The Songbird & the Heart of Stone (Crowns of Nyaxia, #3)

by Carissa Broadbent

He chose for himself only the most flawless faces, the most powerful warriors, the most skilled sorcerers. This girl was none of those things.

In times of great darkness, humans crawl to light like flies to the gleaming silver of a spider’s silk. These are the souls that gods feast upon. No one loves you more than someone who has no one else.

Or perhaps gods, like mortals, are simply mesmerized by their own damnation.

This is the tale of how a chosen one falls. She does it screaming, clawing for her old life with broken fingernails. She does it slowly, over the course of decades. And in the end, she takes the whole forsaken world with her.

But it had been more than a year now since Atroxus had answered my prayers.

could imagine what they said. Raihn’s scrawled handwriting: Where the hell are you, Mish? Oraya’s looping script: Don’t make me send Jesmine to go hunt you down.

Shadowborn magic, I realized. The magic of minds and compulsion, illusion and shadow.

Sure, the Nightborn were intimidating, with the wings and the swords and all that battle prowess. The Bloodborn were frightening the way rabid wolves were, vicious and unpredictable. But the Shadowborn were like ghosts. They manipulated reality itself. They drank up the darkness like wine and relished the notes of fear within it.

One day, the whispers would make legends of Raihn and Oraya, too, and I looked forward to hearing them.

But I never ran away. Not even when I should. Instead, I did what I always did: I gave that bastard the biggest, brightest smile.

Raoul was not well. And he was so ancient, so powerful, that losing control of his faculties meant losing control of his magic. That wasn’t just an embarrassment to the House of Shadow. It was deadly. The King of the House of Shadow was a massive liability.

I imagined Raihn’s and Oraya’s faces when presented with my head in a box. They would start a war for me, even though their shaky newborn rule couldn’t withstand it. They’d end the House of Night for me. No hesitation—no question. I’d left to protect them, and now I would still end up destroying them.

But I’d heard stories of a third one, too. Old stories, centuries past. A bastard son who had once led Raoul’s fleets of spies, before he…

Asar Voldari. The Wraith Warden. The stories seemed more befitting a myth than a man, even by the gruesome standards of vampire lore. They all ran together in my memory, grim tales of torture and spycraft, bloody tasks accomplished by bloodier means. Every king has someone to do their dirty work.

I felt like such a hypocrite, being shocked by Asar’s scars when my own had grown so horrifying.

“This is a symbol of the Order of the Destined Dawn,” Asar said. “There are far more useful things we can do with a Dawndrinker than butcher her up.”

What mission could Nyaxia possibly have given him? What mission could she possibly have given him that required the magic of Atroxus? It couldn’t be anything good.

But then, the voice. It sounded exactly as it had that day on the Citadel steps. I see you, a’mara. Open your hand.

I kept summoning sparks to my fingertips. Off, on. Off, on. They hurt every time, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to skip.

I bit down on my last question because I knew if I didn’t, I’d never stop talking. I was too chatty at the best of times, but right now, I felt jittery, all my impulses too close to the surface.

The House of Night held the Moon Palace and the Kejari tournament hosted within it, held every one hundred years in Nyaxia’s honor. The House of Blood had the barren fields where the god of death, Alarus, had been murdered and dismembered. And the House of Shadow had Morthryn. A place said to be cursed, even by vampire standards.

“Look at all that a sunrise can mean. We survived another night. And no matter what, the dawn will always come for us. Never forget that.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just, it’s a bit funny that I’m the one jumping when the dog says ‘come,’ isn’t it?”

“Is that… ​surprising?” Asar sounded like he was already regretting asking this question.

The tug on my mind had me taking a few steps before I could stop myself. But then I stopped short, pushing back against the pressure on my thoughts. “Don’t do that,” I snapped.

“Just ask nicely,” I muttered. “That’s all!”

“Not very holy of you.” “Can’t bring the light unless I know what the darkness looks like, Warden.”

“Alarus,” I choked out. “It’s Alarus. You’re going to resurrect the god of death.” Nyaxia’s deceased husband, who had been murdered by the White Pantheon—an execution led by Atroxus himself.

I could see the wince flit across his face. I felt it, too—a fleeting pang of frustration.

If he was anywhere near as good at physical assassination as he was at verbal assassination, no wonder he’d earned himself an intimidating nickname.

“Where is the third guardian?” Elias asked in a near whisper, before I could. “The bird?”

“The bird fell many years ago,” Asar said. “Keep your eyes forward.”

The vampires of the House of Shadow could manipulate the darkness, obscure the truth, look into minds. They could spin illusions and bend you to their will. It was the magic of deceit and secrets. Not healing.

He tried to sound casual, but I could feel his interest clinging to me. He was curious and trying not to be.

don’t give me that look, Dawndrinker, yes, the sword. I’ll need you functional at the temple. No burning yourself alive before we make it there.”

Don’t let them touch you, he said, like it was that fucking easy. I was starting to realize that Asar often gave advice that wasn’t very useful.

though I sensed that his long, combative stare was a bit of a goad. Men. They were the same everywhere.

No one in the world was better at hugs than Raihn. The last time I’d seen him, it was that hug goodbye that almost broke my resolve.

She looked at him like he was a question answered. He looked at her like she was the only one worth asking.

Luce let out a small whine as I rolled Asar over, gently prodding him with her nose. My heart warmed. She really loved him.

“And the gates are growing harder for me to close by myself. I could use… ​assistance.” My brows lifted. “You’re asking for help.”

I thought of him silhouetted against that broken door, one man standing between the collision of worlds.

I liked trying to read Asar. I found most people easy to decipher, but he was a nice little challenge, like the wooden puzzles Saescha used to give me when I was a child.

“A perfect corpse is still not living until it breathes, or its heart beats, or it changes with time. That’s Breath. The nature of being alive. It may be something intangible, but it would represent the essence of connection to life.”

“Do. Not. Touch. Her.” Unlike Elias, Asar didn’t growl, didn’t yell. His words were clear. Four precise swipes of the blade.

I saw what had happened when those god teeth, offered by Septimus, Prince of the House of Blood, were used as a weapon. A challenger for the throne had leveraged them to great power, but it had come with catastrophic costs.

“Asar Voltari, Wraith Warden, Prince of the Shadowborn, caretaker of Morthryn, I can read you like a gods-damned book,” I said. “And you want to tell me, because if you didn’t, you would have wandered off to go loom menacingly in the shadows by now.”

“Sometimes they just need someone to listen.” I could hear the amused smile in his voice. “He damned near worshipped you, Iliae.”

“We all have ghosts in our pasts, Iliae. We can’t give them the power to define our futures, too.”

He started to rise, then let out a surprised oof as I threw myself against him.