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

sickening, in that — in the fact that my magic consumed life itself, and thrived on death.

Max looked as if he did, too. One look at his face, and I could imagine what he was thinking. All those lives in Sarlazai. All that death. Just making him stronger. Destruction begetting more destruction.

Vardir’s gaze flicked from me, to Max. “Now tell me, have you tried combining your magics? Theoretically, if you both draw from the same level, you could—”

Then he stopped short. His face went suddenly slack, then slid slowly into horror. Wordlessly, he lifted his hands and began drawing his fingers down his face. It was then that I realized: the cuts were claw marks, hundreds of them, from his own fingernails.

I lurched forward to stop him, on instinct. One second, and I was yanking away Vardir’s hands—

Another, and he lunged for me.

I was pinned on the floor, Vardir leaning over me.

“How did I miss it?” he breathed. “Until now, I didn’t see—”

His blood, fresh in the newly opened scratches, dripped on my face. He was on top of me, his hands at my throat.

A split second later, and I felt the heat of flames, Max’s cursing as he yanked Vardir away. The tiny cell suddenly was thick with the smell of burning flesh. My own magic tingled at my fingertips. Rot.

Vardir scampered upright, pushing himself against the wall, his eyes glued to me. “They’re coming for us,” he said. “Because of you.“

I leapt to my feet. My heart was pounding. Two strides, and I was there before I knew what was happening. Pushing Max aside, and grabbing the sides of Vardir’s bloody face.

“You deserve to die,” my voice said. My voice… but Reshaye’s words. “You locked me up. You tortured me.”

Black rot sizzled on Vardir’s skin, and he let out a raspy, ragged scream. “You will destroy us.”

“You destroyed me. You—”

“Stop.” Max pulled me away, and I whirled around to face him.

“He deserves it,” I growled. “You know he does as well as I.”

Fragments of Reshaye’s memories slid through my mind. My open entrails open on a table. A white ceiling. Incredible pain.

“He does,” Max said. “So let him rot here tearing his own face off.”

My body was tensed, uncertain.

You told me the worst thing about being what you are is that you are neither living nor dead, I told it. Let him live that way too. It is the greatest punishment.

Torture. Utter torture.

Reshaye said nothing. But slowly, I felt it concede, and I carefully slipped back into control. I saw Max’s face shift, and I knew he recognized the change immediately.

But we had no time to waste. Vardir let out a shriek, still lying on the ground, scratching at a face now so ruined and bloody that it looked like nothing but a smear of flesh. He was weeping.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see, they’re coming, they’re coming, I can’t believe I didn’t—”

The walls themselves seemed to move all at once, lurching in on us. When had it gotten so dark?

I shot Max a look of alarm. “That’s enough of that,” he muttered, and grabbed me with one hand and pressed the palm of the other to the wall.

And nothing happened.

“Max…”

“I’m trying.”

Again. His palm to the wall.

Nothing.

It was so dark, now. So dark that I was beginning to see movement in the shadows, like ghosts crawling out of the stone carvings.

The hair on the back of my neck stood upright. My heartbeat was rushing.

“Alright, you miserable bitch,” Max muttered. “Enough play.” He pounded on the wall, and then pressed his palm to it. This time, I pressed mine beside his.

Open. Open. Open…

The wall parted, and I breathed a ragged sigh of relief. Max grabbed my hand and the two of us were rushing down those smooth stone hallways — Gods, had I thought they were bright before? Now, what had once been eerie bone-white was ashy and dark, as if smoke-stained. The carvings seemed to shift.

One turn and then another and another. Every hallway looked the same. At one point, Max stopped short, his face snapping off down the hall, frozen.

“What?” I asked. “What are you looking at?”

No answer.

“Max—”

He turned away, pale. “Let’s just get out of here.”

I could have sworn I heard a voiceless whisper:

Stay.

{Go,} Reshaye whispered. {Faster.}

We rushed around another corner, and I stumbled to a sudden stop.

There was a figure standing before us — a woman with wild black hair and eyes that looked like home.

“Tisaanah,” she called to me, her hand outstretched. “Tisaanah, my love. My sweet daughter, my strong daughter. I missed you so much.”

I could not make myself move.

This is not right, a small part of me whispered, far in the back of my mind.

And yet, everything else within me pulled to her. I could even smell her — salt and jasmine. The scent of childhood safety.

“It’s not real, Tisaanah.” Max’s hand clasped mine, holding me back. “Whatever you’re seeing. It’s not real.”

“I have missed you so much,” she breathed, tears streaking her cheeks. “I called for you so many times. But you never came.”

I blinked, and her face was bloody, her outstretched hands decaying. “I died alone in the dark, and you never—”

“It’s not real, Tisaanah.” Max grabbed my arm and pulled me away, and after a stumble, I was running again.

Go back, a voice seemed to whisper. Don’t abandon her again. It echoed with her pleas, fading behind me: “Please, Tisaanah, please, help me, come back…”

“That’s what this place does,” Max muttered. “It feeds on you. Don’t stop, no matter what it shows you.”

My mother was only the beginning. I saw Max, chained and bloody, marred by decay that I immediately recognized as my own magic. I saw Serel, starving and emaciated, collapsed under the tear of countless lashes. Sammerin, Moth. The Threllian refugees. Always the same: Help me, help me.

Max, too, lurched to a stop several times, growing paler and quieter each time. I could only imagine what he saw. Once, I needed to hold him back from turning