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

by Carissa Broadbent

Still, I gave him one glance—one little glance—that reached across the crowd to whisper, I told you I would. And he returned it with one that said, I knew you would.

HE KNEWWW

“And what about now?” I purred. Look at me, I commanded, just as I had when I had stood in this very room, hundreds of times before. Look at me like I’m the last thing you’ll ever see. And just as they had then, they all obeyed.

goddd i love her

“And what of these?” I said, gesturing to my scars. “Do you know how I got them?” I didn’t dare chance even a glance at the servants’ door, or what happened beyond it. But I did catch Max’s eye, just once. I loved the way he looked at me. Reshaye’s delight had begun to sour, and it hissed and spit like a cat at the back of my skull. Still, it ignored me, refusing to speak. That was fine. I was doing quite well without it. I smiled at Ahzeen, even though my headache spiked. “Your father gave them to me. The night that I killed him.” Ahzeen’s one visible eye widened. A shocked wave of whispers rippled through the crowd.

FFFUCK TELL THEM

I brought my face so close to his that the smells of his wine-sweetened breath and putrid rot mingled in my nostrils. “Tell Esmaris I sent you,” I whispered, and drew the fingers of my magic and of my hand together until both his mind and his rotting jaw were crushed to jelly in my hands.

YES LAWD

Sammerin’s hand caught my arm, his fingers digging into my skin. He didn’t speak, but then, he didn’t have to. His serious stare told me that he knew what I was going to do, and why, and that he couldn’t stop me. It took palpable effort not to let my voice tighten as I said, “I know you want to have a moment, you romantic bastard, but no time for that now. When this is all over. Sunset and all.” His eyes only barely crinkled. Weakly, he removed his hand from my arm just enough to form a particularly vulgar gesture. I let out a laugh that was really a sigh of relief. “That’s the spirit. Now get the hell out before you bleed to death.”

the gay lovers ever

I was running into a wall of flickering blue light. I was running toward Tisaanah. I do not give you permission to fail if I fail. All I could think was that I loved her.

loved her for her strength, for her beautiful brute force, for seeing what no one else did. I loved her for everything the world constantly used against her. I loved her for continuing anyway. Promise me that you will keep fighting your battles even if I lose mine. I stood with her, only her, until the end of our stories. But I refused to allow hers to be a retelling of mine. She deserved better than a lifetime of bloodstained hands and a tale with a bitter ending crafted from Reshaye’s terrible acts. She deserved epics. And I loved her so damned much that I would fulfill the promise I made to her, even if it became the hardest thing I ever did.

HE LOVES HERRRRRR

It was a serpent. A massive serpent that wove through the air and the crowd, its body made of flames that ran together like water, sparks glinting as scales on its skin. It had no wings and no legs, but it moved uninhibited all the same. It lurched through the air in movements that were at once exquisitely graceful and wildly untamed, as if it, too, struggled to fully control its body. And yet, it was still so beautiful. Warmth and light and power surrounded by cold magic and deepening shadow. Its head turned toward me, and the realization hit me so hard that it took my breath away. Those eyes. I would recognize them anywhere. The shape of them was seared into my soul. Even though now they were dark, veering on black, instead of their usual cloudy blue.

MAXXXXXX

Come back, Tisaanah. Show me that brute force. Show me you can do this. Show me that I won’t have to walk out of here without you, you stubborn shit. I couldn’t lose her, too. I couldn’t. I pulled myself into a human shape. I stood directly in front of Tisaanah, who stared up at me with wild eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. “You traitor,” she wailed, in an accentless voice. She looked utterly inhuman, bathed in blue ribbons of light, covered in blood. I noticed for the first time that her face was badly beaten, and that her clothes were in tatters. Anger made the flames around me flare. Tisaanah. My Tisaanah, picked apart by so many monsters.

HIS TISAANAH

It is a form of raw magic, Nura had told me, once. That’s all it was. Magic to be Wielded. And Wield it, I would.

shape that ho

My body was in shambles, blood rolling down my skin, burns crawling over my flesh. But I just clutched Max and pulled my lips away from him long enough to look into those dark eyes, into that face crafted from curling flames. “You look beautiful,” I whispered. Shock careened across his features. Shock, then a shattered relief. Translucent eyelids slid from the inner corners of his eyes. And then the fire was gone, and the rot was gone, and we were two humans of broken flesh and blood collapsing against each other and onto the floor.

they love each other so bad im throwing up

“Tisaanah.” Gods, it had been so long since I had heard my name said like that—with the sharp lilt of my mother tongue. I watched my fingers clasp around each other, the image blurring. Two more footsteps, approaching the bed. “Tisaanah.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, for so many reasons. Because I knew my heart would just combust when I saw him. Because I took so long to come back for him. Because he saw me at my worst in that ballroom, saw my failure, saw the monster that Reshaye made of me. “Look at me.” Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Warm fingers tilted my chin, just as they had on that terrible day seven months ago. And just as they had on that day, clear blue eyes greeted me like a gulp of water in the middle of a desert. Serel smiled at me, and something inside of me split open. I threw myself against him and buried my face into his tanned neck, into skin that smelled like my home, into an embrace that felt like dreams solidified. And with all my body and soul, I wept.

SHE DID ITTTT

But I lifted my eyes and she stood directly in front of me, looking at me with a twisted nose and a strange sort of pride. An expression that, like so many of hers, I recognized as my own.

OOOOH SIENNAAAAAAAA

solid handful of fabric at the edge of her sleeve. She shrugged, a cheerful, ungraceful movement. “It’s fine. I’m sure there’s lots of interesting stuff out there.” No. I wasn’t ready. There were still so many things I wanted to tell her—all of them, Atraclius, my parents, the twins . . . I blurted out, “It wasn’t me. I need you to know⁠—” She let out a scoff. “Ascended above, shut up, Max. We always knew it wasn’t you.” She looked over her shoulder. “I’ve got to go. And so do you. Try not to be so scared of everything all the time, all right?”

THEY. ALWAYS. KNEW.

Max. My dream relinquished me in slow, agonizing bites. Maaay-ucks. Shit. I was dead. We were both dead. Tisaanah and me, burned up together. There were worse ways to go, I supposed. Maaaay-ucks-un-tar-ee-uuuusss⁠— First came the sound, my name in that melodic voice. Then came the pain, a faint buzz that sank into every inch of my skin, every muscle, every bone. And a faint tickling sensation across my cheeks.

tisaanah trying to say his full name again LMAO

Tisaanah’s face hovered over mine, her hair spilling against my face, backlighting forming a golden halo around her contours. She was so beautiful that she could not be human. Definitely dead. Apparently I said that aloud, because Tisaanah replied, “You are not dead.”

he's so obsesed

As I settled further into consciousness, the pain grew more intense. Well, that confirmed the truth of what she was saying. A dead man would probably feel less. I groaned. “How did we manage that?” “I know only some of that answer. Some, you will have to explain to me, mysterious snake man.” I chuckled. The vibration of it ached. “Mysterious snake man. You shall now always address me by this title.”

her mysterious snake man

With great effort, I lifted my hand and ran knuckles over the side of her face, tracing the line of her jaw and the soft warmth of her cheek. Real. She was real. For a while there, I didn’t think that this reality would exist again. “So?” she said expectantly. “So what?” “So, mysterious snake man⁠—” “Ascended above, give me a minute, demanding rot goddess.” “A minute for what?” “A minute to be glad that we have one.”

love their nicknames for each other

She pulled away, nose tickling mine, eyes smiling. And in that low, erotic voice, she whispered, “Your breath smells very, very bad.” I scowled and blew a puff of air directly into her face, prompting her to let out a giggle that was possibly the most welcome sound I had ever heard. And apparently my breath couldn’t have been all that bad, because she stifled that laugh with another kiss, and another, and another. And all I could think, through it all, was one thing: Ascended fucking above, I was alive.

kiss of life.. or bad breath of life unsure

“Reshaye saved you?” Tisaanah whispered. Well, “saved” made it sound so damned righteous. “It cursed me with a life I didn’t want out of spite. It dragged me back just as it was ripped from my veins. But it kept me alive by giving me a . . . ​gift.” {Our stories are bound together forever, Maxantarius. Yours is not over yet, and you cannot discard the pages already written. It is burned into your soul, and now it will be burned into your body as well.}

info

Not a very nice person, it turns out, Zeryth had said of Ahzeen, once. What felt like a lifetime ago. And something more than a desire to prove his power had prompted Ahzeen to attack us the way he had. He was brash and arrogant, yes, but not mindlessly stupid. Nura let out a small scoff. “Obvious indeed.” “Zeryth sent us there knowing that Ahzeen was hostile toward the Orders. Toward him. I think that he knew there was a high chance things would be . . . ​violent.” I leveled a steady, piercing gaze at Nura. “Did you?” She didn’t shy away from my stare. Didn’t look away. And didn’t answer—but the sneer that barely twitched at the corner of her lip told me everything I needed to know. No. She was just as unprepared as we were. He had set her up, too, just like the rest of us.

I FUCKING KNEW IT

He found the joy and the beauty in everything. He could tell me of the heavy loss of a bloody battle, and in the next moment, light up when he talked of how wonderful it felt to return to his friends. Once, many years ago, he had told me that his grandfather used to say that every moment in life was a coin with one dark side and one light. They fell on the ground with one side facing up, but the other always lay beneath it, there, but hidden. Serel always saw both sides of the coin, even when fate handed him nothing but darkness.

i adore serel

As ridiculous as it sounded, perhaps this was now the safer place for him. When I voiced this thought, he let out a scoff. “Please. You won’t get rid of me again so easily, Tisaanah.” He gave me a little smile and a wink that was so aggressively him that it knocked the air out of me. For a moment, words evaded me. How many times had I dreamed that I’d see him again? How many times had I been so certain that I wouldn’t? “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” I murmured, fighting a lump in my throat. He smiled, and said, “I do, actually.”

siblings

{You saw me.} I felt it more than I heard it. It matched my own breath, my own heartbeat. Yes, I whispered. I felt it roil within me, a shudder that lay between a sigh or a laugh or a moan. It all felt so much closer than it once did, a power that moved in my blood. {Our story is not complete, Daughter of All Worlds.} A caress writhed against my mind. And my lips twisted into a smile. Not long ago, I would have been afraid. Not anymore. Good, I whispered. I haven’t decided how I want it to end. And I could have sworn it chuckled as it slithered off into darkness.

daughter of ALL worlds now

Less than a year ago, a young woman in a ridiculous dress had been abandoned at my cottage and refused to leave. And now, absolutely everything was different. All of my certainties had been rearranged, some destroyed, some new ones built in their place.

he loves her now

The cadence of familiar footsteps approached and Max leaned against the railing beside me. “The last time I said goodbye to these shores,” I murmured, “I thought it would be a miracle if I made it to the other side alive.” “At least we can be glad the circumstances are different this time.” “And I was alone.” I had been so, so alone. I didn’t pull my eyes from the shore, but I felt his gaze drag over my skin like a caress. “I’m glad those circumstances are different, too.”

she'll never be alone again

My name is Tisaanah. I am a free woman and yet still a slave. I am fragments of many things but a whole of only myself. I am a daughter of no worlds, and all worlds. And I am not done yet.

SHE'S NOT DONE YETTT

“There is no other choice, my queen,” Tare said gently. Sesri pondered for a moment, then she shook her head. “There must be. I do not want to inflict suffering on my people this way. It has gone too far.” Hm. Interesting. Sesri had expressed these kinds of sentiments before, but she had never gotten this far with it. Never remained steadfast once her father was brought up, or once Tare began pushing her.

ZERYTH AND TARE ARE COERCING HER INTO THIS STUFF???

As they walked, Zeryth ran his eyes down the hallways, taking in the elaborate mosaics and gold filigree that lined the walls. So much gold. He preferred platinum, himself. A little more elegant and understated.

hes trying to take power ooomfg

Zeryth was not about to let himself get stabbed in the back by Maxantarius Farlione, of all rutting people. It would just be too great of an indignity to lose a decade-long feud on top of the already significant indignity of being dead.

petty bitch

But then, the night of the ball, Nura had returned to the tower and calmly stated that they had their precaution: Tisaanah. “If you have her,” she had said, “then you have him. It’s just how he works. And we’ll have a grip on her that’s ironclad.” It was so shamelessly cold that Zeryth had to admire it.

I HATE THEM BOTHHH

Zeryth reached the Towers and hummed to himself as he went to his office. He took a moment to admire the thrashing sea, more vividly beautiful than ever in the shadow of a distant storm, before sitting down at his desk and composing a letter to his dear second-in-command. By the time you read this, he wrote, Sesri will be dead . . .

YO???