Playing the Fool, Taking the Seas

Kane's father was murdered and the killer was never found. Kane is a God of Magic, one of the few there have ever been, and he keeps that hidden and goes about as a pirate with a taste for women and drink because a fool is told things a legend is not. He works the seas that way for years, following what leads he has toward whoever ordered his father's death. The Empire he answers to falls under attack from the rival Kingdom and looks likely to be finished, and at that point staying hidden costs more than it saves. He shows what he is. The conspiracy that killed his father runs back into the same quarter as the invasion, and he pulls it apart while breaking the fleet that came for the Empire, until the Kingdom's own God of Magic is the only thing left between him and the end of it. What he takes from the war is command of the navy, the pirates' allegiance, and the Queen.