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

by Carissa Broadbent

This was not the stare of a panicked child who didn’t know what she was doing. This was the stare of a creature who understood she was confronting death itself, and still chose to spit in its face.

And suddenly not a single thing—not the audience, or the arena, or the arch, or the Nightfire, or Nyaxia herself—existed except for this.

“I can’t take credit for everything that you’ve become, Oraya. Even if sometimes I wish I could. But if I’m responsible for just one small piece of that, it will have been the greatest accomplishment of my life.”

Before, he had looked at me like I was a goddess, and I had thought I couldn’t feel more powerful than I did in that moment. I was wrong. Because now he looked at me like I was more than that—like I was human. Somehow, that meant more.

You have destroyed me. He had destroyed me, too. Perhaps it was good that we would die tomorrow. Because I didn’t know how to remake myself after this.