Daughter of No Worlds (The War of Lost Hearts, #1)

by Carissa Broadbent

That victory meant another’s defeat, and sometimes our own defeat. That winning meant sacrifices, and sometimes ones that even our own people were not willing to make. That in war, someone always paid.

For a moment, Max just looked confused. Then realization swept over his face and his mouth flattened into a very tense, very straight line. “Tisaanah… Ascended help me, was that a fart joke?”

“And who the hell are we,” he finally said, voice low and thick, “to carry something so precious?”

I mistook Esmaris’s meticulous care for love. Even though he cared for me the way one cared for a prize horse: pampered it, groomed it, broke it and rode it, and discarded it when it began to kick.