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

by Carissa Broadbent

It always begins like this. In times of great darkness, humans crawl to light like flies to the gleaming silver of a spider’s silk.

“A mortal is comprised of five components that separate the living from the dead,” he said. “And necromancy requires the spell to bring together all five again. So yes, it needs something to represent each of those elements.”

Nothing was more deadly than a hurting person pushed to a breaking point.

“The dead crave the living. Let’s not rush the inevitable.”

A girl who can only love broken things, and a boy so broken he can only love what he cannot have. A perfect match.”

no matter how dark a person’s past, a little flicker of light still shone in every single heart.

Let them hate you. It will taste better when you eat their hearts.

And there was nothing more dangerous than a sin that felt right. Nothing.

a smile that reminded me of the way the sun looked when it crested the horizon the first time I saw it at the Citadel, and I had thought, I am home.

Mournful notes that sounded like hope after heartbreak, like the rise of the stars in the sky, like a flame warming a hearth.

But her face was resigned when she turned to me. “And you. I hope you watch them all burn.”

Her recklessness was not borne of foolishness or stupidity. Always, it was borne of love.

Like it was barely clinging to what it once was. The worst fate I could imagine. Never to rest in death. Never to find life again.

“Do not be afraid of death, Dawndrinker. Make death afraid of you.”