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

parchment from my pocket and unfolded it with shaking hands.

She’s already dead. She’s already gone.

Sammerin’s footsteps joined us, and Tare’s, following silently.

“I’ll gather the troops,” Nura said.

“No time,” I ground out.

“If we take only the Wielders, we can use Stratagrams. We’ll move fast.”

My pen was out, ink dripping, but I paused. I struggled to force my thoughts into coherence.

Sammerin voiced what I was too panicked to put into words. “That cuts down our forces by what, half? Less? We were already too outmatched to take the Capital. That’s exactly what Aviness wants us to do.”

He was right. And somewhere beneath it all, I realized it was odd that Nura, of all people, was overlooking that.

“We need Tisaanah back,” she said. “If we recover her, we’ll have Reshaye. And we have—”

Her gaze flicked to me, and her voice trailed off — as if, at the same time, we both realized the echo in her words. We have you, she had said to me in Sarlazai. We have you.

And look at how that had ended.

“No,” I said. “I’m not about to throw my soldiers at Aviness’s feet.”

“Then what exactly do you expect—”

“I’ll go alone. I can get her back.”

“It’s not enough to get her back, Max. We need to end this. And it doesn’t matter how good either of you are, you can’t do that alone.”

Can’t, she said, but I wondered if she meant won’t.

I didn’t have time to sit here and wonder about it. The prisoner’s words were still ringing in my ears, and Nura’s visions still burning my eyes, and Tisaanah didn’t have time for any of this.

“Do not bring them,” I said. “I can move faster alone. And I’ll be back soon.”

Nura was shaking her head. But my gaze flicked towards Sammerin, who was giving me a resigned, grim stare that, unfortunately, I had seen many times before.

“Good luck,” he said, and I knew what he really meant was, Try not to be too much of an idiot. Then his expression hardened, and he added, “Bring her back.”

“I will,” I said.

Maybe Nura tried to say something more. I wouldn’t know. I was gone.

Chapter Forty-Two

Tisaanah

I was awoken by hands grabbing me and dragging me upright. I didn’t remember falling asleep. My mind was so addled that by the time consciousness returned to me, I had already been hoisted onto a table, chains replaced with bindings around my upper arms. Had this table been here before? I didn’t know — perhaps I had been moved into an entirely different room and hadn’t known. Had it been so bright in here? So white?

Was it Reshaye’s fear that flooded me, or my own?

Irene leaned over me. Everything was so, so bright that she was backlit, flattened to silhouetted shadow.

She was already reaching for my wrist by the time I saw the dagger in her hand.

A dagger. A wrist. A room of white.

Reshaye and I both realized at the same moment what she was planning to do. The threads of my thoughts lit up with panic, mine and Reshaye’s mingling.

She was going to try to take Reshaye.

Reshaye roared, and I felt it dig into my thoughts like claws. A flood of magic surged, but it had nowhere to go — it crashed and broke like a wave against stone, far from the surface.

“Stop,” I choked out. “It will kill you!”

Irene gave me an impassive glance. She slid the dagger over her palm. The crimson was searing.

“Wouldn’t that be convenient?” she said. And then she opened the flesh of my palm, and pressed our hands together.

The pain split me in two. I wasn’t sure if I was hearing my own scream or Reshaye’s, reverberating in my head, consuming all else. I could feel Irene’s magic trying to pry into mine, trying to reach into my head, tear away Reshaye. My magic and Reshaye’s surged towards her, trying to overtake her.

But those Stratagrams — those Stratagrams choked me, like an iron collar.

I saw a wall of black, and a reflection within it that I couldn’t make out. Something was reaching for me, reaching—

Pain tore me apart. Irene was pushing further and further into my mind, tearing apart my thoughts in a vicious attempt to dig deeper, until she found Reshaye, until she could rip it away—

It was killing me. This would kill me.

I felt Irene’s magic — gods, what was this? This was no magic I had ever experienced before. My mind was a web, an intricate series of threads, and Irene’s magic shredded through it like talons to paper.

It encroached on Reshaye. Wrapped around it as it screamed.

Stop, Reshaye!

Reshaye let out a ghastly shriek. Fragmented images careened through me.

I saw a flash of golden hair. A room of white and white and white.

I saw purple blood spilling over marble floors.

I saw the ground opening, the skies on fire.

And I felt terror. Reshaye’s terror, drowning me.

Think, Tisaanah. Think. What do you do when you’re losing control?

What did I do, when Reshaye took over at the Mikov estate?

I let myself fall.

Fall.

Through the agony, I forced myself to calm, forced my mind to turn inward.

I stopped fighting. I released my hold on Reshaye’s panic. And I fell.

I stood in rolling plains. Rippling grasslands spread out around me, disappearing to the horizon on every side, their golden glow turned cold under the moonlight. I had been here before, the day I had lost control at the Mikov estate. I looked up — up, at what looked like a sky, except instead of stars above me I saw threads glowing in the darkness, my own mind and Reshaye and Irene’s all battling, slow motion, in streaks across the night.

And…

My brow furrowed.

There was something else up there, too. Another glow, another soul, far more distant than Irene’s and Reshaye’s, but treading incandescent rivulets across the sky nevertheless. Like the claw marks of something trying to drag itself closer.

If I reached for it, a shiver ran through me — a shiver of hatred, of despair,