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

was scrawled across the front of that one, and it was bent, as if it’d had a particularly difficult journey. When Ishqa picked it up, a smile brushed his face that seemed at odds with his typical noble poise.

“Who is that from?” I asked. As always, I spoke before I could stop myself.

He glanced at me, and simply replied, “My son.”

“You have a son?”

I blurted this out with abject disbelief that made his brow furrow.

“Yes. Is that worthy of such surprise?”

Yes.

“No,” I said. “Of course not.”

The truth was, I found it nearly impossible to imagine Ishqa dealing with children. Children loved shouting and pretending and rolling around in the dirt and having wild outbursts about the slightest inconveniences. These were all things that I could not picture Ishqa having much tolerance for.

Ishqa turned the letter over. There were ink stains all over the back, too, wild slashes of it. He frowned at his hands, which were now smudged.

“How old is he?” I asked.

“Six summers.”

Despite myself, I smiled. “A good age.”

“One might say so.”

He opened the letter. I glimpsed two scrawled lines of large, messy writing, then what appeared to be a half-finished drawing of… a horse? A cow? A horse cow?

Ishqa looked at this letter very seriously, a line of concentration over his brow.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

He shot me a sharp look. “What?”

“You look as if you’re decoding military operations.”

He stared at me as if this answer meant nothing to him.

“No one should look so serious when reading a letter from a child,” I clarified.

“Why not?” Ishqa put the letter down. “He lost interest after two lines.”

“And?”

He gave me a stony stare. “Do the Sidnee not value education?”

“Of course we do. But he’s six summers.”

“At six summers, my father had me writing pages of Wyshraj history.”

I almost scoffed. Mine had wanted me to write pages of history, too. I just had never been any good at it. From the looks of it, Ishqa had been better than me at such things.

I shrugged. “He is a child.”

“He is flighty and distracted,” he huffed, in a way that reminded me all too much of how my father used to click his tongue and shake his head at my own sloppy, half-finished essays.

“Perhaps he’s a dreamer,” I said.

“A dreamer is a hard thing to be. I fear so now more than ever.” He looked down at the letter, and the disapproval on his face softened. “I only hope that I’m raising him to be strong enough to survive such a world.”

A bittersweet ache twinged in my chest.

Did my father ever wear that expression when he talked about me, I wondered? Was there ever any fragment of his disappointment in me that was secretly love in disguise?

I looked back down at the table, at the letter waiting there, written in my father’s unmistakable hand. A lump of nervousness curled in my stomach.

“That’s all any of us can hope,” I said, then picked up the letters and excused myself back to my room.

I read my father’s letter four times.

The response was brief:

Aefe —

The word sent by you and by your companions is deeply troubling to all of us. There is no hope left in denying that the humans want anything less than war.

But this does not change the fact that what you propose is forbidden.

I do not know what made you think that exile could be violated.

Niraja is a sickened place. You have never respected our traditions, but I will not see them destroyed by such degradation.

Keep your eyes open. Watch the Wyshraj, for they are still not our allies.

Do not raise such a question again.

Do not make me regret choosing you for this.

— Teirna

Chapter Thirty-One

Tisaanah

Tisaanah.

My name was a whisper.

I squinted into the setting sun over an endless expanse of rolling gold. Threll, now. But once Nyzerene. Once my home.

No wonder it seemed to call to me so.

Tisaaaaaanaaah.

The sun was low, brushing kisses along the horizon line, running its fingers through the swaying grass. I lifted my chin to the sky and basked in it.

In the distance, a figure turned around and reached for me. I could not see them — the light was so, so bright, flattening their form to a blurry silhouette. They called another name, a name I did not recognize but knew belonged to me.

Sweat dripped down my neck.

I stepped forward, but the sun blinded me. And suddenly it was so hot, too hot, my skin burning. I blinked and opened my eyes to a sea of fire — blue, like the flames that had consumed the Mikov estate, like the ones that I had inhaled into myself when I fought Reshaye in the deepest levels of magic.

Those golden plains withered to decay.

I looked down to see black rot crawling over my palms. Light spilled from my fingertips.

{You saw me.}

And this time, I recognized the voice. I watched my flesh wither, no more tongue to speak, no more throat to scream. My hands were only the stark ivory of bone, fractured with cracks of crimson light.

{And when you look into a mirror,} Reshaye whispered, {you know what stares back.}

But still, all of that power spilled from me.

Surged and consumed, until I saw nothing but white and white and white.

My eyes snapped open, even though I didn’t remember closing them. Nura stood over me, holding a rapier that nearly nicked the tip of my nose. Her pale cheeks were flushed with exertion, silver hairs forming a halo around her head.

“Where were you?” she demanded.

I was unable to even answer that question. A second ago — no, less than a second ago — I had been on my feet, dodging one of Nura’s strikes, Il'Sahaj halfway to closing the space between us.

And yet, now... I was lying on my back in the sand floor of the sparring arena.

A full two seconds. Three, even. Gone. Just…

{Lost,} Reshaye whispered. {Like so many other things.}

“We don’t have time for daydreams, Tisaanah.” Nura nudged Il'Sahaj’s hilt