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

by Carissa Broadbent

The roses were more plentiful here, trampling each other as they coiled up bookcases that stretched so high they disappeared into the silver fog above. A neglected fire languished near death in a grand fireplace to the left. Before it, a massive desk sat in foreboding watch, a faded, black velvet chair askew behind it. Open books and papers covered the mahogany surface, wet ink still gleaming on one sheet, as if someone had just stepped away mid-thought. Yet, even so, it was all meticulously neat—every piece of parchment aligned to the edge of the desk, every little trinket artfully arranged. But the shelves—gods, the artifacts⁠— I just kept turning and turning. Every time I considered stopping, I found something more to see. I’d spent decades in libraries across the human nations and beyond. But two minutes in here and I knew that this had to be one of the most impressive collections of magical relics that existed in the world. The shelves were divided into sections. Here, bones—a small horse skull with a twisted silver horn protruding from its forehead, a carefully reassembled skeletal hand with claws longer than its fingers, a lower jaw with jagged teeth that extended several razored inches. There, a series of glass flasks holding what I recognized as various types of blood arranged by color. The red of human, the black of vampire—then several types I didn’t recognize: gold, indigo, a strange silver that gave off waves of light. Then, weapons. A broken sword pinned to t...