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

by Carissa Broadbent

“And if you’ll take it, Mische Iliae, you will have me, too.”

I’m not crying you’re crying

This isn’t what love should feel like. “Show me what it should feel like,”

🤪

My soul had been marked by a litany of shames. I’d carry them forever, and I’d likely carry more, too—I knew that. But Asar, I knew certain as the nightfall, would never be one of them.

Let him unravel. Let me see what he looked like in the ruins of all that self-control.

“You’ve seen how I work now, Dawndrinker. I’m thorough. I’m patient.” “You’re uptight.” “I have impeccable attention to detail.”

“You asked me what love should feel like,” he murmured. I tensed as his lips brushed my inner thigh. “It should make you think of nothing else.”

“It should make you see stars.”

“And I’m being slow now, because I won’t be able to later.”

“I’d burn with you till the end of it all, Dawndrinker.”

I would always be with him, I knew in this moment. I would never be able to leave.

No, I would never regret Asar. But I knew that one day, he would regret me.

I’m deeply honored that I had the opportunity to walk this path with you. Thank you.”

Or perhaps the truth is simpler. Perhaps mortals, like gods, are mesmerized by their own damnation.

Some souls, I thought as I drove the blade into Malach’s heart, deserved to burn. And burn Malach did.

HELL YA

“I never wanted anything so much as I wanted to show you that happy ending you so believe in, Mische,”

Still, they’re right to be concerned. Because while I don’t remember their betrayal of Alarus, I do remember what they looked like standing over Mische’s broken body.

The death of one woman, one woman who was better than all of them, who had given everything until she had nothing left, was worth more than all of it.