Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology), Addie Thorley [100 books to read in a lifetime txt] 📗

Serik’s hands flare with light; fire engulfs my body, turning everything red and gold and blazing white. Heat rushes through me and I feel it refining me through the pain. My mind sharpens and quickens as Kartok’s icy hold falls. My arms fall too, allowing Serik to burst free.

He darts after Kartok and I stumble to keep up—my legs slow and my vision wavering like the air above a fire. Though, mercifully, it seems to be a dying fire: fading coals and sputtering smoke.

When we’re a few steps from where Enebish and Kartok brawl, Serik lifts a hand, forms a flaming whip, and cracks it across Kartok’s wrist. The sorcerer yowls as the blade spins across the tiles.

Serik swings at Kartok with a broadsword made of fire, but Kartok dodges the strike and rolls to safety. Before he can spot me and reassert his hold, I launch myself into his stomach like a blazing comet. Kartok screams as my blistered skin meets his. I scream with triumph as the blade he forced me to hold against Serik’s throat plunges toward his heart.

At the last second the hilt liquefies and drips through my fingers like hot wax.

I retract my hand, cursing. My burning hands must be too hot to wield a sword. But when the weapon reappears in Kartok’s fist, I realize it had nothing to do with Serik’s heat. The blade melted because it’s Zemyan steel.

I knew to be vigilant about their weapons. It’s been the one constant threat, the only predictable danger amid the chaos of ascending into a different realm. So of course it’s the one thing I overlooked.

Kartok shoves me onto my back and brandishes the traitorous blade. I raise my chin defiantly and continue to struggle, even though the battle’s over, desperate to give Enebish and Serik as much time as possible to regroup. To escape. To rescue the First Gods.

I choke on a disbelieving laugh. I should be raging about the injustice of being dragged into this realm. Reeling over how this will affect my legacy. No one will remember my accomplishments and strength. No one will know the true extent of my dedication to Ashkar. I should be begging Kartok to heal me again with his Loridium. Anything to save myself. But as I limp closer to death, none of those things seem to matter. Maybe they never did.

I draw a final breath, waiting for the sorcerer to kill me as callously as I killed Ivandar, but instead of stabbing pain, I feel air whipping past my face. My ears prick with a soft, deadly whoosh. And when Kartok’s knife hits its mark, it isn’t buried in my flesh.

It protrudes from the chest of the Lady of the Sky.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

GHOA

HER BLOOD IS A BAND OF SILVER STARS CASCADING DOWN her breast.

I don’t know why my eyes cling to this detail—why the color of the Lady’s blood is the one thing my brain refuses to accept when everything about this situation is impossible—but that silver glitter trickling through the velvety-blue is what breaks me.

I lie there, trembling with fury and disbelief, with outrage and devastation. I did everything I could have, made decisions and sacrifices I never would have. I tried to bury my pride and anger. Attempted to forgive and progress, and for what? To watch the goddess welcome death? If She’s truly omnipotent and all-powerful, She should have known this was coming, but She didn’t even move. Didn’t lift a hand to defend Herself!

It feels like a knee to the gut. A thankless dismissal of our efforts—of Ivandar’s sacrifice.

The pearly blue sky darkens, as if doused by a bucket of indigo paint. It bleeds down from the clouds as the Lady of the Sky sinks to Her knees. Coughing and gasping. Looking so much like my mother and Shoshanna, I vomit.

Father Guzan’s cry booms like thunder. Rivers of tears as wide as the Amereti pour from His earth-brown eyes. As He falls to His knees beside the Lady, the entire mountain shakes. Everything crumbles, from the boulders to the chairs to the tiles. But the most devastating fracture is inside me. It feels like someone has thrust a dagger into my heel, then strung me up like a slaughtered pig to let my blood and life—and power—drain out.

The moment we crossed into this realm, I could no longer access my power but I could still feel it there, nestled within me. Now the cold rushes from my body like blood from a battle wound, leaving me so hollow, I wonder if my organs were made of ice. If there’s ever been part of me that wasn’t hard and cold.

The only good to come from this sudden drainage is that the last of Serik’s heat leaves me too. Relief drips across my ash-and-ember skin like rain across a dry riverbed.

Across the parlor, Enebish screams in Serik’s arms.

Kartok retrieves the other sword Serik knocked from his hands and darts toward the gods, baying with triumph.

And a small, venomous voice whispers in my ear.

Did you honestly think this would end any other way? You were a fool to let faith and hope infect you. A fool to think of anyone or anything other than yourself.

It’s the firm, unflinching voice I’ve always listened to. The mantras and mentality that kept me strong—made my armor impenetrable.

Only now, that armor is so riddled with holes, it hangs in dented pieces from my chest. Part of me wants to yield. Why continue fighting for a goddess who didn’t even fight for herself? But the stubborn warrior within me marches on. Refuses to accept defeat. This can’t be the result of everything I’ve suffered, of all I’ve given.

Of all we’ve given.

I’m far from the only person who’s made a sacrifice. Who’s confronted their fears and questioned their beliefs. Who’s opened up their ears and allowed themselves to hear the strains of a beautiful song they had all but forgotten.

Now that melody plays loudly, building into a crescendo as I rise up