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

myself, at the hole in my abdomen, at the blood that now soaked my clothing.

I did not remember falling.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Max

I had been twenty-one when I was first put in command. Back then, I had been given a team of just thirty soldiers, all Wielders. When I met them, they had been disasters — new recruits, barely trained, some with a lack of control over their magic that was downright dangerous. I’d thought to myself, This is it. My military career over before it even began. Because surely, there was nothing I could have done for that group of people. Utterly fucking hopeless.

Well, it turned out I had been wrong. A month, then three, then six of consistent training, and together, we forged iron into steel. I had loved every minute. There was the egotistical rush, yes, of triumphing over a near-impossible goal. But stronger than that was the satisfaction of studying my soldiers just as carefully as they studied me, helping them turn understanding into competence into mastery.

But I’d been so naive. I lost sight of what I was training them for. How many of those people were still alive today? I understood, now, the ugliness in it — in crafting such tools of Ascended-damned artistry, only to send them off to be destroyed.

This was the only thing I could think about as I ran through drills with my team that day. They had been good when I got them, and now they were phenomenal. Yet there was no pride in this thought. Not with the past feeling so close, and Ilyzath’s whispers still echoing in my ears. I saw its visions all day, no matter how I tried to shake them away.

During a break, sweat-soaked, I sank onto a stool, rubbing my eyes.

Ascended, Max. Get it together.

“Is something wrong, Max?”

Moth’s voice pulled me from my distraction. I looked up to see him staring at me, then too-quickly snapped my head away.

“Fuck,” I breathed.

“What?” Moth asked, alarmed.

I closed my eyes. It took several long seconds for the image of Moth as I had seen him in Ilyzath to fade. When I turned back to him, he looked perfectly normal. Skin intact, unburnt, perfectly unharmed.

Get. It. Together.

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing. Go take a break.”

I stood and went to the door, leaning against it and trying to force myself into composure. My head was pounding so hard that I didn’t hear footsteps approaching until they were beside me.

“Welcome back,” Nura said. “Been watching the drills. I have to give you credit where it’s due. They’ve gotten good.”

“It’s uncomfortable when you shower me with flattery, Nura. Makes me feel like I’m going to look down and see a knife sticking out of my ribs. Besides, they were already—”

I turned to her, and stumbled over my words.

I had seen her in Ilyzath, too. Crawling towards me, her body scalded and broken, as she had looked in Sarlazai.

I looked away.

“They were already good.” I cleared my throat, but I could feel Nura giving me a perplexed look.

“Ascended, Max. What was that?”

“What?”

“I’ve known you for twenty years. Don’t insult me.”

I dragged my gaze back to her. Ilyzath’s vision was gone, but then again, I didn’t need any magical prisons putting nightmares in my head to conjure that particular image. It wasn’t imaginary, after all. It was a memory.

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m tired.”

She didn’t believe me, and we both knew it. But so much of my relationship with Nura had been built on deliberately avoiding unspoken truths. And so she didn’t press, instead reaching into her pocket and pulling out a little velvet pouch.

“Here,” she said. “I found something for you.”

After a surprised pause, I took the pouch. It was old, the burgundy fabric worn and crushed. I opened it and extracted the contents, and my throat was suddenly tight.

“This is yours,” I said.

I frowned down at the fine piece of metal in my palm, a delicate silver necklace with a single gemstone charm. It looked like a shard of crystalized ice, all hard angles and sharp edges, with flecks of red distilled within it. Morrigan’s Ice, a rare gem from the south.

It had been my mother’s.

“You should have it,” Nura said.

“She gave it to you.”

“A lot has changed since then.” A flicker crossed her face, hidden beneath a wry smile. “She probably would want you to have it now. And besides, I haven’t… worn it in a long time. You should save it for your daughter one day.”

I was silent.

I could still remember so vividly the day that my mother had given Nura this. We were teenagers, home for a few weeks on leave. It was the first time we returned to find that Nura’s grandmother no longer remembered her name. Nura hadn’t said a word about it, no matter how much I pried, but I knew it devastated her to lose the only family she had left. We had been about to leave for the Towers again when my mother had pulled Nura aside and pressed the necklace into her hands.

“This has been in my family for hundreds of years,” she said, “passed from mothers to daughters. Morrigan’s Ice is created in some of the most inhospitable places in the world. It could have been refined into something more traditional, but I’ve always loved that this one is unfinished.” She gave Nura a barely-there smile. “I think there is a beauty in that, don’t you? In being a little different. A little sharper.”

I had never seen Nura cry before, and that day had been no exception. But I could tell that she had to try hard to avoid it, blinking a little too fast, her words rough. “I can’t take this. Give it to Marisca or Shailia or—”

“I think it suits you,” my mother had said, gently, and Nura went silent for a long, long moment before pulling her into a fierce embrace.

It was only later, when we bid our final goodbyes, that my mother had taken me aside.