Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Carissa Broadbent (best book recommendations txt) 📖

of your kidnapping story, but only pieces. Of course we need to hold those responsible accountable.”

My mouth went dry. I kept my expression very still.

“Max told me the kidnapper is already imprisoned.” Or dead, maybe, by now. Not that I even remembered that person’s face — just their arms around my throat, and hand over my mouth.

No, it wasn’t his face that slipped into my nightmares. That honor went to Fijra and her grandmother, instead.

“But was he the only one involved?” Nura asked. Her tone said, I’ve seen you dismantle armies, and that rat managed to take you alone?

“I should have been paying more attention.” I shook my head. “I was tired. And I was walking alone, coming back from visiting the refugees. All it took was one second of distraction. Stupid of me.”

Nura gave me a long stare. I could feel Max’s eyes, too, bearing into the side of my face.

Then she shrugged and turned away. “You’re lucky,” she said. “That could have been a much deadlier mistake.”

Chapter Fifty

Aefe

Niraja was spoken of in hushed whispers, or more often, not at all — as if it were some place that lingered on the other side of the world. But in truth, Niraja was an island that sat to the south, not far from the House of Nautilus. Journeying there did not take long. Their gates were barely visible in the distance when we dismounted and donned our (still, I insisted, utterly ridiculous) costumes.

“Help me with this one?” I asked Caduan, pinching fabric around my waist and handing him a pin. He was silent as he leaned forward and pinned the chiffon around me. His hands, as always, were incredibly warm. He stood close enough that I could feel his breath on the crest of my ear.

“Thank you,” I muttered, suddenly shy.

I expected him to pull away. But instead, he stayed oddly close, running his gaze down my body in a way that sent a shiver up my spine.

“Your tattoos are beautiful,” he said, quietly. He said it in a matter-of-fact tone, and yet there was something about that tone that made me carefully avoid eye contact for reasons I didn’t fully understand.

“All Sidnee warriors have them.”

I didn’t look at him. But strange, how I could feel his gaze shifting away from the intricate beauty of my tattoos to the black x’s that covered my entire left arm.

He didn’t ask. So I wasn’t sure why I said, “I have had many victories. But I have also made many mistakes.”

“What kind of mistakes earn these?”

I swallowed. “Some petty. Some… not.”

I heard the question that Caduan didn’t ask.

“One time,” I admitted, “I beat a fellow Blade nearly to death.”

I would have killed him, had Siobhan not pulled me off of him. I blinked away the memory. The man’s face had been nothing but smears of violet, bloody flesh, bone visible beneath his wounds. He didn’t come back to the Blades. Still couldn’t walk properly.

The memory came with a pang of shame. I had never volunteered such information about myself before — these were my ugly parts, the impulsive and rash deficiencies that I tried desperately to file away. I wasn’t sure why I was telling Caduan this.

I forced myself to lift my gaze. He wasn’t looking at me with judgement. Just with a quiet, curious gaze.

“And what did your colleague do to deserve that?” he asked.

“He made a joke about my sister.”

“A joke?”

“A joke about raping her.”

Mathira, that snake. For a moment I vividly remembered the way his bones felt cracking beneath my fists and I relished the memory.

“I don’t regret it,” I said, quietly. “Sometimes I wish I had killed him.”

One corner of Caduan’s mouth tightened. “I suspect it wouldn’t have been a great loss to the world if you had.” His gaze softened, and he added, more quietly, “Your sister is very fortunate to have you.”

I smiled, but beneath it, I felt a bittersweet twinge. How strange, to hear someone say that to me.

“Perhaps,” I said, “but that’s just one X. You should hear about the others before you say that.”

Caduan let out a low chuckle, and with the sound, a certain tension between us relaxed. Still, I crossed my arms and realized I had goosebumps.

“They’re all lovely,” he said. “But I think they might undermine some of our secrecy. Can I hide them?”

I nodded.

He reached out and touched my arm — just the lightest touch of three fingers. Still, I had to stop myself from jumping, carefully avoiding eye contact. There was always something that felt… strange about even the smallest and most innocent of Caduan’s touches. Especially now that I had felt his magic thrumming in my veins. It was like I could feel the remnants of it coming to the surface every time the space between us narrowed.

Then my interest overcame my discomfort. I looked down and watched as my tattoos slowly blurred and faded, like they were being covered layer by layer by dust, until all that remained was the smooth tan of my skin.

I held my left hand up, turning it. I could not remember the last time I’d seen myself unmarked this way. It was an odd sensation — to bear no markers of my shame.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Of course.” And he hesitated for just a moment before he turned away and went to Siobhan.

I let Ishqa handle writing to the Nirajan nobles, announcing our intention to visit. Even though the Nirajans didn’t have the bad blood with the Wyshraj that they did with the Sidnee, I was still skeptical that they would welcome a visit from any powerful Fey house, after we had all excommunicated them. Ishqa’s confidence, however, turned out to be well-founded. A few letters back and forth, and soon, the gates of Niraja were opening for us.

Niraja was an island kingdom, situated right in the center of the sea that separated the Fey lands to the north from the human nations to the south.