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

I allow your house to be slaughtered as mine was if it means avoiding damaging his fragile ego, all because he thinks I have potential?”

My father’s voice rang out in my mind:

I do think you have… potential, Aefe.

My blade was out on nothing but instinct. That was so often how my temper bloomed, in fits and starts, acting on my behalf before I even knew what I was doing. Two breaths, my body was pressed against Caduan’s, his back against a tree and my blade at his throat.

We were close enough now that I could watch each rivulet of moonlight drip across his face. I could see every twitch of his expression, every strand of color in his eyes. We both wore light clothing. I could feel the shape of him against me, the rhythm of his breathing. Mine was heavy with my anger. But Caduan’s was still light, calm.

“I warned you,” I snarled.

He regarded me silently. There was no fear in his stare, not even anger.

Perhaps just a shade of satisfaction.

“Fair enough,” he murmured.

Goosebumps prickled over my skin.

I did not like the way he looked at me. It made me uncomfortable, to be examined so closely.

I lifted my chin.

“Disarm me,” I said, tersely. “You haven’t practiced in four days.”

Still, he did not look away. His fingers found my wrist, and for a moment, they hovered there, brushing the sliver of bare skin at the edge of my leathers.

I resisted the urge to pull away from that touch — the strange intimacy of it.

Then, he struck, one quick blow to my elbow, reaching for the hilt of the dagger and pushing me to my knees. I slipped his grip, but he countered me again, blocking my recovery before I had the chance to right myself.

And the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, and he was draped over me, hands at my shoulders.

I held up the dagger. “Fail. I got the knife back.”

His eyes narrowed at me. “Perhaps,” he said. “But you look disarmed, nonetheless.”

I felt disarmed. No matter how tightly I clutched the steel in my hand.

I cleared my throat. “Get off of me, please.”

He obeyed, rising gracefully, while I pushed to my feet. I did not look at him as I dusted dirt and dead leaves off my clothes.

“I will write to my father,” I said, carefully examining my sleeve. “I can’t make him see as you do. But I can make the recommendation that we visit Niraja.”

But he will not listen, a voice in the back of my mind whispered. And you will prove his ugliest assumptions about you right.

Nevertheless. When I turned, there was something akin to pride in the way that Caduan looked at me then, hidden in the corners of a barely-there smile. The kind of admiration that made it seem like the right thing to do.

And so, when I returned to my tent, I withdrew my pen and parchment and began writing in my neatest script. I told my father of our terrifying discovery in the House of Reeds. I told him of Caduan’s suspicions.

I had to gather myself before I wrote the end.

Caduan believes that Niraja may hold the answers to what the humans are trying to accomplish. He believes that they are unique in this potential. I am well aware that they are in exile. However, given that we are facing grave danger, and given what we have seen, I urge you to consider permitting us to travel to them. The humans are clearly working in heretic magics; we must go somewhere that knows such things to learn how to counter it.

Another pause. Then,

Forgive my disrespect. I write this only with the mission of protecting you, mother, Orscheid, and the Sidnee ways.

My pen hovered. I fought the overwhelming urge to strike out the previous words, to replace them with ones I knew my father would prefer to hear — the reassurance that the Sidnee traditions alone would protect us.

But instead, I signed my name, folded the letter, and sealed it up with my dissent carefully nestled inside.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Max

When I arrived back at the inn, the ground floor was oddly quiet. My eyes landed on a familiar set of blond curls. Moth was at a pub table, sagging over a mostly-empty glass of what looked to be piss-poor mead.

Ascended help us all.

I approached him. “You look like you’re having an incredibly good time.”

Moth lifted his head and gave me a grin that made me roll my eyes.

“You’re thirty years too young to be this drunk alone at a pub, Moth. Actually, you’re too young to be drunk at all.”

“I wasn’t alone! Not until…” He looked around, as if realizing for the first time that all his friends had gone.

“Ascended above. How many of those did you have?”

“Just two,” Moth said, taking another gulp out of his glass, which was roughly the size of his head.

“May the gods be with you in the morning.” I sighed and settled into the chair beside him. I was feeling my own wine. It had been quite some time since I’d drank that much.

In the back of the room, a maid stumbled down the stairs, causing a small stir as she hurried over to another barkeep, whispering frantically.

I watched them, blinking blearily, a wrinkle forming on my brow.

Even through the haze of drunkenness, I noticed that something seemed… off. The maid looked shaken, though she didn’t speak above a whisper, even from across the room I could sense the panic in her words.

Her eyes slipped to us, wide and frightened.

“Moth,” I said, quietly. “Where did the others go?”

He shrugged. “Upstairs. Bed.”

Just like that, I was very, very sober. I straightened.

The maid didn’t break my stare. She unfurled just one finger, pointing — up.

A decade-old memory surfaced, of another inn not unlike this one. An inn where my troops and enemy troops had found themselves in the same place, at the same time. I had lost two friends that night, all