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

by Carissa Broadbent

For every lost soul who just needs someone to listen

No one loves you more than someone who has no one else.

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.

“Do. Not. Touch. Her.”

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

“Just accept it,” I murmured. “Never.” But his hand fell to the small of my back, and he didn’t pull away.

That’s it?” she’d whispered to her friend once, after her wedding night. “That’s the thing that has people running around betraying vows and starting wars?”

Screaming

Ophe-lia

This is the second time ive seen the random dash

And then he said, after a moment, “I just played the notes that sounded like you.”

“Good girl,” Asar whispered. The words vibrated against my lips, serrated with a hunger sharp as mine.

Internally SCREAMING

“I’ll tell you what you’ll have if you lose the sun, Mische. You’ll have a soul gentler than any vampire’s I’ve ever known. You’ll have an incredible magic and the skill to wield it better than the bastard who gave it to you. You’ll have a soft heart and a sharp wit and the wisdom to know when to use one or the other. You’ll have countless inane questions and horrible taste in food and a penchant for making lost souls love you.” I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. He leaned closer until his forehead touched mine. “And if you’ll take it, Mische Iliae, you will have me, too.”

“Fall with me,” I whispered. Because I was oddly terrified to lose control—terrified to do it alone. He exhaled against me, our pace rising to a desperate crescendo. “I’d burn with you till the end of it all, Dawndrinker.”

But I am not the god of any of those things. I have only one gift to lay at her feet. And so, I wait.