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

that erased the pretense that I could build around our primal desire. The kind that promised, This isn’t about bodies. This is about me, and you.

That was too much — too terrifying. I broke away from his kiss and dropped to my knees. My hands worked at the buttons of his trousers.

“Aefe.”

Gods, I had always hated the way he said my name.

Is hate the word?

I ignored him, but I only made it one button down before he stopped me. “Aefe, stop.” His fingers tilted my chin up. I didn’t realize I was crying until I looked up at him and couldn’t pull his features into focus through the blur of my tears.

His face changed immediately. He dropped to his knees, bowing his forehead against mine. One hand brushed my cheek.

“What happened?” he whispered. “Tell me what happened.”

I wanted to. I so wanted to.

But how could I? How could I say aloud that I was not my father’s daughter? That everything I had worked for my entire life was gone? That the stories tattooed on my skin weren’t even mine?

How could I tell him that the blood that ran through my veins was that of the people who slaughtered his?

I opened my mouth and garbled sobs came out. I couldn’t stop. I was weeping so hard that I barely felt myself keel over, or Caduan shift so that his arms were wrapped around me, my face buried against his shoulder. He was murmuring something into my hair that I didn’t understand. Perhaps it was old Stoneborn. The words had a smooth, comforting cadence.

“I can’t,” I choked out. “I can’t—”

“It’s alright,” he murmured. “You don’t have to say anything.”

I hated how easy it was. To believe him. To stay here, enveloped in him. To keep the truth buried inside of myself, where he could not judge me for it.

We stayed like that, intertwined, for minutes into hours. I breathed the scent of him in and held him, long after we fell back against the floor, and the hours crept towards dawn. I memorized the way his body felt against mine, the beat of his heart and his breathing, the way his limbs wrapped around me with the same deliberate steadiness with which Caduan approached everything else in the world.

It occurred to me, as sleep began to blur my senses, that all the things that made Caduan seem strange to the world were what made him perfect to me. And that perhaps, when he looked at me, he saw everything the world judged me for. Saw it, and still loved it, even though I didn’t deserve it.

Get up, a voice inside me begged. This is dangerous.

But I didn’t.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Max

I didn’t even remember making it back to the Towers. The next days passed in a blur. I woke in small bursts, minutes at a time, of which I only remember fragments. The pain was breathtaking. I remember looking at my hand, and the black veins that covered it. I remember Sammerin entering the room, taking one look at me, and stating, matter-of-factly, “You look like shit.” I remember sitting up just long enough to look over at Tisaanah, in the bed next to mine, her eyes closed.

I didn’t dream. Not of my family. Not of Reshaye. Not even of Ilyzath’s whispers. My mind was mercifully silent.

When I finally awoke, it was because I became aware of movement beside me. Weight — warmth. The familiar tickle of black-and-silver hair.

I kept my eyes closed, relishing it.

“I know you are awake, mysterious snake man.”

“I know you know, demanding rot goddess.”

My voice sounded like sandpaper. We went silent, listening to each other breathe.

“You’ve got to stop doing this,” I said, at last.

“What?”

“The near death experiences. They’ll kill me if they don’t kill you.”

I heard her smile in her voice. “I like to live an exciting life, Max. This is part of my charm.”

“When all this is over, maybe we’ll take up hiking. Something scenic with a low mortality rate.”

When all this is over.

The realization dawned on me slowly. Zeryth was dead. The war was over. What did that mean?

Did that mean it was all over now?

I almost didn’t want to ask. I wanted to live here, in this moment of potential possibility, as long as I could.

As if she knew what I was thinking, Tisaanah said, quietly, “It is over.”

I closed my eyes.

“Max?”

“I heard you. I just…”

I just can’t believe it. It just seems too good to be true.

“Max.”

“Hm?”

And what she said next made the world tilt on its axis: “Reshaye is gone.”

“Gone.”

Nura stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, repeating the word slowly. Her eyes were narrowed, her stare hard.

“Yes,” Tisaanah said. “Gone.”

Nura’s eyes narrowed further.

She stood by the doorway of our room in the Tower of Midnight. She was wearing the same outfit that she always wore, that white jacket buttoned up to the neck, with one notable difference: the insignia now embroidered on her lapel. A sun and moon eclipsed — the insignia that had been on Zeryth’s jacket, not very long ago.

Zeryth’s death had given Nura the thing she had always wanted the most: the title of Arch Commandant. Or at least, acting Arch Commandant, surely to become official in a few weeks. Not that there was anyone who was going to challenge her for it, now. Zeryth’s death was cleaned up easily with a thin story from Nura. His supporters gave their loyalty to the Orders, not to him personally. Many breathed a sigh of relief to have the Orders headed by someone more stable.

I hated Zeryth too much to pity him, but I felt something close to it when I realized how easily the world had moved on without him. He had given up so much to gain power, only to be cast aside as an incidental footnote in history. It was almost sad.

Almost.

Now, I struggled to read the look on Nura’s face as her gaze darted from Tisaanah to me and back