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

a little sickening, isn’t it? What a gruesome idea. Such a spell would have incredible cost to create. Imagine sacrificing that much of yourself just to drag another soul back with you when you go.”

Imagine indeed.

My mouth had gone dry. I had come here with the wild hope that Eomara would tell me it couldn’t be done. If Eomara said that something was impossible, it truly was impossible. But even when I walked through this door, a part of me knew that would be too easy. She was only giving voice to what I already knew and didn’t want to believe.

“So how would one break it?” I asked, and Eomara’s eyebrows lurched.

“What a question indeed. How does one break a blood pact?”

I let out a puff of air through my teeth, and Eomara chuckled.

“Exactly. Not impossible, but damned difficult. You’re better off trying to find a way to maneuver around the chains than gnaw your own arm off.”

Perhaps my unease was clear across my face, because Eomara frowned and leaned forward.

“Tell me, Max, is this really just theoretical?”

I was silent. Perhaps that was answer enough for her.

“I’m sorry that I do not have a clearer answer for you,” she said. “Perhaps you should consider visiting Vardir.”

My gaze snapped back to her. “Absolutely not.”

“I know that you disapprove of his tactics, but…”

“Disapprove of his—” I let out a scoff, shaking my head. “Unbelievable.”

She shrugged. “Just a suggestion. He would know more about this than me.”

“Is that miserable lunatic even still alive?”

Eomara gave me a peculiar look. “He is in Ilyzath, Max,” she said, as if it was borderline pitiful that I didn’t know, and in a sense she was right — being sent to Ilyzath was a huge event, and it happened so rarely that when it did, the rumors flew through the Orders like wildfire. But then, I’d spent almost a decade after the war in a state of either severe inebriation or total isolation. There was plenty of news that I had missed. And of course, my only thread of connection to the outside world — Sammerin — would not be especially eager to keep me up to date on Vardir, of all people.

He was, after all, the man who was responsible for Reshaye.

“No.” I shook my head. “There’s nothing that I need to know badly enough to see him.”

A lie, even if I wished it was true.

Eomara shrugged and took another sip of wine. “Suit yourself, captain. But I think you know as well as I do that you have to look in unsavory places for unsavory information. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Tisaanah

I heard a terrible, terrible scream.

My eyes opened and blinked blearily at the ceiling. Sweat plastered my body.

A dream? Or—

The scream came again, the kind of sound that stripped me from the inside out.

I jolted upright and paid for it with a splitting pain in my head. Still, I forced myself out of bed, threw on a robe, and went to the door.

It was not hard to follow the sound. It echoed down the hallways of the Farlione estate, nearly non-stop, as if whoever was making it was in such agony they didn’t even need to stop to breathe.

In the back of my mind, Reshaye coiled.

{Do not go.}

Why?

A slow hiss. {It feels like death.}

I padded barefoot through the wing, following the sounds. Eventually, I turned a corner that led to a hallway that was completely dark, save for one door with light spilling from beneath it. The scream was so loud here that I couldn’t even hear myself think.

The door opened easily to my touch.

Four figures huddled in the center of the room, heads bowed. I recognized Nura immediately. Two of the others donned tight-fitting black leather, spears mounted across their backs — Syrizen. The fourth was just a head of white, curly hair, kneeling.

The scream went on, and on.

“What’s wrong with them?”

I had to raise my voice. I didn’t realize I had spoken out loud until all those faces turned to look at me. Ariadnea. Anserra, still wearing her red sash. The kneeling Valtain was Willa, crouched over the bed.

I realized who lay there — Eslyn.

She was writhing in the most unnatural way, as if every muscle in her body was spasming in different directions. Her black jacket had been opened, and her tanned skin was mottled with patches of purple.

“What are you doing here?” Nura said, sharply.

“I heard the screaming…”

“Screaming?”

I went to Eslyn’s bedside. The figure I was looking at looked nothing like the cocky, strong woman I fought beside. This… this looked like a corpse, or worse. Her abdomen, once powerful and muscular, now twitched with sweat-slicked shudders. Tiny veins beneath her skin seemed to all push towards the surface, pulsing and black.

“What happened to her?” I asked again.

“A’Maril,” Willa murmured, not looking up.

“A’Maril?” I had never heard the term before. “What—”

Another scream split through my skull. Reshaye recoiled so violently that I staggered backwards, my hands going to my ears.

Anserra muttered, “Get her out of here.”

Nura approached me, eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

I looked at her as if she were insane.

What’s wrong? What kind of a question was that? I could barely hear any of them over that scream — gods, how could any set of lungs scream for this long?

But then I realized:

No one else was reacting to the sound. Eslyn’s lips, though they were contorted in agony, were not parted.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Eslyn’s pain surrounded me. Reshaye ran circles in my mind, desperate to escape her suffering.

The next thing I knew, I was on the ground. Nura reached for me, and I gave her a snarl that I wasn’t sure fully belonged to me.

“Get her out of here,” Anserra said, more sharply, and Nura shot her a glare before grabbing my arm and dragging me upright.

“Let’s go.”

I was so disoriented that I barely tracked our path. Nura led me to a separate wing of the house,