Page 116 of Queen of Tempests and Sin

‘Oh, you’re on!’ I yelled back, digging my fingers into the slick reins as it dove. The world turned liquid—pressure and motion and light refracting in shards of turquoise.

The water should’ve burned my lungs, but it didn’t. The blood oath thrummed beneath my skin, ancient power weaving through me, turning air and sea into the same breath. For the first time, the ocean felt like home.

Then the hippocampus shot upward in a spray of saltwater that drenched us both. We laughed until our sides hurt, two goddesses on the backs of legends, skimming the ocean like wild things set loose.

I threw my head back, grinning wide, the wind tangling my hair and the sea kissing my skin.

When I glanced towards the boardwalk, Si and Hades stood side by side—Hades impassive, though the twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed him, and Si watching me with that look that said I was his whole damned world.

For the first time, I felt free.

And as the sea stretched endlessly before me, I knew what this new life meant: love, family, forever. Once, I had feared eternity. Now, I couldn’t wait to live it.

KARMA

A teaser from Queen of Starlight and Salvation

Madame Basilissa burned with a fury older than empires.

The obsidian cavern between realms—once a sanctuary for Oracles banished from Olympus—vibrated as she moved, the walls alive with whispers and half-remembered prophecies. Ancient sigils carved into the stone flared in startled recognition, their glow bending away from her as if unworthy to witness the full breadth of what simmered beneath her borrowed flesh.

Magic trembled around her, sensing the truth she concealed. A god walked these halls again—one the world believed had perished in the last war.

Persephone lived, spirited away by forces she had not foreseen. Basilissa’s contacts in the Underworld—threads she had woven over centuries, sealed with blood and deceit—had been severed by Hades in a single, merciless sweep.

But the failure that carved the deepest wound… The assassin had not killed Poseidon.

Basilissa’s hands curled into claws at the thought.

That mortal wretch had been given one task—one perfect opportunity to carve a crack through the brothers’ unity—and she had failed. She had gotten close, agonisingly close, only to collapse into sentiment and weakness.

Poseidon still breathed. Still walked. Still wielded his power unchecked.

Her fury roared inside her, a storm older than Olympus.

His death would have broken the brothers in half. It would have driven Zeus into panic and Hades into fury. It would have left the realms tottering, vulnerable, ripe for her return.

Instead—instead—she was denied the sweetest beginning to her vengeance. Denied the fracture that would have shattered their unity. Denied the chaos she craved.

And as if that insult were not enough, the three brothers—Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades—had not only reclaimed the Spartoi’s dragon teeth but had destroyed Ixion’s hidden enclave in Thebes, scattering her soldiers like ash on a storm wind.

The Spartoi. The bone-born warriors of Ares. Her key to resurrecting the old war that once nearly shattered Olympus.

Gone.

She stopped in the centre of the chamber, her breath uneven with rage. The cavern responded, the air thickening, pressing inward like a living thing.

At least the mortal assassin had supposedly died. A small victory—yet a satisfying one.

Poseidon, she knew, would be shattered by the loss. The bond he’d forged with that wretched human ran deeper than even he understood. His grief would make him reckless. Unbalanced. Vulnerable.

One down, she thought coldly. Hopefully. A minor step, yes—but the beginning of the unravelling she intended.

Basilissa lifted her goblet. Drákon blood—thick, shimmering, volatile—sloshed inside like molten rubies. She tilted it to her lips, letting the liquid burn across her tongue before sliding down her throat. Power detonated through her veins—falling embers turning into wildfire.

This was magic from the Elder Age. Magic from the first dawn. It tasted of storms before the sky existed, of mountains before their names, of power before Olympus built its first throne.

She drank greedily.