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

It made my stomach turn. My heavy eyelids and tired limbs told me that I should, theoretically, be hungry after a long day of travel. But I sat there and looked down at my soup with disinterest, ultimately handing it off to Moth, who gobbled it up in eleven genuinely impressive seconds.

After dinner, when most of the soldiers mulled about drinking, a tall, gangly young man approached me.

“Captain Farlione? If I may interrupt?”

I blinked. He was interrupting nothing but my silent, far-off stare into existential dread. I cleared my throat and rose to my feet. “Of course.”

It was dark, the only light now the moonlight and the dimming remnants of the campfires and lanterns. The man had a mop of mousy hair that fell so low it nearly covered his deep-set eyes, and a crooked, apologetic half-smile. I was struck by a wave of recognition I couldn’t quite place.

“I only wanted to meet you personally, sir.” He lifted his hand into a salute and bowed his head, a sight that made me viscerally uncomfortable.

“Ah, no need for— Just—” I stuck out my hand instead, and the man looked confusedly at it before grasping it in a quick handshake.

“It’s an honor, sir,” he said. “Phelyp. Phelyp Aleor.”

The realization hit me like a stone. “Aleor,” I repeated.

Phelyp’s eyebrows arched in surprise. He grinned. “You remember—”

“Of course I do.” My tone veered on unintentional annoyance — you actually think I’d forget? I cleared my throat. “What’s your relation?”

“Brother, sir.”

I eyed the young man before me. He was probably, what, nineteen? Twenty? Just around the same age as his brother had been when he stood in his place. The resemblance between the two was uncanny. Same awkward stance, same gangly limbs, same ridiculous floppy hair.

“Rian always spoke so highly of you,” Phelyp said. “So when I found out that you would be leading us, I was—” He shook his head. “Well, if I may speak frankly, you were a legend in our house when I was younger. And then with your victory at Sarlazai… It’s just an honor, sir. A real honor to fight behind you.”

Honor. That word made me sick.

“The honor was mine,” I said. “Rian was a good man. The world is worse off without him.”

Sadness flickered across Phelyp’s face. “Thank you, sir. He was a good soldier. And I know that it would have meant a lot to him to know that you thought so, too.”

It took everything in me not to correct him — No, that isn’t what I said. He was a good man, not a good soldier, and one is worth a thousand times the other.

I went silent for too long, and Phelyp shifted awkwardly. “Well. I should be getting back, but I just wanted to meet you for myself. Again, sir, thank you. It’s an honor.”

Ascended, that word.

“Likewise,” I grunted, as Phelyp saluted me again and turned back to the beachside fires, leaving me feeling as if I’d just had a conversation with a ghost.

It shouldn’t have hit me so hard. I was being ridiculous. But suddenly, I was so… what? Angry? That didn’t feel like quite the right word, but what other response was there to a world that threw Rian Aleor’s life away as if it were worth nothing, and then launched his little brother into the same gluttonous jaws?

“Are you alright, Max?”

Moth’s tentative voice pulled me from my thoughts. I turned around to see him clutching his empty bowl, looking up at me with wide eyes. He’d barely spoken to me all day, clearly somewhat terrified after my outburst the day before.

Instead of answering, I asked, “Why did you join the military?”

Moth’s round eyes grew rounder. “I told you, it was just that the other teacher wasn’t good, and—”

“No. Moth, I—” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’m not asking so I can scold you. I’m asking so I can find out the answer.”

He stared at me warily.

“Truly,” I said. “From my heart of hearts.”

“I didn’t lie. It was all true. Helene wasn’t a very good teacher, not like Sammerin. And there was a lot, I mean a lot, of money, and you know that my father—”

“If your father needed money, we could have found another solution for that.”

His eyes were downcast. “It wasn’t just that. It’s just… You and Sammerin and Tisaanah were out there killing slavers! And I was just doing lessons that didn’t help with anything. So when they put out the call for recruits, I thought…” He shrugged. “This is how I can actually help with something instead of—”

“Moth, you’re twelve Ascended-damned years—”

“I’m thirteen.”

I threw up my hands. “Oh, well that just changes everything.”

“You and Sammerin were both twelve when you joined,” he shot back.

I felt like I had been punched in the gut. “That’s different.”

“Why? Because I’m not as good at Wielding as you were? I can get better. I have been getting better, I practice all the time. I haven’t even broken anything since you left for Threll. So I can be just as good as you.” His brow was knitted, hands balled up against the edges of his bowl. “I’ll work three times as hard. But I want to be just as good.”

I closed my eyes. A memory from long ago unfurled in the darkness. My brother, then seventeen, shoving a sword into my hands when I was ten years old. Or did I pick it up myself, after watching him wield it?

I drew in a breath and let it out slowly through my teeth. “Your value and skill as a Wielder has nothing to do with how much time you spend on a battlefield.”

“But—”

“Sammerin and I spent the better part of a decade trying to undo everything that the Ryvenai War did to us. Do you understand that?”

“But Max—”

I raised a finger. “Do not,” I said, “interrupt me. Listen. I had you moved to this division so that you could be my assistant. And when we arrive at