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

than House conflicts,” he went on. “And if getting the answers means working with the Titherie, then so be it.”

Klein’s eyebrows lurched. “With all respect, we cannot trust Wayward Winds. We can’t allow our fear of one imaginary threat to overshadow the one that’s already poised at our throat—”

“I’ve made my decision,” my father replied. “I’ll write to Wayward Winds tonight.”

Mere days after all of Stoneheld awoke, Caduan had his coronation ceremony.

It had been, unsurprisingly, my father’s idea — my father, who believed in upholding tradition above all else, even though the idea made Caduan pale two shades.

“A coronation for who?” he had said. “For a dozen people?”

And my father had looked at him as if this were a ridiculous question. “Yes, exactly,” he’d replied.

The ceremony took place upon the dais of my father’s throne room. The Stoneheld on the expanse of black glass — so few of them that they looked like lone ships lost at sea. Words were spoken, prayers were whispered, Stoneheld rituals mingling with Sidnee ones. My father was the one to bestow Caduan his crown. It was a beautiful creation of copper and polished stone that formed delicate peaks like a stag’s horns — one of the few artifacts that the Blades had been able to recover from the House of Stone.

Caduan had risen, and his handful of remaining subjects bowed, and the image made my eyes sting.

On the day of my father’s coronation, he had seemed like the most powerful man in the world. I had been in awe of him — his easy smile and bold confidence more befitting of a force of nature than a living, fallible creature.

But Caduan? Caduan just stood there, looking past his subjects, past my father, past the Pales, as if searching for the home that had once lay miles beyond them. He seemed so…lost.

At sunrise the next morning, the House of Wayward Winds arrived.

Chapter Eleven

Max

I really did try not to look back.

It seemed like it would be easier that way. When we rode out, I could barely breathe. I’d been handed so many lives and told to throw them like a battering ram against the most powerful cities in Ara. We would start with Antedale, a fortress of a city, and one of the key jewels in Zeryth’s path to victory. And that, of course, would only be the beginning.

Yes, I tried. But when we were nearly out of eyeshot from the base, I couldn’t help but turn. Tisaanah was standing on the balcony, a speck of red. I raised my hand and gave her one final wave.

Moth rode beside me. He’d been given a big, lumbering beast of a draft horse that had little interest in either moving or listening to him, which would have been very amusing had I been particularly inclined to find anything amusing in the moment. He turned in his saddle and followed my gaze.

“What will she do?” he asked.

Ascended above. What a question indeed.

“She’ll be defending Korvius.”

Moth’s brow furrowed. “Alone?”

My stomach turned.

I could have said, No, she’s not alone, she has the rest of Zeryth’s army.

I could have said, No, she’s with Zeryth, who betrayed her, and Nura, who has hidden knives poised at everyone’s throats.

I could have said, No, she’s with Reshaye, an ancient, bloodthirsty entity that does nothing but destroy.

Instead I said, “Yes.” And that felt much closer to the truth.

Moth didn’t say anything more, going uncharacteristically silent. But, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him keep looking over his shoulder until the base was out of view, shrouded by the rolling clouds.

It would be a long journey to Antedale. My division was not entirely comprised of Wielders, making Stratagram travel impractical — and of course, it was generally a bad idea to mobilize hundreds at once that way, with such a high risk of people accidentally landing on top of each other (or, in the case of one infamous freak accident, in each other).

I had two captains who each helped lead half of my forces.

One was Essanie, a Solarie woman who was taller than I was and bound her chestnut hair into one long coil piled atop her head. She was perhaps in her forties, eyes sharp with a constant take-no-shit stare. I’d known her during my time in the military, though not well. She had seemed strong and practical. Oddly, she’d also had an amiable friendship with Zeryth. Even then, that had surprised me.

The other was Arith, a Valtain man with an admirable white beard and large eyes that peered beneath an eternally-lowered brow. He was wiry and inclined to ramble. But he was also clearly intelligent, and his men admired him — a sign, I had long ago learned, of a leader worth keeping.

They both seemed like competent captains, skilled Wielders, and good soldiers. But I knew that surely they weren’t chosen for their skill alone. No matter whatever illusion of control Zeryth had bestowed upon me, he would be an idiot not to surround me with people he trusted implicitly. Essanie and Arith deferred to my commands, but Zeryth certainly had their true loyalty. And if I stepped out of line, they would report me to him in a heartbeat.

Not that I would.

As much as I hated it, Zeryth was right. I was a woefully cautious man, and Zeryth’s threats against Tisaanah echoed constantly in the back of my mind. I wanted to believe it was impossible. Hell, I still believed that it was impossible. But after so long, I had forgotten how potent it was — the fear of having something to lose. There were some things I just couldn’t risk.

That night, I watched the soldiers as we made camp. If any of them were nervous about what was to come, most didn’t show it. But some were so fucking young. None quite as young as Moth, but at least a few couldn’t have been much older. Those were the boisterous ones, stumbling about