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.

Or perhaps gods, like mortals, are simply mesmerized by their own damnation. Because he paused then, peering through the veil between worlds, at this little girl.

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.

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

I have my faith, and I have the love of my god. That’s all I need.” Asar was silent for a long moment, gaze lowering. His thumb traced the scar on the swell of my palm. I hated that they now extended to my hands, where my sleeves could no longer cover them. “Right. Looks like love,” he muttered bitterly.

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

Stay in this moment, before you have that little crack of doubt. Because the doubt would lead to the desperation, and the desperation would lead to the mistakes, and the mistakes would lead to my downfall. But I was never very good at listening. I reached for the bird anyway.

But it’s a strange cocktail, suffering and faith. A dangerous one that makes you think you can survive anything.