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

could have ended up on either side of this battle. Was I about to sentence those people to death for the crime of rejecting Zeryth’s crown?

Hell, no.

I received a letter from Zeryth that night, sent via Stratagram, even though I myself hadn’t yet finished writing to inform him of my plans. This confirmed my suspicions that Essanie and Arith were loyal to him — loyal enough, apparently, to tell him before I had a chance to.

The letter was short:

Captain Farlione -

For all our sakes, I certainly hope you know what you’re doing.

-Z.

I wrote back:

My Illustrious King -

I do.

- General Farlione

Chapter Sixteen

Aefe

The five of us set off on horseback early. Goodbyes were said under the hush of pre-dawn. My father and I gave each other stoic nods, my mother a chaste kiss on my cheek, her scent of lavender as fleeting as her brief affection. It was only Orscheid — always, only Orscheid — who broke through the ice between me and the rest of my family. From a distance, she looked so pristine, meticulous as a work of art. I’d spent my life dreading the moment she would become like them, the day when she would become the Teirness more than she was my sister. That morning, she looked so elegant that I thought, Perhaps this is that day.

But then her perfect face crumbled, and she threw her arms around me in a wild embrace. I clung to her, wrapping my battle leathers around her delicate silk, and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“Be safe, sister,” I whispered.

“Be safe,” she choked back out at me. “I’ll miss you too much if—”

But my father cleared his throat, and the message was clear: we were making too much of a scene for people who needed to appear dignified in front of our reluctant allies. So I pulled away, ignoring the stinging in my eyes. I did not allow myself to look back.

I could feel Caduan staring at me as I rejoined the group — whether out of judgement or curiosity, I was not sure. I wasn’t sure about anything, with Caduan.

If he said goodbye to anyone, I did not see it. Even the small, mismatched collection of Stoneheld who gathered to see us off didn’t so much as lift their hands to wave.

We were silent as we rode, the only sound our horses’ hooves crunching through the underbrush. When the road grew rockier and the trees thicker, I knew we were encroaching on the edge of Sidnee territory. I turned back to look at the Pales. Only a sliver of them remained over the horizon, the rising sun casting streaks of bloody red light over black glass. Soon, we would no longer be able to see them.

I was a child the last time I had been so far from home. I never thought I would be again. Let alone like this — let alone with Wyshraj.

Siobhan was, of course, my chosen companion. There had never been any doubt in that. Ishqa had chosen a Wyshraj general named Ashraia as his second. He was a broad and burly man, rougher-looking than most of the other Wyshraj, with a long dark beard and braided hair that nearly reached his waist. A nasty scar sliced his left cheek, and it wrinkled every time he shot me or Siobhan a glare of skeptical disdain.

He did not trust us, and didn’t care if we knew it. That was fair. We didn’t trust him either. Besides, I far preferred Ashraia’s honesty to Ishqa’s glass politeness. His tranquility reminded me of the surface of a too-calm pond: a reflection of a smooth sky that merely masked whatever dangers lay in its depths.

We rode in silence for hours, hardly stopping. At this pace, it would take only a week to reach our first destination, the House of Reeds. My stomach twisted at the thought of it. Both the Sidnee and the Wyshraj had written to the king of the House of Reeds, and neither had received a response. But the Reedsborn were notoriously private, one of the rare small houses that were on poor terms with both the House of Obsidian and the House of Wayward Winds. It was possible that they were simply trying to stay out of a conflict that they wanted no part in.

Even still. The thought of it was never far from my mind. Ishqa, who — to my petty annoyance — headed up the group, was the one who stopped, lifted his face to the dusky sky, sniffed twice, and simply stated, “We will stay here for the night.”

I almost argued with him simply because I hated his tone.

But we were all exhausted, and no one was about to disagree. Siobhan and Ashraia went off to kill some rabbits — together, under the unspoken understanding that neither group trusted the other to go anywhere alone with a weapon — while the rest of us remained to set up.

It wasn’t long before Siobhan and Ashraia returned. It would be impossible to miss them. Ashraia was stomping through the brush like a bull.

“Disrespectful,” he spat. He was clutching dead squirrels by their tails.

“Ridiculous,” Siobhan was muttering. She held two lifeless quail. The sight of them had my mouth watering. We hadn’t eaten all day, and the quail looked much more appealing than Ashraia’s rodents.

Ishqa straightened. He had just started the fire, and as he swept a sheet of golden hair away from his face, it looked like an extension of the flames. “What is the problem?”

It was very, very obvious that there was a problem.

Siobhan shot me a frustrated glance, shaking her head.

“She,” Ashraia growled, “has no respect for our ways.”

“Would it be more respectful for me to leave them in the dirt?” Siobhan replied. Ashraia scoffed.

Ishqa’s stare hardened, an ever-so-slight rearranging of his features. I followed his gaze… to the dead birds in Siobhan’s hands.

“We do not kill birds,” he said, coldly. “Let alone eat them.”

Reluctantly, I had to admit that