Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts, #2)

by Carissa Broadbent

“My name is Ishqa Sai’Ess. And I am here to right a wrong that I made very, very long ago.”

Silver hair, and a scar that ran from the corner of his mouth all the way to his ear.

“I fulfilled your request,” Ishqa said, to the scarred human. “Now you fulfill ours.”

“Is it really so powerful?” he said, quietly. “The thing that she will become?” The human smiled. “It is the most powerful thing the world will ever see.”

You were betrayed by someone that you thought cared for you.

And with that hurt, it was always the same: white and white and white… and a flash of long, golden hair. A man turning away. This man. “You knew Reshaye,” I forced out. And Max’s eyes went wide. Ishqa’s stare darkened. “Reshaye?” he said, quietly. “That’s what she calls herself?” “She?” Max said. “Does it mean something?” I murmured. A wince flickered across the man’s face. “It means, ‘No one.’”

Who are you? And I tell them, I am Aefe, Teirness of the House of Obsidian. I am Aefe. I am Aefe. I am Aefe.

When I meet another human, and their gaze turns to me and asks, Who are you? Now I say, I am no one.

“I gave the humans someone…” He stumbled over his words. “…Someone who trusted me, in exchange for their alliance. The power to win their wars in exchange for the power I needed to win mine. She had rare magic among the Fey. And when I gave her to them, they used her power to create a cataclysmic weapon. The weapon you now know.”

“Reshaye,” I said, quietly. “You gave them Reshaye.” Max swore beneath his breath. Ishqa said, solemnly, “That betrayal was the greatest mistake I have ever made.”

“I think about it often, you know,” I whispered. “How much I wish I had gone with you. When you asked me to leave Ara with you, before I made my Blood Pact.”

“You were the one who wanted to save the world,” he said, quietly. “I just wanted to save you.”

I sense her in you. In your blood and in your magic. And I will not abandon her, nor any of the others your people have taken from me. Humans are past the point of earning our forgiveness. You had mercy once and squandered it. Now I see that you have never deserved it.

{Let me die!} Reshaye wailed. {I was dead! Let me go!} “You were never dead, Aefe.”

You do not remember because of all they did to you. But I have come to take you home.

“Caduan.”

am not like you. I will not leave behind the people of mine that the humans have stolen. And I will not leave her.” “Aefe is gone, Caduan. She has been gone for centuries. This thing is not her.”

“I think about it all the time. It is a dream so vivid that I know every detail. I know what your eyes look like surrounded by the lines of age. I know what your hand feels like beneath mine weathered by decades of life. I know the way our features look combined in our children, the cadence of their voices, the way you sound when you call their names. And I already love them.”

“You make me selfish. You make me want. And nothing has ever been enough, except for you.”