Six Scorched Roses (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1.5)

by Carissa Broadbent

Here’s the thing about the God of Abundance. Abundance wears many faces. The god of plenty is also the god of decay. There can be no life without death, no feast without famine.

“It appears,” a deep voice said, “a little mouse has made its way into my home.”

“Are you familiar with Adcova?” I asked. “Familiar enough.” “An illness is plaguing the city.”

Yes, the twelve gods of the White Pantheon could be cold and fickle, but Nyaxia—the heretic goddess who had split from the Pantheon two thousand years ago to create her civilization of vampires—was just as ruthlessly cruel.

“After so long, you realize that knowing things doesn’t especially matter very much. Knowledge with no context is meaningless. That’s not the real treasure.”

Why was I working so hard? I was working so hard because none of it would ever be enough. I would continue until I had nothing left to give. Force myself through the grinding machinery of the mind. Better this than to spend time making it harder for her to say goodbye to me one day. My love gave my sister nothing. But my work gave her a chance.

“Time, Vale,” I said. “Time is the most valuable resource of all, and some of us are perpetually short.”

“If I didn’t do dangerous things,” I added, “I would do nothing.”

“Whatever you need,” he said. “My blood. My books. My knowledge. Anything. It is yours.”

And when the days passed, and my exhaustion and my enthusiasm led me to loosen my typically-closely-held control over my socially unacceptable attitudes, my raw enthusiasm leaking through as I talked excitedly to Vale about some theory or another, I turned to see him staring at me, brows drawn. His expression made me freeze, my face flushing—because I’d let down a wall I shouldn’t have and wasn’t sure what I might have revealed beyond it. “I—” I started. But he just said, calmly, “You are a very beautiful woman.”

One day, he ended his letter with a drawing of a nightbane flower, and a tiny note beside it: sweet with a bitter bite.

“You want more than I can give you,” I whispered. “I can’t imagine that ever being true,” he murmured. “Because I want only you, Lilith. Whatever of you I can have. I’ll take one night. One hour. One minute. Whatever you want to give me. I’ll have it.”

“Whatever you wish to give me,” he repeated, slowly, like he wanted to make sure I understood. “I’ll have it.”