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

A figure emerged from the smoke. It was a human man. His hair was white, though he did not look old, and his eyes so starkly silver that even from this distance, they glinted through the shadows. He was tall and thin, with a smattering of silver facial hair, wearing laced-up battle clothing. He stopped and spoke to the stone-wielding man — and then turned to me.

My hands managed to grab the spear that impaled me, so tight they trembled. Yet the slick of my own blood undermined my grip. I snarled as the man approached me, his eyes glinting with obvious interest. As he drew close enough for the bloody light of flames to catch his face, it revealed a garish scar that extended from the right corner of his mouth all the way to his ear.

It seemed at-odds with the rest of his appearance. I had expected some barbarian. But this man was neat and dignified, the type that appeared better suited to a library than a battlefield.

He muttered a word that I didn’t understand. His fingertips brushed my jawline, turning my cheek. He was so close — I could rip his face from his skull. But my muscles would not so much as twitch.

Was human magic really capable of such a thing?

But he was not the only one with power. I still had a grip on Caduan’s magic. I forced myself to focus.

Focus.

I could see it, feel it — the force that bound me. And I poured all of my stolen magic into severing that tie, into breaking free, pushing past it—

It cracked just enough for one brief opening.

I snapped at the human’s hand, catching his ring and little fingers between my sharpened teeth. His blood, rotten and red, flooded my mouth, and I spat it onto the ground as the man leapt back and howled.

And at that same moment, Caduan swept into the room. His magic roared to life in my veins — more powerful than it had been before, and I knew it because I could feel it burning through me, like a mirror compounding the strength of the sunlight.

At first my mind could not make sense of what I was looking at.

He was surrounded by vines. Moving vines. Tree branches and plants and leaves were unfurled around him, driving through human attackers like spears or encircling their throats.

The silver-haired human lunged. Light sparked to his fingertips, lethally powerful. He lifted his hands and Caduan stumbled back, as if struck.

The hold on my mind released. Temporarily, I was sure. I had seconds.

The spear was not coming out of the wall.

But I was.

With a roar, I tightened my grip around the handle, and slowly — so slowly, too slowly — I pulled myself forward.

Caduan lunged. The vines moved with him, matching every attack, every movement, even every wince of pain. But the human tore his hands through the air, releasing a sudden invisible force so strong that it snapped Caduan’s tree branches into splinters and would have knocked me back to the wall if I hadn’t been holding on to the spear so ferociously.

He descended upon Caduan.

The world narrowed to these precious seconds.

I let out a scream. One pull, two, three and then I was out, and I was running.

I didn’t think. I wielded Caduan’s magic, reflecting it back to him twice as bright. And in the same moment, I grabbed my dagger and drove it into the man’s back.

He whirled to me, ready to counter. But just as quickly, branches wound around his throat. Then his wrists, his arms. Behind him, Caduan descended, eyes cold. The forest was an unstoppable wave, branches and vines and leaves shattering windows and crawling through the wreckage,. I looked down and saw moss growing over my feet.

“Tell me why you are doing this,” Caduan demanded, and I had never heard his voice like this before, raw and agonized. “Tell me why you’re killing my people.”

The human did not answer. Why would he? He couldn’t understand Caduan’s words, anyway. He opened his mouth and blood dribbled out. The vines tightened around his throat.

“Why did you do this to us?”

The human’s face was overtaken by flowers, buds spouting over his eyeballs.

The magic we shared was waning, running too hot too fast. My blood pooled on the ground. I stumbled.

Caduan’s attention snapped to me. Just for a split second, but that hesitation was all it took.

The human’s magic rose before he did, a wave of lethal blue light. It lunged for us, and I didn’t think before I threw myself in front of Caduan, pouring all my remaining power into our magic, into lifting my blades, into—

A smear of gold passed over my right shoulder, warmth spattered me, and suddenly the human was a heap on the ground, his face bloody ruin.

A golden owl — Ishqa — swooped down. A puff of smoke, then Ishqa straightened in Fey form. He cast only the slightest glance of confusion at the scene — men impaled by winding branches and smothered by leaves — before his gaze settled back on us.

“We were looking everywhere for you. Ashraia and Siobhan have shepherded survivors to the east end of the city. We need to go.”

“And leave this?” I said. My voice sounded strange, like it belonged to someone else.

“This place is overrun,” he said. “We cannot win.”

“No,” I snarled. “Don’t tell me that there’s no chance.”

I wanted to roar, and scream, and weep. I wanted to kill every last one of them until they forced me down. But no. There was nothing to be won here. We would walk away and leave the bones of the dead with the bones of the city, just as we had two times before.

“Aefe…” Ishqa approached me cautiously, a wrinkle between his brows.

But it was Caduan’s face that jerked me to reality. I wasn’t sure that I had ever seen him look so afraid before.

“What’s wrong?” I started to ask. But then I looked down at