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

were the one who brought me here. And you should hear why.” And then he added, “Please.”

I hesitated.

I was already dreading the look on my father’s face when he found me here, and the way he would react if I had to explain why. But there was something in Caduan’s face, something buried beneath his odd, impassive mannerisms, that held a mirror up to my worst fears.

Nothing sadder, than to be so alone.

I sat down beside the bed.

“Fine,” I said.

My father did not come alone. Siobhan was with him, and so was Klein, the Sidnee master of war and spycraft. All three of them gave me odd looks when they entered the room to find me already here. Siobhan, a carefully hidden glance of confusion. Klein, a not-at-all hidden stare of pure distaste (which, as always, I gladly returned). And my father, a barely-visible pause with slightly narrowed eyes. It lasted less than a second, and yet that disapproval sank to the bottom of my stomach like a stone.

If Caduan saw any of it, he did not show it. And similarly, he showed no signs of pain, even though I was certain that he was in agony — the agony of his ripped apart body, and the agony of his utter, sudden aloneness. My father, Klein, and Siobhan all offered their solemn condolences, and Caduan barely reacted.

“We are deeply saddened by what has happened to the House of Stone, Caduan Iero,” my father said. “It is the utmost tragedy, and we will never allow it to happen to another House.”

Caduan barely looked at him. “Did you go?” he asked. “Did you see?”

“We did,” Siobhan said, quietly.

“There is nothing left.”

“There is not.”

“You told me it was humans,” I murmured. “But I thought… that cannot be.”

Could it?

That question hung in the air, heavy and pungent.

We all looked at Caduan, waiting, but he stared past us, to the far wall of the room — as if he could see through it, to the horizon beyond.

“Did you know,” he said, “that there are no creatures in the world more sensitive to the circumstances around them than the Stoneheld Atrivez butterfly?”

My father’s brow furrowed. “Pardon?”

“They are one of only a very small number of Fey-dwelling creatures that have an inherent sensitivity to magic. Trace amounts, but enough to anticipate things that go beyond the typical senses of an insect. As a result, they are difficult to kill. They have an explosive population in Atecco, because few predators can catch them. The faintest, distant hint of danger, and they just fly away.”

And only then did that mossy stare turn back to us. “That morning, they all left. Thousands of them, shooting into the sky like steam over the lake. Do you know what ten thousand butterfly wings sound like?”

He spoke so calmly. But I looked down to the sheets, and saw that his hands were clenched around them.

His words from the night before, ragged and delirious, curled through my memory. It sounded like rain.

“Rain,” I whispered.

And some grotesque version of a smile twitched at one corner of his mouth as he lowered his chin. “Exactly like it. It was beautiful.”

I could almost hear it. Picture it.

The smile disappeared.

“Not at all like,” he said, “what came after. There was nothing beautiful about that. Thousands of human soldiers descended on Atecco. I did not see them arrive. I was on the edge of the city, working in the archives, when I heard the screaming, the shouting. I looked out the windows, and it was already happening. They were everywhere. Many were magic users.”

A brief pause. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Most did not escape,” he said, at last. “There were too many. I gathered those of us who had and led them here. We could not stay, and we would not have survived any longer.”

“But humans are so much weaker than us,” Klein said. “How?”

Caduan let out a ghost of a scoff. “‘Weaker.’ That isn’t how nature works. Even the strongest predators have their enemies. And when the numbers are three to one…”

“Three to one?” Siobhan gasped.

“Is that a surprise? The human lifespan is a fraction of ours, yes, and perhaps their bodies are physically weaker. But while a Fey would be lucky to produce one or perhaps two children over the course of five hundred years, humans reproduce frequently and easily. And they, too, have access to magic once again.” His eyes darkened. “We sat here while humans conquered mountains and deserts and seas, rid some of the most inhospitable environments in the world of their most dangerous forces. And yet… we think that we’re too powerful for them.”

“Because we are,” Klein said, forcefully. “The tragedy of the Stoneheld will not be repeated. I swear this to you. They surprised your House. But they will not surprise us, nor any other.”

Caduan gave him a hard stare. “Hubris is not comforting to me. I’m not sure why you thought it would be.”

He said this as if it were simply a matter of fact — and perhaps it was. We could comfort ourselves with our promises of vengeance and swift action. But what would that mean to Caduan? What would that mean for everything his people had already lost?

Nothing.

I thought of all those houses, standing alone in the rain, reduced now to little more than piles of cold brick.

“You can stay here.” The words left my lips before I even knew I was speaking. “For as long as you need it. You and the remaining Stoneheld have a home here, if you— if you want it.”

My cheeks began burning by the end of that sentence. I could feel three sets of eyes drilling into my face. I’d just made an offer that wasn’t mine to give. The House of Obsidian was staunchly separatist, and though we weren’t on bad terms with the House of Stone, they were not among our allies, either.

I carefully avoided my father’s stare, meeting only Caduan’s.

Once again, it seemed that he had