Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) by Carissa Broadbent (good english books to read .TXT) 📕

Gods, the way she rationalized it. As if it were a simple equation, a scale to be tipped, a game to be played only in numbers.

And yet…

I thought of the people who were waiting for me, and the promises I had made. Was this it? Would I have to clear their path by burying this one in bloody rubble?

{Do you think any of those people would have cared about you or your people?}

I didn’t have time to question.

Eslyn grabbed me, and the two of us disappeared into the air.

These are your orders.

The words were a collar, a heartbeat, a promise, and a curse.

I didn’t think. Il’Sahaj was out, my muscles barely my own. The violence hit Reshaye like a drug, its rage-soaked satisfaction flooding me.

These are your orders.

Eslyn and I landed in the middle of the fighting.

Already, Zeryth’s other troops had begun to spill forth from the outposts, defending the wall. Before Max left, we would have outnumbered our opponents many times over. Now, our defenses were noticeably weaker. Even through the fog of my command, I could acknowledge that in this, Zeryth had been right — I was the difference between victory and defeat.

These are your orders.

“We need to fight our way up,” Eslyn said, her voice nearly lost beneath the chaos. “We travel along the ridge. I can place Stratagrams. You can help weaken them, and we push through.” Something must have looked strange on my face, because she said, “Don’t worry. We can do this.”

Of course that was what she thought I was worried about. Under any other circumstances, it would be insane for any Wielder to take down an entire cliff on their power alone — let alone a Valtain, who would have limited control over stone.

But I had Reshaye. And I knew what Reshaye was capable of.

It had taken a moment for the opposing soldiers to realize we were here, in their midst. Right after we landed, so did other Syrizen — stepping out of the air with their spears drawn, leaving bloody bodies like morbid gifts. So quickly, it devolved into chaos.

The first man I killed, I killed because I had to.

He came at me with his axe raised, and I struck before I could think. By the time I had turned to meet his face, it was slack, his leather armor rotting, Il’Sahaj covered in blood and blackened flesh. The magic was at my fingertips, in my skin, running through Il’Sahaj’s veins.

These are your orders.

I had forgotten what this was like, the heady intoxication of it, the way Reshaye reveled in it. It pried away little pieces of control until I didn’t know where its thoughts ended and mine began. {Let me help you,} it whispered. {Let me do this.}

Funny, how it seemed like an oddly tender offer, as if it was offering me mercy from my guilt. But I held onto my control — no matter how hard Reshaye fought for more.

Eslyn and I reached one side of the cliffs, where she withdrew the bottle that Zeryth had given her and crushed it in her palm, blood and silver liquid mingling together over her sliced-up skin. She drew in a little gasp, her body lurching, as if she had been struck with a greater force than she was expecting.

But she righted herself quickly. She pressed her palm to the rock and drew a ragged Stratagram in her blood.

“Help me,” she ground out.

These are your orders.

I pressed my hand to rock.

At first, I felt nothing. I was a Valtain, after all. I did not speak to stone, and it did not want to listen to me.

I loosened my grip on Reshaye. Let a little more of its power surge through me.

A crack. Not enough. Eslyn whirled, pressing her back to the rock, forced to split her attention to defend us.

“We don’t have time, Tisaanah,” she ground out, pushing a lifeless body off her spear.

{Let me do this,} Reshaye snarled.

These are your orders.

I gave up control. A smile that was not my own spread over my lips. Power spilled through me, like light decimating shadow. Tentacles of black crawled from my hand until the stone began to crumble.

These are your orders.

Something snapped into place. Something terrible, something I couldn’t control. The world became a smear. Blood was hot on my face. Eslyn and I turned, and Il’Sahaj was raised, and its hilt was so slick my palms slipped.

I could tell myself that it wasn’t me. That it wasn’t my own hand guiding them to death, but Reshaye’s. And I could let it all blur around me, the death and the stench and Reshaye’s glee and the desperation on the faces of the slaves, the ones who were waiting for me, the ones who didn’t have time for me to waste.

These are your orders.

{There is nothing to be ashamed of,} Reshaye whispered, as another body fell.

{These men would have cut you down without hesitation. They would never have respected you. They would never have considered the lives of your kin. Let them fear us. Let them see what we are.}

One more Stratagram, then two. Eslyn struck with lethal precision, the two of us slipping through the air like a needle passing through fabric. With every hit, the cliffs grew weaker.

And I let myself go.

It was easy, in some ways, to just let Reshaye do it. Easy to cede responsibility. If I were to let myself slip a little further, I could fall away from my own body completely — let Reshaye do the dirty work of Zeryth’s command, let it win the war, let it bring me back to my people with good news.

Why not? I couldn’t fight it anyway. Reshaye was in my bones. Zeryth was at my throat. Magic was at my fingertips, magic that did nothing but kill. And the lives of a thousand slaves were at my shoulders.

These are your orders.

Until I looked down, and saw a face that made my heart lurch.

The young man was on