We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Gabriella Buba’s Saints of Storm and Sorrow, an epic fantasy debut featuring a bisexual nun hiding a goddess-given gift, unwillingly transformed into a lightning rod for her people’s struggle against colonization, publishing with Titan Books on June 25th.
María Lunurin has been living a double life for as long as she can remember. To the world, she is Sister María, dutiful nun and devoted servant of Aynila’s Codicían colonizers. But behind closed doors, she is a stormcaller, chosen daughter of the Aynilan goddess Anitun Tabu. In hiding not only from the Codicíans and their witch hunts, but also from the vengeful eye of her slighted goddess, Lunurin does what she can to protect her fellow Aynilans and the small family she has created in the convent: her lover Catalina, and Cat’s younger sister Inez.
Lunurin is determined to keep her head down—until one day she makes a devastating discovery, which threatens to tear her family apart. In desperation, she turns for help to Alon Dakila, heir to Aynila’s most powerful family, who has been ardently in love with her for years. But this choice sets in motion a chain of events beyond her control, awakening Anitun Tabu’s rage and putting everyone Lunurin loves in terrible danger. Torn between the call of Alon’s magic and Catalina’s jealousy, her duty to her family and to her people, Lunurin can no longer keep Anitun Tabu’s fury at bay.
The goddess of storms demands vengeance. And she will sweep aside anyone who stands in her way.
“You’re a stormcaller.” Tiya Halili tucked her thick curling hair, grown back too fast, frighteningly fast, back into her bun, securing it with her mutya. “And we must never let our hair down unless we are prepared for the consequences, for what we are is vengeance.”
But why shouldn’t she have vengeance? If she were allowed to be useful…
The Inquisition’s galleons would be so much shattered timber upon the waves.
Lunurin let the terrible voice of her goddess die behind her clenched teeth. This resentment was not hers. She’d caused this mess by listening to the angry goddess of storms, who longed for a typhoon that would destroy the Codicían colonizers’ flotilla—along with the Stormfleet, and every lowland village and harbor city of the archipelago.
Lunurin wouldn’t let her goddess use her for destruction. Not again.
She wished she could cast off this power entirely, cut her hair and give up her mutya—the gleaming mother-of-pearl comb and its matching hair prong, topped with the lightningshaped pearl that marked her as one chosen by the Goddess of Storms and Sky, Anitun Tabu. She wished she could break them without breaking what little control she still had. More than that, better she’d never found a pearl at all. That she could be without any gift, with only a mother-of-pearl mutya from an empty shell to show for her naming dive. A daughter of Calilan, but one not doomed to bring destruction to her home, whose goddess did not whisper in her ear.
A true stormcaller would not struggle so, wouldn’t need the dugong bone amulet achingly heavy on her chest. Perhaps her stepfather was right. Her Codicían blood made her baliwka, crazy, and her inay was a fool for keeping the child of a shipwrecked Codicían priest. Now not even her inay could protect her, though she was Datu and chief of the island, nor her Tiya Halili, to whom all the Stormfleet answered. A stormcaller must never be a liability to the fleet.
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Saints of Storm and Sorrow
All the protections her mother and tiyas had left to give weighed upon her as they neared the ship. There was the dugong bone amulet—a precaution no captain would have her aboard without. There were the weights sewn into the tapiz skirt at her waist: a fortune in silver-grey pearls from the sacred oyster beds her Tiya Halili tended. From her inay, letters of entreaty to distant cousins in Lanao, begging them to teach Lunurin control. And— in case she was caught—a different set of letters in Codicían, declaring that she was the daughter of Father Mateo de Palma, and demanding she be taken to him before the Inquisition could mete out judgment. Letters to an aunt she’d never known in Aynila, an abbess at the Convent of Saint Augustine, letters of leverage and blackmail, in case having failed as her mother’s daughter, she must try to live in her father’s world. Lunurin pressed the letters against her body, all her inay’s hopes for her, every bit of politicking she knew and had tried to teach Lunurin. She clenched her hand around the bone amulet, a sign of how terribly she had failed her tiyas’ training. She didn’t dare beg their forgiveness. There was nothing more they could do. The thought of leaving Calilan and giving up on her place in the Stormfleet terrified her, but she knew she couldn’t stay.
Her inay sealed the agreement with the captain, offering in thanks a purse full of the silvery black-lip pearls the godsblessed of Calilan held sacred—though he turned them down. Along with a cargo of indigo dye and cloth, the captain and his tide-touched wife had brought warning—too late—of the Codicían flotilla that had been sighted chasing down a dozen Stormfleet vessels among the reef shoals west of the island.
As the sun sank low, her inay hugged Lunurin close, sniffing both her cheeks one last time. She tucked Lunurin into the prow alongside sacks of pounded rice, tart sheaves of lemongrass, and baskets of ginger, out of the way of the rowers and sails.
“They will take you south, to Lanao. The Codicíans have no established forts there. The rajs have repelled even the priests,” her inay whispered as she pulled away.
Lunurin grasped after her skirts, desperate to prolong this parting, but was distracted when a scrawny ship’s boy squeezed past. He scrambled into the narrow space beside her, pulling his legs in close. She wondered what he’d been told, if he was afraid her ill-luck was catching, like so many on Calilan.
“Sorry, my brother says I’m in the way of the rowers.” His gaptoothed grin flashed white in a deep brown face still round with baby fat. He couldn’t be more than twelve, with black salt-stiff hair hanging down his back. Her longer limbs took up more space in the prow than was probably fair. “I’m Alon,” he added.
Lunurin answered in quick trader hand sign. “I’m Lunurin. Who’s your brother?” These Aynilans spoke a lowland dialect similar to Calilan’s, but there was a lump in her throat she couldn’t speak past. Hundreds of languages were spoken across the archipelago, many dozens across the Stormfleet. Everyone learned trader sign to smooth over difficulties, enabling allimportant haggling.
Alon signed back his answer. “The captain, Jeian! Aizza is his wife. When she’s aboard this is the fastest ship in the archipelago.”
He pointed out the tall, sea-brown tide-touched woman who had approached the helm. In a low, melodic voice, she began a prayer for friendly currents that was familiar and yet subtly different from Calilan’s. Her style of dress was distinct from the other Aynilan sailors. She was a bayok katalonan, raised a boy until she dove for her mutya and was called to serve the Sea Lady, Aman Sinaya, as one of her sacred priestesses.
The captain smiled at her. Several rowers tapped their mutya—bangles, amulets, and earrings, all of the gold-lip mother-of-pearl Aynila was famous for—dipping them into the sea or raising them to the breeze. Prayers for good luck to her and Aizza. No ship could be safer, with both a tide-touched and a stormcaller aboard.
They didn’t know.
They were probably the only ones who didn’t blame her for today’s disaster. They had no idea what Lunurin had done.
The thought filled her with relief.
Lunurin’s chest tightened. She had no right to feel relieved.
She bolted up, craning to see her mother and tiyas on the dock. Alon called out a warning and steadied her as the ship pulled away with a lurch. Lunurin couldn’t take her eyes off the three figures dwindling in the distance. She would never be enough. Not as a stormcaller, not as a Datu’s daughter. The sea went the color of blood in the sunset, the three women’s features dark and indistinguishable. What if they were glad to see her go? Guilt gnawed at her insides, insidious and bitter. Alon remained silent when she dropped into a crouch and buried her face into her knees, but he didn’t pull away.
She might’ve grieved forever, as the full moon rose, and stars came wheeling out overhead. The ship skimmed over the water, until Calilan was not even a dark blot upon the horizon. The smooth rush of calm seas and the friendly push of the Sea Lady’s power felt as familiar as breathing as the night slipped away.
Suddenly, she felt the tides change. A rogue wave crashed against the hull, dousing Lunurin in salt spray. It shunted the ship crosswise, spinning on Aizza’s current. Lunurin and Alon were flung across the prow. Lunurin screamed and curled her arms around both their heads as sacks of grain crushed them against a wooden chest. How could a wave turn rogue against a ship with a tide-touched katalonan at the helm?
A wall of rain and wind caught them with a roar, as loud as when Calilan’s caldera woke, howling ash and fury to the sky until the firetenders could soothe her back to sleep. A too-real roar, close to the ship.
Lunurin held tight to Alon, but he wriggled free. He scurried back with two tie-lines, and looped the end of one rope around Lunurin’s waist, lashing it tight. The rowers fought with sails that cracked and strained in the wind.
Lunurin reached to loosen her hair. She could easily calm the gale. She grasped for the threads of her power, trying to decide where she should pull to bring the squall to heel, but though the wind roared past her ears, she couldn’t parse the voices of the storm. Her power felt dim and far away.
Cursing, she pulled the dugong bone amulet over her head, tucking it into her waist pouch where it wouldn’t touch her skin. It was a risk—her power was a liability on open water. But if they couldn’t bring in the sails they would capsize and drown either way.
Then, through the driving wall of rain and ship-breaking swells, she saw it. A long, sinuous body, sea-dark, yet illuminated from within, as if each scale were outlined in glowing copper wire. Long fins trailed the water in its wake, each alight with different shades of bronze fire. At every flick and twist of the mesmerizing pattern of scales, the waves crashed higher and the storm’s fury raged. She could hear Aizza’s voice above the wind, strong with all a katalonan’s breath training, trying to wrestle control of the sea current away from the creature. But this was no ordinary sea beast. It was the laho, the bakunawa, a mooneater, and tonight was the full moon. The sea dragon was at the height of its power.
“Tabi, tabi po.” Lunurin’s whispered warding shredded in the wind.
It was a mistake, her voice too loud without her amulet to shield her. Hadn’t she learned her lesson? Lunurin stared in horror as the laho reared up over the ship, higher and higher. Behind it rose a wave that blotted out the sky. Serpent and wave hung over the ship, its great horned face and frilled mane sluicing waterfalls of seawater across the deck, knocking men from their feet, tearing cargo free.
The huge pearl set in its brow glowed. Lunurin heard her goddess, Anitun Tabu, speak. “Don’t hide yourself, Daughter. Do not tear yourself from my arms! Come to Aynila. Together we could set things right. It has been too long since the eye of my storm has gazed on Aynila. Our people cry out for vengeance! How can you forswear your promise to me?” They were all still, trapped in the laho’s burning gaze like the wave it held, ready to wipe them from the face of the sea.
Fury bloomed in Lunurin’s chest. She lunged to her feet.
“If I stay, I die; if I go to Aynila, I’ll die! Is that what you want, Anitun Tabu? I’d rather just sink now, if that’s your grand plan. They’re killing us. One by one, they’re killing us, all because of me, all because of what you made me do!”
The laho roared. Her goddess’s fury half battered her to the deck.
Lunurin screamed back defiance, throat aching. “All you ever want is death. Even these people, your people, you would let them all die if it meant you got your way. No more! I am done. If this is what you want, I will not even think your name.” She pulled her mutya from her hair, freeing it to the wind and storm. She sang out above the rolling thunder, an old song, one every child on the archipelago knew. A song that could never be turned to devastation, no matter what Anitun Tabu desired. It was the song the katalonan sang when children were taken to dive for the sacred oysters to fashion their mutya from the mother-of-pearl-lined shells, and to discover if they might be named gods-blessed.
A song for an ambon, the sun shower.
An eye opened in the thunderheads above. The full moon stared down, and the laho became distracted. In one long, sinuous movement, the serpent launched upward as if it would swallow the moon whole. Its gleaming tail whipped the clouds to whirling cyclones before it vanished into the sky. The winds tore at the ship, sending debris shredding through the air.
Then the laho’s wake crashed down. It caught Alon, with his half-fastened rope.
“ALON!” Lunurin screamed, and three goddesses leaned close to hear the name.
He caught the outrigger as he was swept overboard, but oars torn loose from their cradle crashed down over him and he was gone, his tie-line limp in the water, his body sinking into the midnight depths.
Lunurin took two running steps and dove.
The water pounded in her ears. Laho-riled currents tugged at her hair and salt stung her eyes, but she swam down and down. No one else would die because she couldn’t control her power. She would not allow it.
And somehow in the crushing darkness of the water, just as she was sure she had no more breath left, her hand closed on wet cloth. She curled her arm around Alon’s narrow waist and kicked for the surface. She chased the precious silvery stream of their breath up into the night air. They broke the surface not far behind the ship, the sea having gone eerily calm in the laho’s absence.
A dozen hands hauled on Lunurin’s tie-line, and helped pull them from the sea. Water and blood painted the deck black in the moonlight. Aizza bent over Alon’s body, palms dragging circular motions over his still chest. She drew the water from Alon’s lungs till he heaved, sputtering saltwater and foam. Lunurin nearly wept with relief.
Then he opened his hand, offering her a huge, gnarled gold-lip oyster cradled in his bleeding palm. It seemed a miracle he’d been able to close his injured fingers around it at all. Bone shone white in the wash of blood streaming down his fingers.
Lunurin’s heart beat a staccato rhythm of panic. Another disaster.
A cheer went up from the crew. The captain bent to kiss his brother’s brow and sniff his cheeks. No matter the situation, a naming to the gods and a child’s dive was a moment for celebration, one that was becoming rarer as the Codicíans’ Inquisition extended their reach and their disapproval of the old ways.
Lunurin seized Alon’s still extended hand by the wrist and thrust it at Aizza. She couldn’t be saddled with the responsibility of crafting someone’s mutya. She’d contaminate Alon with her ill-luck, if she hadn’t already.
Aizza ruffled Alon’s hair. “Your mother will be beside herself she missed this. But who can argue with a naming like that?” Her hand traced the shape of the laho, rearing toward the moon. “Fit for the songs. I will write it myself.”
Aizza shucked the oyster and plunged her fingers into the soft body, pulling a huge, round pearl from within. It gleamed bright as the full moon. “Alon Dakila, son of the Lakan, has been chosen by Aman Sinaya! A blessing for all Aynila!” she declared to a roar of approval from the crew.
Aizza leaned closer to Alon, and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “I knew you would be one for the Sea Lady like me. Your mother thought you’d take after your firetender cousins, but I knew.”
Aizza tucked the pearl into Alon’s uninjured hand and ate the oyster, completing the ritual. She then set to work stopping the bleeding of his injured hand.
Lunurin and Alon shared a dazed look. When he grinned at her, Lunurin couldn’t help the answering smile that pulled her cheeks so taut they hurt. A bubble of incredulous laughter filled her throat.
A sailor pulled the captain aside, saying, “Even with Aizza we’ll be lucky to make port in Aynila. With the damage to the ship and injured crew, there’s no way we’ll reach Lanao.”
Lunurin’s mirth died.
Anitun Tabu was never truly thwarted, only delayed. Old gods could afford to be patient.
Excerpted from Saints of Storm and Sorrow, copyright © 2024 by Gabriella Buba.
