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

by Carissa Broadbent

One look at Sammerin sitting in the spectator’s area, sagging in his chair, staring through the windows with a look of what I could only describe as resigned horror, told me exactly how Moth’s tests were going. I grimaced. “Poor Moth.” Max chuckled. “Poor Sammerin.” We heard the faint echo of a crash, a flurry of activity from the next room, and whatever Sammerin was seeing made him put his head in his hands and let out a heaving sigh. We took that as our cue to leave.

poor them..

“Ascended above. Get up. You look like you’ve gone mad.” “Gone mad? Angry?” My head spun as Max pulled me to my feet. “No, it means to lose one’s mind. Or maybe have it crushed. As I would fear, for instance, watching a woman roll around on the ground grinning to herself while covered in her own blood.” Gone mad. I liked it.

she cray cray

“Maxantarius. What a surprise.” Zeryth had remained on my arm. His easy smile hardened. “Are you finally attempting to rejoin society?” “It’s a temporary testing period. So far, my opinion is mixed.” “Really? A happy-go-lucky person like you?”

i dont like zeryth

“If you’ll excuse us, Maxantarius. I promise I’ll bring her back in one piece.” “I’m not worried. She already had you on your ass once today.” Gods, Max. But Zeryth just let out a low chuckle. “We can’t argue with that, can we?”

CLOCK IT MAXXXX

“We got you out. That’s a start. Patience, Tisaanah.” We? I got myself out. Serel got me out. And Vos paid for that with something more valuable than his life. It is not enough, I wanted to say. It is never enough. But I looked up at Zeryth with big eyes. “Patience,” I echoed, and the word tasted like blood and treason on my tongue.

FUCK ZERYTHHHHHH

Once, in Threll, I was walking the bounds of Esmaris’s estate and came across a dead bird in the street. It had been crushed to death by a wagon wheel—smashed right up its middle, glossy black fire-tipped wings splayed out against the white cobblestones. I knelt down beside it and examined the morbid beauty of the day-old blood against those shiny black feathers, the grotesque symmetry of the way it flattened in the street. I imagined it just standing there as the wheel rumbled over it. And I wondered, How did you get here, little bird? Why didn’t you fly away? Sometimes I found myself looking at Max, at the aftermath of all those hidden scars written across every inch of his body and mind, and wondering the same thing—What happened? Why didn’t you fly away?

her bird

My answer shuddered in a broken breath. “I can’t. I can’t.” “Why?” Because it’s too much. Because my fury petrifies me. Because the last time I got angry, I felt a man’s life wither in my hands. I opened my eyes and looked into Max’s, cloudy and blue, a reflection of my own. “Because if I allow myself to be angry, I will never stop.” He leaned closer. So close his nose brushed mine, so close I could count his eyelashes. And so close that I felt his warm breath across my face as he smiled and said, with the viciousness of smoke and steel, “Good.”

YYYYYES.

As we started toward those foreboding gold-and-silver doors, I adjusted the white lily that I had tucked into my hair. It was a last-minute addition that I stole from the garden as I left. I figured that Max wouldn’t mind, and besides, it all felt incomplete without it.

girl ur his prettiest flower

Moth disappeared into the crowd almost immediately, wandering around to explore with wide-eyed fascination. Sammerin didn’t try to stop him. “I know he’s going to get into trouble,” he said, with a twitch of a shrug. “Why fight nature?” I chuckled. Indeed.

indeed!

“Max will be here soon, I’m sure,” he added, raising his voice over the hum of the party. “Will he?” Max had said, somewhat begrudgingly, that he’d go to the event if I did. But now that I was here, I couldn’t even imagine him existing in this environment. “Oh, he won’t miss it,” Sammerin replied, and I caught only a hint of that familiar unreadable glint in his eye as he melted into the festivities.

he wants that cookie so bad

I stepped out into the crowd. Necks craned to follow me, stares immediately followed by horrified gasps at the sight of my back. “Did you see that?” I heard one man whisper to his companion, and I held back a furious smirk of delight. Look at me, I commanded, and they all obeyed. I felt every one of those eyes.

parallels

And it was then that my eyes looked out across the room and immediately settled on a familiar figure. One that I recognized instantly, even through the throngs of people that separated us. As if he felt my gaze, Max glanced up from a conversation that he looked like he would much rather avoid. And when he saw me, that expression of disgruntled weariness melted into a small, knowing smile that, I knew, was meant only for me. And without thinking, I returned it.

IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE I’D LOOK. FOR. YOU.

He was, at first, so striking that he was almost unrecognizable as my disgruntled and vaguely disheveled friend. But as we approached each other, I noticed a smattering of little off-kilter elements—that his jacket was open a button too low, the collar curled on one side; that one rebellious strand of hair had already escaped the oils meant to keep it in place; that the white shirt beneath his coat was slightly wrinkled. I loved those little idiosyncrasies. I loved all of it.

yearn4yearn

“You are very late. I wasn’t sure if you would come.” “Of course I would.” I watched the corner of his eyes crinkle, just barely. Watched his gaze hold on me for a moment before flicking away. Oh, Sammerin had said, with that mysterious glint, he’ll be here. Then I ran my eyes again down Max’s throat, over his shoulders, over sleeves crinkled as if they had been pushed up his forearms and then hurriedly straightened. And then I craned my neck, peering at his conversational companion, who now sat awkwardly alone. “She was pretty.” “I didn’t notice.” I certainly did. And I also noticed the way that his gaze dipped down my body. Ran back up.

girl he wants YOU

I caught a glimpse of a familiar face on the outskirts of the dance floor and grinned, nudging Max’s shoulder. “Look.” Across the room, Moth paced, hands awkwardly clasped behind his back, casting nervous glances toward a pretty Valtain girl in an atrocious pink dress. “Ascended above,” Max groaned. “Don’t do it, Moth. Valtain girls are trouble.” I laughed. “Even me?” “Especially you.”

poor moth LOL

“I’m a terrible dancer,” I said. “Did you know that?” “You were a dancer in Threll, weren’t you?” “I was, but only by memory. I counted the steps. Simple, if I practiced enough. I did not even need music.” He chuckled. “Brute force. I should have known.” Then, after a moment, “I think that may be the first time I’ve ever heard you admit weakness aloud.” Gods. It probably was. I lifted my eyes to him and placed a finger over my lips. “Only for you to know. And I only tell you this because I don’t want to embarrass myself when I ask you to dance with me.” Silence. Such deep silence that the vestiges of distant music mixed with the suddenly deafening pound of my heartbeat. Max stood there, back straight, hands clasped behind him. For once, I could not read his expression. “Or,” I said lightly, “will you look back at this as the beginning of your downfall?” “I . . .” He let out a breath, a chuckle, tucked his hands into his pockets. Then removed them. “My answer hinges upon one condition.” “What?” He took a step forward, and then another. I did, too, until our bodies were directly in front of each other, until I felt his warm hand slip into mine. “No counting,” he said. “Only this once.” “Only this once.” And his arm was already around my waist, my hands at his shoulders, by the time I whispered, “Deal.”

YES LAWD

“I did not think you would say yes,” I murmured. “I thought you weren’t made for social graces.” His chuckle was silent, but we were so close that I felt it reverberate through his muscles. “Firstly,” he retorted, “we are alone. So ‘social’ does not apply.” True. “Secondly.” He attempted to launch me into a gentle twirl. We mistimed and stumbled, fracturing his next word with scuffed laughter. “There is nothing graceful about what we’re doing here.” Very true. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows, asking silent permission for a second attempt. I nodded, and we almost—almost—managed an actual twirl. Except I slid on the damp ground and, in my distraction, hurled myself against his chest.

almost is what matters!

We both let out oofs of impact and my awkward laugh was still dying on my lips when I suddenly became so acutely aware of the warmth of his body pressed against mine. Of how much I liked it. How much I wanted to envelop myself in it. My arms slid around his neck. He lowered me into something slightly resembling a dip, and I curled against him. Every nerve in my body was on fire, set aflame at the brush of his mouth against my cheek, the barest whisper against my skin as it traveled to my ear. “So maybe,” he whispered, “I could be made for this.” Maybe I could, too. Made, or unmade. In that moment, I didn’t care which.

GRGRGRGRGRGRGGGGGGRRRRRR

“I am stuck.” Max put down his book. “You’re stuck.” “Yes. My hair, and my dress—” I gestured to my neck. “Can you . . . ​uh . . . ​help?” He stood there, still, for a second too long. And in that moment, an image flashed through my mind. Hands and skin. Red silk on the ground. I shook it away. Gods, Tisaanah. Control yourself. “Well,” he replied, “you would have to get in line behind all of the other women who want me to undress them.” I rolled my eyes, turning around and lifting my hair. “Have I not earned first place?” A soft chuckle. “I suppose that is undeniable.”

she is first place no doubt

“It pinched you. You have a red mark here.” My laugh was weak, breathy. “It will fit perfectly with all of my other battle scars.” He smoothed his thumb over it again. Then let out a low, rough chuckle. “If tonight was a battle, Tisaanah, you conquered.” My breath caught. “You were merciless.” It was almost a whisper, heavy with a certain reverence, as if he didn’t know he was speaking aloud.

ok flirts....

“If the Orders offer me support, then I need it,” I rasped. “I have nothing else.” And there was no hesitation, no pause, as he stepped closer and said, “You have me.” My chest hurt. I wanted to smooth the desperate wrinkle between his eyebrows. I wanted to still the quivering muscle in his throat that betrayed the intensity of his anxiety. I wanted to take the kiss that I had left behind last night. And most of all—more than anything, anything—I wanted to say yes. But this was not about me. And he knew that, too. I could see it in the anguish in his face: that we both understood that what he was proposing was a fantasy. The two of us alone could never do what I wanted—needed—to do.

GRAHHHHHH

I placed my hand over his. “You must tell me why.” What I meant: Give me a reason. Give me any reason to say yes. The corners of his mouth tightened. “Do you trust me?” Gods, I did. More than anyone. “I trust that you are trying to protect me above all else.”

GIVE HER A REASON TO SAY YESSSS

“Tisaanah, please,” he said at last. “Promise me.” I extracted my fingers from his, then placed my hands on either side of his face. I drank in his features. Then I pulled his face toward me and pressed my lips against his forehead. Inhaled his scent of ash and lilacs slowly, savoring it. And in my exhale, I whispered against his skin, “I promise you that I will be all right.” I turned away before he could say anything else, and I didn’t look back as I scaled the steps to the tower entrance. It was only as I opened those heavy doors that I cast one final glance over my shoulder to see Max still standing there, watching me go. I lifted my palm in a wave he did not return. And as I curled my shaking hands around the handle to close the door behind me, I wondered if I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.

alexa play i dont wanna live forever

He reached for the dagger and extended his forearm over the desk. With one strike, he drew the blade across his skin, opening a trail of red that spilled over the Stratagram. “Your turn.” He flipped the dagger in his hands, extending the handle to me. The blade smeared blood all over his fingers. “We should only need a little⁠—” But I didn’t hesitate as I took the knife from him, and I didn’t break eye contact as I slashed it across my arm—not even as I struck too deep, splattering crimson across Nura’s white jacket, across the page, across that beautiful, expensive marble.

+1000 aura

Always a step further, a step further. She drove forward with such relentless determination, always, no matter what. How could I not follow? And while every one of those steps hurt, like muscles creaking back to life after years of disuse, they still felt so right. A slow, tentative, utterly fucking terrifying return to a natural state.

Not when I agreed to let her into my house, or my mind, or my past. Not even when I realized that every time I was without her, I found myself collecting little stories and oddities to tell her about when I saw her again, like stones that I slipped into my pockets.

JUST TO TELL HERRR

But that was nothing compared to this moment. The moment when I stood there, watching her walk up the steps to the Towers, knowing that nothing I could say or do would stop her. And could I blame her? There was still so much I couldn’t tell her. And it was almost poetic: the very thing that had made me let her in that night, nearly six months ago—that determination, that powerful tenacity that made me believe in someone for the first time in so long—would be the thing to wrench her away.

her determinationnnnn

Nura had been halfway down unbuttoning her jacket, but at this she froze, then slowly turned to me. For a moment, she looked genuinely sad, and the rawness of that glance might have been startling under other circumstances. “You don’t mean that.” “I’ll do it now,” I said. My hands were already at my sleeve, exposing my forearm and the scar from the last pact I’d made all those years ago. “We have history. I’d be better at Wielding it. It will listen to me.” Nura was shaking her head. “Max . . .” “Just do it.” I staggered forward. “This is what you’ve all wanted anyway, isn’t it? And I⁠—”

HE WOULDVE DONE IT ALL AGAIN FOR HER

Eight years ago, on the second-worst day of my life, Nura and I had stood in bloody chaos in the mountains, fighting a battle we could not hope to win. And she had reached into my mind and forced me to decimate the entire city of Sarlazai. A betrayal that won the war, killed hundreds, and completely eviscerated me.

fuck her bitchasz

“Help us help her, Max. You can guide her through this.” I pulled away. “Like hell I can.” Not after what that thing did to me. Not after what I, however unwittingly, did to Tisaanah. I shot Nura a glare. “I’m sure you’re about to tell me it isn’t a request.” A little smile flitted across her mouth. “It has to be a request. Tisaanah wrote it into her pact.” “She—what?” She strode back to her closet. “She was smart. Very specific in her requests. We couldn’t get out of our promises if we wanted to. And one of them was about you.” She selected another one of her identical white jackets. “That you’re released from all Order obligations. Fresh slate. Congratulations. You’re a free man.” Words abandoned me. I didn’t deserve her. No one deserved her.

SHES TOO GOODDDDD

I threw open the door and started down those oppressive, winding hallways—hallways that drowned me in open space. It was silent save for my rapid footsteps, a reminder of everything I couldn’t outrun. But all I could hear was Tisaanah’s lilting voice, from our day in the city all those months ago. I heard it over and over, following every step: If I become lost, I will never be found again. I will never be found again.

OHMY GODIDDD

“I don’t like creatures that don’t have the common decency to have limbs like the rest of us,” I said. “You don’t like the centipedes either, and they have lots of limbs.” “Something between snakes and centipedes is acceptable.” I eyed the snake, who stared back at me with equal trepidation. “Put that thing away.” Kira let out a groan, but slid the snake back into his cage.

LMAO me too max

Then snatched a glass box from the shelf below it. “Look at this!” I looked down at a giant, shiny black beetle, its shell reflecting purple and green against the light through the window. “Nice.” “Do you know what it eats?” I shook my head. “Rotting flesh.” “That’s charming.” “Don’t worry, only the kind that’s already dead.” “Oh, good, that was almost morbid.”

love him and his sister

“Did you know that when butterflies make a cocoon, their bodies totally dissolve? They just become sticky caterpillar goo with a couple of organs mixed in. They don’t even have a brain.” I wrinkled my nose. “That’s disgusting. How did you find that out?” I was almost afraid of the answer—so I let out a small breath of relief when she replied, “I read about it.” Then she added, “But I didn’t think that sounded accurate, so I cut a cocoon in half at Aunt Lysara’s house. And it was right! Just goo.” “Mother and Aunt Lysara must’ve been thrilled.” “Mother said I lacked social graces.” “She says that to me, too.” Funny, because our mother also lacked “social graces,” no matter how much she tried to pretend otherwise.

ppl say that to me too

So many of my dreams were about him. In my dreams, I was him. Did I miss him that desperately? {You like his stories the best. I like his the best, too.}

they both loveee him

“Who are you?” Maybe the better question was . . . ​what? {Reshaye,} it answered, simply. {I am many things.} I was definitely losing my mind. {You are not. Do you frequently repeat yourself?} The weapon will become a part of you, Zeryth had told me. You talk about it as if it is a person. A dawning realization bloomed, scalding up my spine. {Have you been enjoying my stories? I still have many to tell.}

i wanna hear ur stories

“You see but do not understand?” I whispered. {I understand what it is to want.} Not to want. To love. {To love is to want.} The whisper dipped me into darkness. {I loved Maxantarius very much.} The bed split beneath me, sending me falling, spiraling. {Perhaps I could love you, too. What a story we would write together.} Darkness and flames devoured me.

she got the kid in the divorce apparently LMFAOAO

I blinked and looked up to see Kira standing in the doorway, smiling at me with an unusual hesitancy. She held one of her glass boxes in her hands. “Look. I raised this one. Just came out of its silk today.” She lifted the box to show me a little red butterfly, fluttering anxiously at the top of its enclosure. I barely glanced at it. “Pretty.” “I thought you might like it because it has a reasonable number of limbs.”

a little red butterfly? tisaanah mention

{You belong to me, Maxantarius. Me alone. And you prefer these people to me? These people who will never understand you the way that I do? These people who will never love you as deeply?} I am not yours. I am not fucking YOURS.

this is cray cray

felt Reshaye rise and rise and rise, until we were at the same level. Until it was as if we looked at each other straight in the eye, perfectly matched for one terrifying moment. Each clawing onto control with equal strength. And then it said, in a sad, slithering whisper, {You forgot what you are, Maxantarius.}

parallel to tisaanah

I would remember that Kira was the only one who tried to fight back—the sting of the lightning that leapt from her fingertips the moment she hit the ground, even as flames crawled up her clothing. I would remember how quickly that green snake lunged from her arm to mine, burying its fangs in my wrist. Most of all, I would remember her face—my face—as she stared back at me through tendrils of long black hair. And I would barely—only barely—remember the crushing weight of my own consciousness being thrust back upon me. The shiver of Reshaye’s whisper, {Now you have no one but me.} As we tumbled together into darkness.

ohmy god

And I felt arms encircle me, pull me into an embrace that I craved, even though it made me so, so sad. “You should not be here,” I wept against his skin. “You were not supposed to be here.” Fly away, I wanted to beg. Even as I, ever the traitor, pulled him closer. Fly away from all of this. I felt his back shudder with a broken inhale. “They have nothing holding you anymore,” I said, between sobs. “There is nothing—nothing to make you stay.” “Don’t.” His whisper was raw and throaty. And I felt his tears mix with mine, hot against my cheek as our bodies folded around each other. “Don’t be stupid.”

FOR YOUUUUU

After the deaths of my family, I lost years to drugs, wine, and aimless wandering. A slower kind of suicide, perhaps. And when I finally clawed my way out of that self-destruction, I built a cottage too far away from the world to be bothered. I planted hundreds upon hundreds of flowers and told myself they were all the company I needed. Better than people anyway, I’d mutter to myself. Simpler to care for. More predictable. And much prettier.

he likes pretty

And, to be fair, the flowers hadn’t done what Tisaanah had. They just sat there, swaying in the wind, with no intention of up and selling themselves to the organization that ruined my life. I didn’t have to run around begging them not to make blood pacts with Zeryth Aldris. But they were also static and silent. They were simpler, yes, but they wouldn’t whisper stories of lost lands at night, wouldn’t joke or laugh. They were more predictable, but they had no dreams for a better future, no ambitions, no hope. And they were pretty, but they had nothing on Tisaanah’s lively beauty, the kind that changed a little each time I looked at her, as if I were discovering a new breathtaking facet with each of her expressions.

MY LORDDDD

To call it strange would be an understatement. To hear fragments of the worst day of my life whispered back to me from the lips of someone who had become so precious to me. To be reminded of everything I had already lost while looking into the eyes of everything I had left to lose.

“Max was the most important person in my life. There was only one thing I loved more than I loved him.” Her eyes flicked back to mine, brighter, colder. “Ara. Only Ara.” My stomach knotted. Love? Was that love? To betray someone’s trust so viciously? To make sacrifices on the behalf of so many other people? No. Never.

ewww girl get out

“He came back last night, then?” For some reason, my answer made my chest ache. “Yes.” I watched the corners of her mouth lift into a little mournful smile. “I knew he would.”

get tf out NOWWW

wasn’t a surprise—or, shouldn’t have been a surprise. But here I was, peering into the life of a man I called my best friend, and it hit me all at once exactly how selfish I had been, how uncompromising. I could count on one hand the number of times I had deigned to visit Sammerin’s practice over these last years, all the while he dropped in on me four times a week just to make sure I hadn’t hanged myself.

what a good friend

“I told you to go,” I said, and even as the words left my lips, I knew they were an understatement. I’d forced him out. I was grieving the lives lost in Sarlazai, horrified by myself and the creature that lived inside me, heartbroken by Nura’s betrayal. And I let all of that consume me until I was cruel and selfish and fucking stupid. I just wanted to be alone. Well. I got my wish, didn’t I.

ur not alone anymoreeeee

Then he cocked his head, smirking. “Perhaps next time, though, you could choose a more mundane paramour. Maybe a baker. Then we could just sit around eating pies instead of throwing our lives into such exciting disarray.” I barked a scoff, grateful to let the tension break. “It’s not like that.” “Hm.” His eyes narrowed. Then he added, “I expect to be paid exorbitantly, of course.” “Of course,” I replied. As if there was enough money in the world.

naw he likes the adventure