Primary powers: weather manipulation, control

over lightning, some psychic abilities

Severin—God of Death

Also known as: the Dark King; Wraith;

Eternal of Nyholm (the Dark Court)

Primary powers: necromancy, death touch

Evander—God of Light

Also known as: the Wolf

Primary powers: light shaping and manipulation,

control over fire, healing

Bastien—God of Shadows

Also known as: the Blade

Primary powers: shadow manipulation,

psychic influence, control over metal

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PROLOGUE

THE PRINCESS AND the god met in the ashes of a broken city and made a pact in blood and sacrifice.

War creates strange alliances—no one emerges unscathed when death leaves its mark. Humans turn savage. Gods become monsters. And there’s a moment when the dead outnumber the living and everything you’ve ever loved lies in ruins at your feet that you’re left with only two choices.

You either bury your pride or you die choking on it.

So Amalthea Devaliant, the last daughter of her family’s dynasty, sought the enemy king. “I want to make a deal.”

Alexios, Eternal of Asteria, God of Storms, had been alive long before humans dreamed of empires. He’d fought battles that had aged him more than seven thousand years ever could, and of all the wars he’d survived, this one had scarred him deepest. If the princess wanted peace, she’d have to prove it and pay the price.

And Alexios only traded in blood.

He drew a dagger from between his crimson and black wings, pressing the hilt to Amalthea’s palm. “There are worse things than being tired of war,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Being hungry for it.”

She couldn’t argue with that. They had a hundred reasons to hate each other, but hatred takes something from you, and neither had anything left to give. Just two broken realms and pyres stacked high with enough bodies to block out the sun for days. A conflict with no end in sight.

Unless she ended it.

The princess shut her eyes and raised the knife. It felt wrong somehow—too delicate for sacrifice, too cruel for salvation. But a bargain is a bargain, and the God of Storms wasn’t known for changing his mind. So she pressed the weapon to her chest.

Breathe in. Hold. Let go.

This is how you save a world.

She plunged the blade in.

It hit her all at once—metal scraping bone, blood spilling over her fingers, her legs giving out. Then falling, hitting the ground hard. Amalthea stared up at a sky she couldn’t quite focus on as numbness crept through her limbs.

It’s worth it. It’ll all be worth it.

Alexios kneeled beside her and cut open his palms, mingling his blood with hers. He spoke the ancient rites that would bind them. When the last syllable fell from his lips, a ripple went through the world. Starlight and iridescent color spread over the mountains—a veil separating the god and human realms. A Shroud held in place by a promise. A lineage. An Accord carved into every temple altar in Vartena, written in stone, in blood, in memory.

And with its birth, the war gasped its final breath.

The humans rebuilt and recovered. Their recollections of those dark days were worn smooth by time, and eventually, all who fought and survived that horrific era were gone. Their descendants remained in blissful ignorance.

But the gods? They lived with the terrible clarity of immortal memory. They couldn’t erase the taste of ashes, the sight of the pyres, the trauma of losing children and lovers and family.

This story is about what comes after, when promises are stretched thin and treaties wear down until they break. This is about what happens when humans forget that peace is paid for in blood.

This is what happens when everything goes to shit.

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1

BRYONY

Three hundred years later

DEATH WEARS A beautiful face, and he’s come to collect a soul.

I take my morning walk through the palace woods, counting my steps like always, when a strange pressure builds in the air. Like before a storm rolls in and the world seems to hold its breath. A sparrow’s trill cuts off mid-note. The breeze dies. It all just…

Stops.

“Help me.”

A man staggers from behind a tree. One look, and I know he’s not supposed to be here. He’s not a guard, not a servant, and definitely not a noble. Just an intruder caked in days’ worth of dirt who somehow slipped past walls and sentries meant to keep him out.

“Hide me,” he says, lunging forward to seize my arm. “Please.”

That’s when I see it: seared into the skin of his inner wrist is a closed eye slashed through.

Oathbreaker.

The power saturating the forest, the unnatural charge—it’s a god. And this man is what it wants.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

I pull against him, but the stranger is desperate, and desperate men are strong. Dangerous. He’s panting in uneven little gasps, his hold tightening. The palace is right beyond those trees. Guards patrol these paths. If I run—

“Let her go. Now.”

The words drop like stones into a still pond.

The stranger and I freeze. My heart gives a painful lurch as that stormy pressure from before suddenly shoves hard against me.

Shit.

Slowly, I turn.

The god is beautiful in that alluring way of predators. Tall, dark-haired, wearing gleaming golden armor that leaves his muscular arms bare. He has a face more suited to a work of art than a death dealer. Like all gods, his skin shimmers in the light, but his wings are unique. Singular. Pure gold feathers from ridge to tip, as if they’ve been dipped in molten metal.

He flexes them slightly, an unmistakable warning in the small movement. Don’t touch.

Don’t even think about it.

I’d know him anywhere. No one grows up in Vartena without hearing stories about the golden assassin who serves as Alexios’ right hand. I’ve seen the murals on the temple walls painted with images of this god and the carnage he leaves behind.

The Wolf.

And I’m standing between him and his prey.

My eyes meet his, and I go cold. Not because of the bright, unnatural color—gilt and amber—but the way they pin me in place with the flat, dead glare of a hunter deciding which category of problem I fall into: nuisance or inconvenience.

“Please.”