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

though I have no memory of taking another step, and my fingertips are bloody from dragging my hand across the splintered shards of what used to be the railing.

It’s the same out-of-body sensation that overwhelmed me the first time I was thrust into true combat. I’d been training with the Kalima for nearly a year and had accompanied them on plenty of missions. I’d sat on the sidelines of the most horrific battles. I thought I knew what it meant to take a life. I thought I was prepared. But nothing can prepare you for the feeling, the essence, that spills from someone’s body along with their blood. How it stains you and spatters you, but since you can’t see the gore, you don’t know how to scrub yourself clean.

To this day I’m still haunted by the eyes of the first Zemyan I killed. The girl couldn’t have been much older than I was, and her eyes were a vibrant seafoam green surrounded by the thickest, whitest lashes. Apparently, my sword plunged in and out of her flesh. Apparently, I kicked her body to the ground, as I’d been trained to do. But I remember none of it. Just those eyes, searing through me, until Ghoa gripped my arm and hauled me away from the next wave of Zemyan soldiers.

“Get ahold of yourself,” she said as she slapped me across the cheek. Not in a cruel way. Her face radiated worry. Maybe even a hint of understanding. As if she’d once been the same terrified twelve-year-old who couldn’t fathom how her sword had turned so red. Though, the thought of Ghoa being hesitant or afraid, the thought of her being anything other than a seasoned warrior, was laughable. Unfathomable.

Almost as unfathomable as watching her propel herself from a mountaintop to save gods she never believed in.

I glance over my shoulder. The Lady of the Sky hasn’t moved, but Father Guzan is slowly climbing to His feet, still clinging to the Lady’s lifeless hand.

This isn’t real. It can’t be real.

But the splinters of wood burrowing into my skin, and Father Guzan’s mournful cries, insist that it is.

“Burning skies.” Serik jogs up beside me, his voice soft and shredded. He peers over the edge, into a chasm so deep, I can’t make out the towering trees we passed during our ascent or the sprawling garden that’s larger than the entire city of Sagaan. Serik shakes his head. His skin emits billows of steam—like cold water thrown over a bonfire. “Are they …? Did Ghoa really …?”

“She did,” I whisper, dropping to my knees.

Kartok is gone. No type of sorcery, in this world or any other, is strong enough to give him wings. Though, I’m certain he tried to conjure them. I imagine him scrambling to craft a pillow of clouds to cradle his fall, only to slam straight through it. His life as fleeting and as hollow as his magic.

The image would be a comfort if Ghoa weren’t hurtling toward the same fate.

Sobs grip me and I retch and shudder, dizzily swaying closer to the edge. Imagining how it would feel to fall so far, knowing death waited at the bottom.

Serik wraps his arms around me and tugs me gently back. “Come away, En. There’s nothing to see.”

That’s part of the problem. If I can’t see Ghoa falling, if her broken body isn’t splayed across the rocks, there’s no evidence that any of this is real. So my brain refuses to accept that she’s gone. That she died saving the First Gods.

It doesn’t make sense, and I need, more than anything, for something to make sense.

I lash out, clawing and hissing at Serik like a mountain cat. Desperate to stay there, teetering over the void, as my mind flashes back and forth between the past and present. Ghoa had so many layers. She played so many roles.

Savior, assailant.

Caretaker, tormentor.

Teacher, rival.

Which version was real? Who was she truly? How am I supposed to mourn someone who both ruined and saved me? Part of me wants to rage against the injustice and irony of it all. In a way, this is exactly what Ghoa always wanted: for everyone to be indebted to her, in awe of her. She wanted to be legendary, and since she was never going to achieve that after Ashkar’s fall, she found another way to ensure she’d be remembered with reverence.

Except no one was here to witness her sacrifice, other than you and Serik….

And no one across the continent will revere her for saving gods they believe to be long dead….

So perhaps her sacrifice was more altruistic. Perhaps the Ghoa I knew and loved from the beginning was still in there, grappling for hold. Fighting for breath as pride and expectations pushed her deeper and deeper beneath the water’s surface.

She allowed herself to be captured by Zemyans so the Kalima could escape. She aligned with the Zemyan prince in order to return to the country that forsook her. She helped us free Chotgor, then stood with us against the Kalima. She refused to harm Serik, despite Kartok’s hold, and pitched herself off a cliff, defending gods she didn’t worship.

I’m certain she wasn’t happy about most of these decisions. I’m positive she fought and berated herself every step. But still she stepped, carving a path to her truest self. To the person she wanted to be.

We always have that choice, no matter how irredeemable we may think ourselves. No one is wholly good or bad, and nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems.

Ghoa may not have looked frightened as she fell to her death, but I’m certain she was. And she may not have proclaimed with her final breath that she did this for me, but I know it with just as much certainty. She didn’t care about my gods, but she always, always cared about me. Serik, too, despite herself. I think she was even beginning to care for the Zemyan prince and the shepherds. And this was her