The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1)

by Carissa Broadbent

Death isn’t frightening when weighed against an insignificant existence.”

“Don’t be so quick to throw away your humanity, Oraya,” he said. “You might find you miss it once it’s gone.”

Strange, that girls are so often told that the loss of their virginity marks a threshold between girlhood and womanhood, as if it fundamentally alters them in some way. It was not the sex that changed the girl forever. Not the blood that spilled between her thighs that shaped her. The blood that spilled over that marble floor, though… Those are the stains on one’s innocence that never fade.