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

by Carissa Broadbent

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.

It is giving Gwi-Ma

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.

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. Irritation flashed over Asar’s face, but so did something much more satisfying—surprise. “Just ask nicely,” I muttered. “That’s all!” I joined him at the edge of the glyph circle. I could feel his gaze on me for a long moment, as if he was considering saying something. “What?” I said. He shook his head and turned to the body. “I need your help with this.”

I really did think Asar would refuse to answer. But he said, “Chandra.” It was a religious name. It meant one who spreads the light unto dark places in the old tongues.

I found it hard to imagine Asar prostrating in general. He didn’t seem like the type who went to his knees easily, goddess or no.

If this isnt foreshadowing, I don't know what is. Hah!

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.

His features begged to be immortalized in stone or paint.

But this, with Asar, was different. It felt more like my blood was answering a mutual call rather than bowing in subservience.

“A connection, no matter how biological, is only worth the attention one gives it,” he said.

Asar, I now understood, was like me. Not because he was related to my maker, or because he wielded a magic that spoke so innately to mine. But because he, too, was a healer. He had devoted himself to fixing the broken things that no one else saw.

I offered my other hand to Asar, who was last. His long fingers wound around mine. To Chandra, I played the role I was born for: bright, reassuring optimist, immune to all doubt. But Asar, I knew, felt my nagging unease. He squeezed once, so quick I questioned if I’d imagined it.

My favorite: the softening of the tough exterior. LFG!

“Asar…” Elias said uneasily as he narrowly avoided the curious reaching hand of what looked to be a dead priestess, blindfold over her eyes.

Hello, Archessen!

“Ah.” Her lips brushed the crest of my ear. “He likes you. Even if he doesn’t know it yet. But don’t be fooled. He will ruin you one day, too.” Then, to Asar, “She is very interesting. I see why you enjoy her. Another attractive curiosity. But she only knows how to love things she can fix, and there is no fixing you, is there?” The laugh that rippled through the air was ugly, rasping, closer to a sob. “Or perhaps that’s why you would be so perfect for each other. A girl who can only love broken things, and a boy so broken he can only love what he cannot have. A perfect match.”

“I serve your master,” he said. “I have stood watch over his realm for one hundred and fifty-four years. This, I know, is a blink compared to your eternal vigil. I know, too, that I am but a fallible mortal. I have little to offer but my intentions. But I see the way this realm hurts. I see your sacrifice.” He bowed his head. “I ask you, guardians, to trust me with the relic Alarus left behind. Trust me to restore this realm to what it once was.”

I didn’t even see him move. One minute, darkness enveloped him. The next, Elias went flying against the wall. “Do. Not. Touch. Her.” Unlike Elias, Asar didn’t growl, didn’t yell. His words were clear. Four precise swipes of the blade. “It isn’t her fault,” he hissed, “that you can’t handle witnessing the results of your own actions.”

“It’s a powerful gift,” he said softly. “To right a wrong.”

You are too good to be this afraid of yourself, Iliae, he snapped. You are better than this.

I didn’t remember taking Asar’s hand, only that when his fingers intertwined around mine, it felt like a key sliding into a lock. I wanted to drown in it. I wanted more—I wanted everything.

He touched his chest. “I would never deny you a mortal pleasure, Iliae.”

because once that man decides that he cares for you, he will never stop. Not ever. Your sacrifice will become his, and I fear that fractured stone heart of his cannot bear another blow.”

“It is an injustice, Mische, that this is what you got when you asked for love,” he murmured. “This isn’t what love should feel like.”

But all logical thought and protest drowned in the next taste, the next breath, the next beat of his heart. My fingers clutched fistfuls of his shirt, even though I wanted skin. “Good girl,” Asar whispered. The words vibrated against my lips, serrated with a hunger sharp as mine.

I liked seeing Asar disheveled. I wanted to see how much it would take to see him obliterated.

I finally allowed myself to look at him. He knelt at the altar next to me. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Praying with you,” he said. As if it were obvious. “I thought you didn’t believe in prayer.” “I don’t,” he said. “But you do.” Strange how it was this small gesture of kindness that shattered me.

“Because who will I hate instead? If it’s not my fault, whose is it? She’s not supposed to be here. She was the best priestess in the Citadel. The most pious, the most devoted. She was always the better one. She gave him everything. She gave him—” My voice cracked. “She gave him me.”

“Is that what you think of yourself? That everything good about you came from a fucking church? Atroxus didn’t make you special by choosing you. He chose you because you already were, and even when you were eight Mother-damned years old, he knew that. You owe him nothing. Nothing.”

“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.” This whisper was an exhale, like he didn’t mean to say it aloud—like the words surprised even himself.

“I don’t want to be something you regret, Mische.” I knew it was a confession that came from the most vulnerable parts of himself. The echo of Ophelia’s words hung between us: You’re nothing but a regret to everyone you ever loved.

“Slow,” he scoffed. “You’ve seen how I work now, Dawndrinker. I’m thorough. I’m patient.”

“It should make you think of nothing else.”

“A man can’t rush worship.”

I could see now how Asar had once been a master at torture. He was so cruelly attentive, so aware of every unwilling tell of the flesh.

Sometimes they only see you for the first time when you force them to.

Asar’s voice was warm against my ear. “Do not be afraid of death, Dawndrinker. Make death afraid of you.” I watched the bird burn, and I let myself rise.