey. The mighty pair led their party, while the other eight Elites surrounded them in diamond formation. Each member of Asterin’s personal royal guard sat tall in their saddles, intimidating all who beheld them with the steel sheathed at their sides and their signature crimson-and-black cloaks snapping behind them in the wind.

  Asterin waved to the onlookers crowding the avenue’s pale-stoned sidewalks, as did the rider beside her—none other than Elyssa Calistavyn-Faelenhart. Her mother.

  Her real mother.

  For ten years, a different woman had masqueraded as Asterin’s mother and the Queen of Axaria—Priscilla Montcroix. Using dark magic, Priscilla had cursed Elyssa from all memory and locked her deep beneath the palace in an enchanted dungeon that no one had known existed. But after exposing Priscilla’s crimes and defeating her on Fairfest Eve, Asterin had discovered the dungeon with a little help from an ancient wolf god and reunited with the mother that she almost never realized she’d lost.

  Now, Elyssa tucked her silken black braid over her shoulder and shot Asterin a sparkling grin. She rested one gentle hand on her steed’s neck—a bay thoroughbred named Argo with a white star emblazoned across his forehead. “Something on your mind, my love?”

  Giggling children squirmed out of their parents’ grasps to frolic up and down the avenue’s cobblestones. People cheered out Asterin’s name in jubilance as they paraded past, calling her all-wielder and the Immortals’ Champion. By now, tales of her omnifinity and victory against Priscilla had spread far and wide across the world, and Axarians knew such tales best of all.

  “It’s just . . . I still can’t believe it,” Asterin confessed, her fingers tightening on Lux’s reins. “That you’re here, beside me.” If it hadn’t been for Lord Conrye, the God of Ice and protector of her bloodline, the House of the Wolf, her mother would have been left to waste away in the darkness forever, destined to be forgotten.

  Elyssa reached over to squeeze her hand in comfort, the corners of her eyes crinkling. The dungeon, while bewitched to provide ample survival necessities to its inhabitants, did nothing to halt aging—but her mother had fared far better than imaginable, and within a few weeks of sunshine and many, many hours spent catching up together, she looked as radiant as Asterin ever remembered.

  Up ahead, the street bloomed into the entertainment district, one of the city’s main quadrants. The entryway was marked by a gravity-­defying canopy constructed of stone and woven iron cables that spiraled over a hexagonal plaza of white marble known as the Pavilion. The theaters, opera, and dance houses hugged the plaza, each building glorious in its own right. Elaborate stone friezes and carvings of creatures like winged sea serpents and two-headed wolves bedecked their cornices and towering colonnades. But it was the crown jewel of the Pavilion that they approached—the concert hall.

  When they arrived, the Elites dismounted first. Eadric helped Asterin slide gracefully from the saddle while Silas and Jack lent Elyssa a hand. Laurel and Casper carried the train of Asterin’s dress. With Gino’s help, Nicole began passing the horses’ reins to a dapper little quartet of stable hands, identical in uniform from the number of buttons fastened on their j
ackets right down to the angle of their woolen caps. Hayley and Alicia took up position by the doors to the concert hall, where they would remain for the duration of the performance.

  “It’s been so long since I last came here.” Her mother sighed as they ascended the steps to the hall. “So much is just as I remember, and yet so much has changed.”

  When they reached the landing, Elyssa paused to hold Asterin at arm’s length. Eadric and the Elites drifted back respectfully. Emerald eyes roved Asterin’s face for a long minute before Elyssa pulled her into a tight embrace right there on the steps, her expression so full of love and warmth that it made Asterin’s heart clench.

  “I can’t believe it either, you know,” her mother whispered into her hair. “I must have dreamt these moments a million times. Only my determination to see those dreams come to light kept me sane through ten years of isolation. Sometimes I worry that I’m dreaming still.” She pressed a gentle kiss to Asterin’s brow. “I’m never going to lose you again. Never.”

  Asterin swallowed the lump in her throat. “Please don’t worry. But come, we should go inside. Levain will be waiting.”

  “Is he still director?”

  Asterin flashed a grin before donning her most queenly smile. “Definitely.”

  The ushers welcomed them into the grand lobby with a flurry of bows. Torches circled the space at varying intervals, casting a flickering ombré of shadow across the opalescent tiles. A stairway led upstairs to the balconies. Usually, the delicious cacophony of the orchestra warming up drifted through the ground-level doors, but tonight Asterin heard only the muffled chatter of the audience.

  As promised, the music director of the concert hall waited for them at the foot of the stairs, his hands clasped in front of him. Even with his wild thicket of silver hair, he stood no taller than Asterin’s shoulder, yet his presence could not have been more grandiose.

  “Your Royal Majesty and Your Royal Grace. Captain Covington and Elites,” Director Levain said with a deep bow. “An honor, as always, to have you with us.” He eyed Asterin’s dress, a merry twinkle in his eyes. “I take it Your Majesty and company shall be using the royal box this evening?”