"The sky loves no king but its own. He who dares take the storm's hand shall drown in its breath and call it love."
—Fragment of the Storm Verses, Lost Tome of Velasyr
They say the storm is a god. Not the kind who blesses harvests or whispers through wheat fields. No—this god speaks in thunder and wears grief like a crown. The sky trembled for him, and the sea rose. The world drowned beneath the ache of his mourning.
They say it began when the sea goddess—his lover—drew in her waters. A punishment sparked by humankind's greed. The storm turned against mortals, and in every corner of the world, people felt its wrath.
He used that greed to trap them—built a prison-palace in the sky, where eternity could burn without end.
Until he came.
Velasyr.
The first mortal to climb the godspire barefoot, with nothing but sorrow in his chest and fury in his eyes. When the storm demanded a price, he carved out his heart and laid it on the altar of thunder.
The sky took it. Crowned him.
He became the Stormlord. Not by birthright, but by sacrifice. Wielder of wind. Prince of lightning. Master of cloud and ruin. But the sky is anything but merciful. It is jealous. Vengeful. And when the Stormlord gave his love to a mortal girl, the storm cursed him.
Not with death.
But with memory—eternal love, and the curse of never feeling it again.
Now, every generation, the Storm chooses a bride. It scorches the ground around a newborn's cottage in a ring of lightning. On her twenty-first birthday, the girl touched by thunder must bind the Storm. Thirty nights later, she must bind him—the Stormlord.
Her love means to tame him—to calm the skies, to keep him from breaking the world with his grief.
Until she doesn't.
They say his harem holds thousands—maybe millions. Brides, once loved, once crowned as queens. Now immortal. Now forgotten.
Many still worship the God of the Storm. Many have given more than they had to offer. Trapped in a sky-bound palace, they—hungry for power—bow to a cursed prince.
This year, I am the chosen one.
The first from Shellmere in over a century. The only one from this coast since then. I am to walk into the sky and give my soul to a man who loves like weather—fleeting, passing, never meant to stay. A man shared by all, yet belonging to none. A king of storms who remembers love but can no longer feel it.
Fate says I'll be a queen for a year, then another immortal soul lost to the skies.
I hate him. I hate fate.
But, gods help me—I want him anyway.