The Songbird and the Heart of Stone (Crowns of Nyaxia Book 3) by Carissa Broadbent

Author:Carissa Broadbent [Broadbent, Carissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-11-18T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Someone hauled me onto the shore. Blood ran down my face in rivulets. I coughed it up onto smooth ivory. My head spun. The world smeared. My hand went to my chest, which throbbed in twin rhythmic beats. The anchor.

Asar.

He was near. That had been him, in my memory, even if he hadn’t meant to be there—I was so certain of that, even if I didn’t entirely know why. All it had taken was that single second of locked eyes.

I had to go back—I had to⁠—

“Mische!” Delicate hands grabbed my sleeve, stopping me before I could throw myself back into the sea. “Stop, for gods’ sake! Stop!”

Chandra.

The shock of seeing her forced me to catch my breath. She leaned over me, brows furrowed, silver hair whipping around her. The cliffs stood behind us. Ahead, the temple loomed, a jagged collection of ivory spires dipped in black red. It sat at the apex of multiple rivers, the streaks of blood all flowing into arched passageways beneath it, as if to provide a constant source of food for an eternally ravenous host.

It was windy and cold. The skies roiled, darkening in waves as spatters of red rain painted blood on the ivory patches of solid ground. The cliffs and earth trembled. And gods, the wraiths—so many of them. They crawled over each other deliriously. They dragged themselves from the blood, over the rocks, through the distant abandoned ruins, and it was only a matter of time before they descended upon us.

“We have to go,” Chandra said urgently. “Hurry, child, before they get here! Elias can help us get back to the surface.”

She thought I had fallen. She didn’t know I let go.

I was briefly offended on Asar’s behalf that anyone would ever think Elias could navigate Morthryn on his own. Then I noticed the hungry, hopeful way Chandra was looking at me, and I wondered if maybe there was a reason beyond benevolence that she came for me.

Still. I appreciated that she did. It was kind of her.

“I—thank you, but⁠—”

The anchor throbbed at my chest, and I got to my feet too fast, swaying. It was harder to see anything with the wraiths panicking and the waters churning.

Something about a mission and Atroxus and a holy task jumbled in my mind, but the truth was, none of it loomed nearly as large as my imminent fear for Asar.

“I have to go,” I said, but Chandra caught my elbow.

“Where are you going? This is our chance for freedom. Atroxus has given us this blessing. We need to take it!”

She forced me to look back at her, and for a moment, I was struck by just how much of a toll this journey had taken on her. She looked little better than the dead—gaunt and hollowed.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Atroxus had nothing to do with this. Nor the time.

“You go,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

But she didn’t release me. “Don’t die for one of them,” she spat. “He’s a fallen soul.

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