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

far from where my room was. It was another apartment, bigger than mine, and she barely paused before leading me out through a set of glass doors onto a small balcony. The screams were quieter here, and the cold air made my heartbeat slow. Reshaye settled, though it still paced my thoughts like a dog guarding the windows.

Nura poured me a small glass from a liquor bottle and handed it to me, then poured another for herself.

I looked down at the amber liquid. It was trembling. My hands were shaking.

“Just whiskey,” Nura muttered. “Trust me, you need it. I know I do.”

She wasn’t wrong. I downed it on a single gulp, and exhaled tension.

“What did I just see?” I asked.

“Eslyn is sick.”

“Sick how?”

Nura poured herself another glass, which she nursed more slowly. “Syrizen gamble with magic far deeper than the magic Valtain or Solarie use.”

“The levels,” I murmured, remembering what Eslyn had told me on our way to Threll. There were different streams of magic — Valtain, Solarie, Fey — and something deeper than all of them. That was why they took the Syrizen’s eyes. Removing their sight gave them a greater sensitivity to the lowest levels of magic, though even then, they could only dip into it for seconds at a time.

“Right. And what they do is dangerous.” Nura let out a breath through her teeth. Her eyes were downcast, and she shook her hair out with one hand, going silent.

I watched her carefully. It would be easy to write Nura off as unfeeling. But there was a grim sadness in her now, as if she too was trying to shake away what we had just seen.

“They modify themselves, push themselves, to be able to Wield that fourth layer of magic,” she said. “But human flesh was never meant to withstand that. And sometimes, it doesn’t. That’s when you get A’Maril. Toxicity sickness, from Wielding magic not intended for you.”

“But…why? Why now?”

“Why does any illness choose its target? A’Maril is so often random. Maybe she pushed a little too far or stayed down there a little too long. Maybe she hit some toxic pocket of magic. Maybe she ate undercooked meat five days ago, which interfered with her body in just the right way, and the stars aligned. We just don’t know enough about it. But…” Her face hardened. “Eslyn has been taking extra risks, lately.”

“Zeryth’s potions.”

Nura nodded, barely.

Because of the vials that Zeryth gave her before battles — the ones that made her so much stronger. I understood that whatever he was doing to create them played a role in his decline. It stood to reason that it would play a role in Eslyn’s, too.

Nura took another sip, her eyes slipping out over the mountains. “But even aside from Eslyn’s unique circumstances, it’s not a terribly uncommon fate for the Syrizen.” Then she gave me a curious look. “You said you heard screaming.”

“I did. Reshaye did.”

As if awakened by the sound of its name, Reshaye slithered to the front of my skull, taking in Nura with detached disapproval.

“It draws from deep magic, too,” she said. “Like the Syrizen, but even deeper. What you were hearing may have been coming from… there.” She waved her hand out into the air. “Instead of here.”

“Is that how it works?”

“Who knows? No one understands this. But that’s why you need to be careful. Eslyn got sick because she Wielded magic that was too deep, for too long, in the wrong way.”

And I was Wielding magic even deeper than that, for longer. I did get so, so sick after using Reshaye’s magic — but that was nothing compared to what I just witnessed.

“What will happen to Eslyn?” I asked, quietly.

“She’ll die. They always do.”

“Always?”

A pause. “One time, I saw someone survive it. Just once. But she was never the same.”

Reshaye still paced at the front of my thoughts, like a caged panther sizing up the bars of its cage. My head was still in splitting pain.

Stop that, I told it.

{Not as long as she is here.}

My fingers went to my temple. It took all of my strength to push Reshaye back, forcing it into a secluded corner of my mind.

“What?” Nura was giving me a curious look.

“Why does Reshaye hate you so much?”

The corners of her mouth tightened. “Reshaye hates everything.”

{What I feel is not hate,} Reshaye hissed, as if offended by this characterization.

“It hates you more.”

“Probably because Max does.”

Despite myself — despite everything else I had to worry about — hearing Nura say Max’s name always made my jaw clench in sheer petty protectiveness. “It isn’t that.”

{Again and again, she fought me,} Reshaye whispered. {It never ended.}

“You tried to Wield it,” I said.

“Of course I did.”

Of course? My stomach turned. To think that she wanted this thing, after what it did to Max — after what it did to the Farliones. Sometimes, I found myself thinking of Nura as a reluctant ally, but in moments like this, I was revolted by her.

I didn’t let it show. But she cast me a knowing glance, as if she still felt my unspoken judgement.

“Do not think,” she said, quietly, “that I did not have a reckoning with that thing.”

Reshaye snarled, and the memories came in razor sharp flashes — Nura, looking into the mirror, flushed, shaking. A set of bloody hands in the sand of the sparring ring, forcing herself upright again, again, again. Nura, in cold water and utter darkness. Nura, slicing her own arm open.

The images disappeared just as suddenly as they overtook me. The silence and the gentle breeze assaulted me. Nura had poured herself another drink.

“I heard about what’s happening in Threll,” she said. “With the Zorokov family. You should have just done what Zeryth wanted you to do from the beginning. Then the war would be over, and you could go to them.”

“It was too dangerous.”

“The longer you draw this out, the more people will die.”

I gave her a long stare. She was older now, than she was in Max’s