We are thrilled to be revealing the cover for Maxym M. Martineau’s upcoming novel, Shadows of the Lost! Releasing on June 6th 2023 from Sourcebooks Casablanca and available to pre-order soon, read on to discover the cover, synopsis and an excerpt from Shadows of the Lost!
SYNOPSIS
Gaige is a Charmer, able to form lasting bonds with the magical beasts of his world. At least, he used to be a Charmer…until he died and was brought back something darker.
He knows he shouldn’t blame Kost for raising him from death, but he’s not sure he can ever forgive him. Yet when Gaige is lost to the shadow realm, Kost is the only one with any chance of bringing him back: if they can learn to trust (and perhaps love) each other again.
EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT
Kost
I couldn’t bear to look at him. Not for more than a few moments.
Shadows writhed around Gaige, slithering between the cushions and coiling around his legs with abandon. He had no desire to control them. To harness his newfound power as an undying assassin and form weapons out of the darkness. Instead, he let them run wild as if they were beasts he didn’t have the power to charm. His resistance was what brought me to this quiet alcove. There wasn’t another assassin in sight—rare for the size of our manor and the number of members we housed. The only group I’d passed on my way to the library had been huddled around the coffee table in the parlor, trying to distract themselves with a game of Klimkota. But try as they might, the bright, gem-colored pieces and tiered board could only hold their attention for so long. Gaige’s shadows wreathing the open doorway to the library were impossible to ignore.
And so were the guild members’ whispered concerns.
“What’s going to happen to him? What if he hurts one of us?”
“I heard he’s refusing to train.”
“Maybe he should go back to Hireath. He doesn’t want to be here, not really.”
Hireath. When Ocnolog, a legendary dragon beast, rose from his underground tomb, he’d destroyed the peaceful city. Gone were the elaborate houses built high in the trees. The breathtaking keep that’d been carved out of an alabaster mountain near the falls had been reduced to rubble. The gargantuan tree housing the library—burned to ash. Ocnolog had leveled it all. Set it ablaze and never looked back. There was nothing left but debris, charred trees, and scorched grass. Fortunately, we’d evacuated everyone before he’d awoken. While many used the newfound peace between Wilheim, the capital city of Lendria, and the Charmers to find homes elsewhere, Hireath was still a sacred site. The Charmer’s Council would not rest until it was restored to its former glory.
Most of the Charmer’s Council.
“What do you want?” Gaige asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
I’d never heard a more loaded question. There was a veritable number of things I desired from Gaige, but only one wish came to mind in that moment: control. No, safety. I wanted him safe.
“Why aren’t you training?” My gaze cut to the window behind him, overlooking the back lawns of Cruor. There, my second-in-command, Ozias, and third-in-command, Calem, were running drills with some of the newer members. Gaige hadn’t trained once since his transition from living to undead, from beast charmer to assassin. It’d been over a month, and while I could afford him some leniency to mourn his former life, it was time he started training in earnest.
“Because I don’t want to.” Gaige didn’t bother to look up from his book, instead turning a page painstakingly slow, as if he enjoyed the gentle scrape of parchment on parchment.
“That’s hardly a reason.” I brushed my hands along my vest before crossing my arms. “You must train.”
“I mustn’t do anything.”
Clenching my teeth, I fought back an exasperated huff. “Gaige. This isn’t negotiable. You’re not in control.”
He snapped his book shut and chucked it across the library. It careened past shelves loaded with worn tomes and headed straight for the low-hanging, candlelit chandelier dangling above one of the heavy wood tables. Just before it hit its mark, shadows leapt from the crevices of the room and snared the book.
“That looks like control to me.” His rich, baritone voice was edged with resentment and something sharp. And I knew that unnamed emotion, the one that felt so much like hatred and disgust, was aimed directly at me.
I opened my mouth to respond when his shadows quivered as if they’d been electrified. They shifted to menacing spires and speared the book, slicing clean through the pages and binding. A flurry of torn parchment churned in the dark chaos of his power until the tendrils finally dissipated, leaving nothing but a pile of shredded book behind.
My stomach knotted several times over. “I see you and I have different definitions of control.”
Gaige’s jaw tightened, and he looked away.
Learning to wield the shadows was a necessity. If they grew without restraint, uncontained and ravenous, they’d devour their host and pull them deep into the shadow realm, never to be seen again. I’d only witnessed such a fate once before. Even then, Talmage, a previous guild master of Cruor, killed the assassin before the darkness could engulf him entirely. The power behind those virulent ink-black tendrils had been otherworldly.
And Gaige’s shadows were nearly as disastrous.
“You cannot prolong this any longer. You are undead. You walk with the shadows. This is your life now. You choose it, so it’s time to lead it.”
He shot up from his seat, fists clenched by his side. Gloved fists. “Tell yourself whatever you need to in order to absolve your own guilt, but I did not choose this. I’m dealing with the hand I’ve been dealt, and I’ll do whatever I damn please with this wretched existence that’s been forced upon me.”
My brows shot up, and I stepped forward, going toe to toe with the man I’d once thought I might love. “Wretched? Is that what you think of this place? Of your brethren? Calem? Ozias? Me?”
His nostrils flared as heat colored his eyes a dangerous shade of steel. He raised his right hand between us and yanked the glove off. I cringed. His faded Charmer’s symbol never ceased to wrack my body with guilt. Before, the inked marking had been a vibrant, citrine tree full of life. Now… It was nothing more than a smeared, charcoal etching. A permanent reminder of the beast realm, and all the beloved creatures, he could no longer access.
All because of me.
“How many times, Kost?” His voice was barely a whisper, but it simmered with so much fury it felt as though he’d shouted. “How many times do we have to have this conversation? You will never comprehend what I lost the day I died.”
He stared at me for moments on end, waiting for me to break. And I almost did. I almost slumped to the bay window bench and buried my head in my hands. I was so desperate to end this agony for the both of us. I wanted to stop fighting. I wanted things to just be easy, for once. I wanted things to go back to the way they were before he’d met his demise in the Kitska Forest, and yet I was ashamed to even think that. Those were the very words that had been uttered to me when I’d been raised and subsequently left by someone I loved.
Slowly, I exhaled and willed my frustration to flee. I would not do that to Gaige. I would not leave him to face this fate alone. I’d known that begging Noc, the former guild master of Cruor, to raise Gaige would result in consequences. I’d known it’d make it impossible for him to call on his Charmer magic ever again. And still I pushed for it to happen. His fate was my responsibility.
“I’m not here to discuss what you lost, Gaige. I’m here to help you forge a new path forward, even if you didn’t want it to begin with.” I stepped around him, nearing the window and gazing at the silhouettes of training assassins in the faded, heather-purple light of dusk. Swallowing thickly, I tugged at the hem of my vest. “I can train you privately, if you’d prefer.”
Gaige blinked, and for a moment, there was a sliver of the man I used to know. A surprised curl to his lips. A mischievous glint to his eyes. He seemed to recognize his inadvertent reaction, though, and he squashed it immediately.
“There was a time I would have taken you up on that offer. For something else, of course,” he said. My ears burned with his insinuation—so at odds with the suffocating weight of despair in my chest. Slowly, he re-gloved his hand. I doubted I’d ever feel the gentle touch of his fingers again. “But not anymore.”
“Someone else then.” I hated the way my voice came out shaky and weak. “I don’t care who trains you, just get it done. That’s an order from your guild master.”
He chuckled, a dark, nasty sound. “And just how are you going to enforce that? You’re my guild master in name only. I won’t be doing your bidding.”
“I only have so much patience, Gaige. If you continue to bait me…”
“Oh, come on.” Gaige pushed past me as a whirlwind of shadows encircled him. “Don’t you have better things to do? Go run the guild. I promise I’ll, I don’t know, not destroy a book next time.” He toed the shredded pile of parchment and binding for effect, and then let the swirling tendrils swallow him whole. So dark and all-consuming were his shadows that I couldn’t even track his movements. One moment he was there and the next he was gone, whisked away to gods only knew where.
I stormed down one of the aisles until I found a shelf heavy with tomes against the back wall. With far more force than necessary, I tugged a muted-yellow book by the binding, and the hidden door leading to the guild master’s private study swung open. I stepped through and slammed it shut behind me. The telltale, muffled thud of books falling followed, but I didn’t bother to reopen the passage and clean up the mess I’d made.
With the books or Gaige?
Exhaling tightly, I pushed that thought away and sank into the ornate, stuffed chair behind the desk. I grazed a few pieces of parchment. Bounties. A dull ache simmered behind my eyes, and I rubbed my temples. Becoming Cruor’s new guild master was an expected development. Noc couldn’t possibly be both king and guild master, and as his second-in-command, it was only logical for me to take over.
Yet, both Noc and Leena—Crown of the Charmer’s Council, Queen of Lendria, and a sister to me despite our initial rocky beginning—had been somewhat resistant to the idea. They wanted me to remain in Wilheim with them as their advisor. While the idea of dissecting political agendas and helping to strategize the wellbeing of an entire nation had its appeal, there were things here that needed a close eye. One thing—person—in particular, but he wasn’t exactly easy to watch. For the time being, the work that came with being guild master was a wonderful distraction. But even with ample jobs and responsibilities before me, I still couldn’t find the will to focus on my duties.
A whisper of shadows swirled in the corner, and I stilled. Tendrils pulled from every hidden crevice in the office, and they interwove in indistinct patterns until knitting together in the shape of a man. Noc. He craned his neck from side to side before tucking his hands in the pockets of his fitted trousers. He didn’t wear a crown, but the royal insignia, a griffin, was embroidered on the chest of his tunic. It should have been a bold silver, but the shadows washed out all color. Even the crystalline-blue shade of his eyes.
“Your majesty,” I said, burying my frustrations with Gaige in a smile. It was genuine, at least. Seeing my friend would always bring me joy. Shadow walking meant we could visit each other whenever we desired, despite the distance between Cruor and Wilheim. It was a small boon in an otherwise unfortunate predicament. I’d never expected the guild to feel so empty without him.
He scoffed, and the shadows about his jaw fluttered in response. “Not you, too. Calem already says it every chance he can.”
“He does it precisely because it elicits a rise out of you.” I leaned back in the chair, allowing my muscles to mold into the worn fabric. It’d only been a week since Noc and Leena’s wedding and subsequent crowning ceremony. And Calem, who was undoubtedly causing a ruckus somewhere within the guild, made it a point to refer to Noc as “king” whenever the opportunity arose.
“Yeah, well,” he glanced about the room, as if taking in the familiar surroundings of his former office, “I’ll have to come up with something equally irritating to call him.”
“Good luck with that.” I braced my elbows on the desk. “How’s everything going?”
“We’re making progress. Trade has officially reopened with Rhyne, so we should see and increased shipment in goods in the coming weeks.”
“That’s good. Is Rhyne in need of any assistance with their borders? I’m sure we can afford to send a few members if necessary.” I shuffled the parchment before me, eyeing requests and the details of the bounties.
“Not necessary.” Noc ghosted his hand along the bookshelves lining the wall as he moved toward the desk. Shadows dissipated and appeared with every subtle shift as he toyed with the bindings. “If anything, we need the help in Hireath.”
A nagging sensation trickled down my spine, and I pursed my lips. “Gaige hasn’t been back yet.”
“I know.” Noc came to a halt across from me, eyes cast downward. “Kaori and Raven have been asking about him. They’re handling the rebuilding effort just fine, but they worry. We all do.” Of course the members of the Charmer’s Council were asking about Gaige. He’d been a residing member for decades. Kaori and Raven were his closest friends. Yet, he’d cut off contact with them and ignored discussing his home altogether.
“He won’t train. Not with me, not with Ozias, not with anyone.” I stood and began to pace as the study walls closed in around me. Ozias was an expert at teaching members of Cruor to control the shadows. Even so, he couldn’t coax Gaige to learn.
And that was a dangerous thing.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“How close is he?” Noc’s question was barely audible, but it rang through my mind with the force of a gong.
“Too close.” I stopped and removed my glasses, pinching the bridge of my nose. Then, I extracted a small, mulberry cloth from my breast pocket and polished the lenses. “I don’t think he has much time left.”
Noc strode toward me and placed his hands on my shoulders. The lack of true contact was apparent, but the icy familiarity of those dark tendrils soothed my frayed nerves. “He’ll come around. He has to.”
Or he won’t, and we’ll lose him to the shadows. The unspoken truth of Gaige’s future hung heavy in the air, and I clenched my jaw.
Noc let his hands fall to his sides. “Leena and I leave tomorrow for Rhyne. When we return, we’ll stop through Cruor on our way to Hireath. If he hasn’t figured it out by then, she’ll knock some sense into him.”
With a quiet sigh, I replaced my glasses. “I hope she’s successful.”
“She will be.” Noc tipped his chin ever so slightly, peering at me for a long moment before frowning. “I hate to leave to abruptly but…”
“Go.” I waved him off as I returned to the desk. I slid into the chair and grabbed the nearest quill and inkwell. “I need to evaluate these contracts and determine who would be best suited for the jobs.”
“Maybe Gaige needs an assignment. Purpose will help.” Shadows gathered around him, temporarily darkening the room. He hesitated for a breath, half his body already lost to the shadow realm and other still firmly planted in my study.
“We won’t lose him, Kost.”
But as I nodded in answer and Noc disappeared, I couldn’t help but feel like we’d lost Gaige already. The man we knew before had died. This new person was shrouded in a sinister darkness I couldn’t control. No matter how much I wanted to try and pierce that veil, I wasn’t sure he’d let me.
One way or another, the shadows would come calling. And the only person who could stop them was Gaige.
