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

mind into the air around me, feeling for a thought, a presence. But my magic had gone eerily silent, like a wall separated it from the world around me, dampening it to a numb ringing inside my skull.

Had I been dosed with Chryxalis? This felt… different than that, like my magic had been chained rather than smothered. Even Reshaye seemed so far away, as if something had shoved it deep beneath the surface and trapped it there.

I tried to lift my head. My muscles were not cooperative.

The voices stopped.

“She’s awake,” a man’s voice said.

“There’s no need to be afraid of her,” a woman replied. The voice was low and smooth, sounding as if it belonged to someone in her sixties. “She’s harmless now.”

“I’m not afraid of her. I’m just… curious.”

Footsteps, slowly approaching.

“From what I had heard about her, I was expecting—”

“What? A demon?”

“She just looks so harmless.”

“That harmless little thing has killed hundreds of your men,” the woman replied, and despite everything, that word closed its teeth around me — hundreds. Had I taken that many lives? Surely, no. Not when I had tried so hard not to. But then again, it adds up, doesn’t it? Battles on top of battles on top of battles, and even those miraculously small death tolls rise and rise.

I pushed the thought away.

“I would appreciate it,” I said, “if you could remove this from my face. Please.”

My voice was raspy.

Seconds passed. Then the blindfold was yanked away.

I squinted.

It wasn’t especially bright in here, but compared to the unyielding black of the blindfold, the light was blinding. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. I might have expected to see myself in a dungeon, chained up in some rat-infested basement. But this place was clean, with walls made out of polished stone, lit by delicate gold lanterns. A blue sky peered through several long, gold-adorned windows near the ceiling. The floor was made out of ceramic tile — beautifully crafted, though several long cracks ran though some of them.

At first I wasn’t sure what this place was — maybe it wasn’t a prison at all. But then my eyes settled on the door, directly across the room from me. It was iron, heavily bolted.

It was a prison, then. A fine prison. But a prison, nonetheless.

And then my eyes traveled back, to the two people who stood before me. First, a man, who appeared to be in his fifties, tall with a neat grey beard and finely crafted clothes. And then, a woman who was a bit older than him, grey-and-gold hair spilling over her shoulders, regarding me with a curious, critical stare. She wore a dress of deep emerald, but my eyes immediately landed on the sigil at her breast.

A sun. The symbol of the Order of Daybreak.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked.

I eyed him, piecing together my thoughts. “You are Atrick Aviness.”

It was a guess. But I guessed right.

He inclined his chin. “You have been making things very difficult for me,” he said.

He was very soft-spoken, almost gentle, and he still looked at me as though I was more of a curiosity than an enemy. Strange, to see him now as a person, after thinking of him for so long as a monolithic force, inseparable from his armies.

“Likewise,” I said, and smiled. Beneath the smile, I cursed my lack of magic. I had not had to do this sort of performance in quite some time. It would be easier if I could feel his thoughts, his preferences — test what sort of mask I should wear.

My gaze flicked to the woman, who was watching me carefully.

“And you?” I asked.

“Irene. One name is enough for you.” She cocked her head. “You are quite an interesting little thing, aren’t you? We met, you may recall. At the Orders’ ball last year. Very briefly. The Orders were quite entranced by you. It seems that little has changed. I remember then thinking that you just seemed so desperate.” A small smile. “Desperation does drive people to do dangerous things. What did Aldris promise you? And what did you trade away?”

Too much, a voice in the back of my mind whispered. Far too much.

“I have no stake in Zeryth’s crown,” I said. “It does not matter to me who sits on Ara’s throne.”

There was a reason I was still alive. What was it?

“There is something you need,” I said. “I can help you get it.”

“How quickly, she offers herself up to turncoat. But I think that’s an empty promise, isn’t it? I know Zeryth and Nura, and I know they would have eliminated the possibility of your disloyalty. If I were to move your bindings, would I find your Blood Pact scar? But no… it’s not you that we need.”

Uncertainty rose to dread.

Reshaye slithered through my thoughts. It was slow, sluggish. Gods, what was that? I pressed my back against the stone wall. Stone — I could Wield stone, with Reshaye’s help, but only with its help.

I did not want to break Irene’s stare. But I chanced a turn of my head, at my arms splayed out over the stone wall. Just a glance, and nearly gasped.

Stratagrams had been marked onto my skin. Three on each arm.

Were those… tattooed?

I had seen that before, on a Valtain slave girl. I remembered telling Max about that once, long ago, before we were even friends. They were probably meant to cripple her magic, he had said, a wrinkle of disdain over his nose. Imagine tying a cow’s head to its tail.

Can you break that? I whispered to Reshaye, and it hissed frustration, pressing up against the shackles that bound our magic. Even reaching towards them was difficult. It was weak.

{Not yet. Not yet.}

Irene chuckled. My shock must have shown on my face.

“You’ve earned yourself a reputation worthy of extreme precautions, Tisaanah.”

“Then why am I still alive?” I said. “What is it that you want?”

“It would be a waste to let you die.”

She turned away and began