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

death tolls, all things considered, or at least that’s what others told me. I was never convinced. I composed every one of the letters to the families of those we did lose, and whether those letters took an hour or six or ten, they all weighed equally on me. I couldn’t look at the body of a twenty-two year old boy and pat myself on the back because there weren’t more in his grave.

I was acutely aware, at all times, exactly what was at stake.

Zeryth demanded a pace that was near-inhuman. But after many weeks of no rest, my soldiers were exhausted. Exhausted soldiers were slow or short-tempered. Slow soldiers got killed. Short-tempered ones killed others. Both things that I wanted to avoid.

And, we happened to be within a detour’s distance to Meriata. Meriata was Ara’s capital of sin and debauchery — exactly the kind of place that would welcome an army on leave with open arms.

But more importantly, it was the home to an old friend. One that might have answers, about the curse Zeryth claimed to hold over Tisaanah’s life.

That, I decided, would be worth the detour.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tisaanah

Serel’s message, asking me to visit the refugees, seemed urgent. I was exhausted when I received it. I’d only just returned from one of the bloodiest battles so far. Reshaye’s dreams had been especially vivid the night before, and my eyelids were lead. Not that any of that mattered. Whenever any of the refugees called on me, I went. By the time I finished reading the message, I was already reaching for my shoes, casting a wistful glance to the bed.

Next time, I promised it.

As it often did, attention turned to me as soon as I arrived. The legends that everyone else whispered about me spread here, too. Even Serel looked at me differently than he once had, like there was another, foreign piece of me that he didn’t understand.

Sometimes, those looks made me swallow a bitter pang of loneliness.

A part of me had hoped these people would become my family. But just as I was not Nyzrenese enough, not Aran enough, not Valtain enough, I was not quite enough one of them, either. There was an unspoken rift between us, a certain distance to the way they interacted with me.

I was used to being looked at. But the stares I got when I arrived today were different. Everything was quieter. My magic tasted unease in the air.

Something was off.

“Tisaanah!”

Still, it was amazing how the sound of that familiar Thereni voice lifted my spirits.

I turned to see Serel approaching. He pulled me into a rough, quick embrace.

“Thank you,” he murmured in my ear. “I know you’re busy.”

“Never too busy for this.”

I surveyed the people who had paused to stare at me, a wrinkle forming between my brows.

“Is everything alright?”

Something dulled in Serel’s expression. “We’re fine,” he said. “But…”

My smile faded. “What? What happened?”

Over Serel’s shoulder, Filias appeared in an open doorway. Serel was at least trying to keep up a cheerful facade. But Filias? Filias’s face was hard with anger. Pinched between his fingers was a parchment letter.

“We need to talk, Nyzrenese witch,” he said.

The table, like everything else about the apartment, was run-down, rough boards simply nailed together atop uneven legs. The table itself was not notable. What was notable was what covered it:

Letters.

There were dozens of them, scattered across the tabletop, piled on top of each other. They all were crafted out of similar parchment, and all bore a seal in a certain shade of red that made a pit tighten in my stomach.

A group of people clustered around the table, silent as their gazes turned to me.

Filias gestured to the letters. “Read.”

“Which one?”

“Any one.”

I picked up a letter. It was written in a shaky hand, dotted with a darkened red.

My dear…

I did not want to write this… I do not want to worry you… I was not given a choice…

With every sentence, I felt as if my blood was draining from my body.

I put down that letter. Picked up another. And another. Different handwriting, different words, but all saying the same thing.

“They’re all the same,” Filias said, tension thick in his voice. “All make the same demands.”

“Apparently,” Riasha said, “the Zorokovs did not like the stunt you pulled at the Mikov estate.”

My knees were weak. I sat down in a rickety chair.

Shit. Shit.

They were all written by slaves. Specifically, slaves owned by members of the Zorokov family, one of the most powerful dynasties in Threll. Slaves that were loved ones of the refugees that now lived here, in Ara. And every one of these letters, written under clear duress, begged for only one thing:

Me.

My life, turned over to the Threllian Lords, to face “justice” for the slaughter of Esmaris and Ahzeen Mikov.

Justice. What a ridiculous term, to describe what it was that they wanted to do. Threllian society cared nothing for justice. If I were a Threllian man, what I did would be something to respect and fear. Well, they feared me, alright, and they feared the Orders. But I’d seen firsthand how Threllians reacted when power was wielded against them by people they didn’t think deserved it. I’d seen wives who took too many liberties with their husbands estates hung and gutted. I’d seen overly-ambitious second sons get their throats slit by displeased older brothers.

And what I’d done had been orders of magnitude worse.

They couldn’t dangle me from the gallows themselves. But they could threaten their own slaves, parents and siblings and friends of those now under my protection, in exchange for me.

Smart. Ruthless.

Suddenly, I felt so naive. I knew this was a risk. But I didn’t think it would happen so fast — while my hands were still tied.

“How did they find us so quickly?” I murmured.

Serel winced. “Many of the people here wrote to their friends and relatives as soon as we were settled. It would only take one intercepted letter.”

“Did you know about this?” Filias asked, and