The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia, #2)

by Carissa Broadbent

“Do you know how breakable your bones are? How quickly your skin tears? It would be so easy for this world to take you away forever. Don’t give it reason to.”

Oraya didn’t need to be saved. She just needed a soul beside her on the dark walk to her own potential. Someone to protect her until she was strong enough to save herself.

But of all he grieves for his fading humanity, the loss of time’s mark is the most devastating. A life in which nothing means anything is not a life at all.

In a dark world, eyes naturally find the light. She becomes the brightest thing in his.

“Your father, Oraya, felt all those things, too. He was just as broken as the rest of us, and he was so determined not to acknowledge it that he flayed you with those sharp edges and then berated you for having skin instead of steel.”

“I’d spend a lifetime at the tip of your blade, and it would have been worth it.”

The slave quickly learned that it was far harder to care about something than it was to care about nothing.

told you once, little human,” she murmured. “A dead lover can never break your heart. You did not listen to me then.” And Raihn had broken my heart that night. I couldn’t deny that. “You should have let the flower of your love remain forever frozen as it was,” she said. “So beautiful at its peak. So much less painful.” But there was no such thing as love without fear. Love without vulnerability. Love without risk. “Not as beautiful as one that lives,” I whispered.

Bloodshed and ballgowns. They really went together.