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

I grit my teeth into a smile and force a laugh. “What sort of welcome is this? We’ve found the Verdenese king! We should be celebrating! Our plan is in motion.” I clap my hands and stretch my smile wider, willing the shepherds to let me have this small victory. But they continue to stand there, frozen and frowning.

It was foolish to envision a triumphant return, like the parade of warriors that marches through Sagaan after hard-won battles, but I expected more than this. The shepherds have never been so quiet. Not even when a battalion of imperial warriors marched past our caravan on the grasslands, and our lives literally depended on staying silent beneath my blanket of darkness.

It’s because they don’t want this. They never wanted this. They never believed in you or your plan.

“I can’t win, can I?” My voice trembles like Ziva’s. Except where hers was timid and frightened, mine is furious. “No matter what I do, it will never be enough.”

There’s a flash of movement near the back of the cavern. Serik spills from the adjoining tunnel, the trackers behind him. “Enebish! You’re back, thank the skies.” His entire body seems to unclench, and a look of pure relief washes over his freckled face—despite the fact that I kneed him in the stomach and bolted.

If anyone should be angry, it’s him. But he’s jostling through the throng of shepherds to reach me. Coming to my aid yet again.

My chest floods with the same emotion I felt when he appeared through the smoke in Kartok’s burning xanav—a welcome ache that tantalizes my insides like warm vorkhi.

“Where did you go? And why is everyone standing around …” Serik trails off as he notices King Minoak splayed across the cloak. His hand leaps to cover his mouth. “Who’s that? They look like a bloody carcass left to rot on the side of the road.”

Ziva flinches. “You try tending a knife wound in the desert without herbs or bandages!”

Serik appraises the girl through narrowed eyes. “And who are you?”

“This is Ziva, the Night Spinning food thief I chased from the cavern,” I say.

Serik sputters and his eyes constrict even further. “Why in the skies would you bring her back? She stole from us! And we already have too many mouths to feed.”

“Because this is her father—His Royal Majesty, King Minoak of Verdenet.” I plead with my eyes. If Serik reacts well, the shepherds will follow suit. He’s who they trust—he’s who they look to.

But Serik is Serik, and he’s never had to set any sort of example.

“This is King Minoak?” he says with disbelief. “How will he lead us anywhere?”

The shepherds resume wailing, and I glare at Serik, my warm fuzzy feelings drying up. “Thanks for that,” I snap. He tries to apologize, but I’ve already turned back to the group: “I know King Minoak isn’t his strongest at the moment”—the understatement of the century—“but we’ll have him fixed up in no time.”

“How much time?” several people demand. “And with what supplies?”

“Look at him! It will take months!”

“Months we don’t have!”

“King Minoak is our only hope of freedom,” I say, trying to stay calm as I explain for the hundredth time, but even I can hear the desperation creeping into my voice. “Please, just trust me—”

Their shouts pelt me, one after the next.

“I knew following a criminal was a bad idea.”

“We should enter Verdenet.”

“What good has trusting you done us?”

You’re not a human icicle, frozen on the grazing lands! I want to scream. And you won’t be slaughtered when Temujin and the Zemyans conquer Sagaan.

I could go on, but I grind my teeth together because telling them does no good. They see only what they want to see.

As the chaos builds, Ziva melts to her knees at her father’s side and shields him from the assault, as if their words are arrows. I throw another desperate glance at Serik, but he tosses his hands and shakes his head. We’re both so far out of our depth, we might as well be drowning in the Zemyan Sea.

You were a fool to think this would work, an insidious voice whispers in my ear. A fool to think even desperate people would follow you. A crushing weight presses down on me—heavier than the league of rock and sand above my head—and my ragged breath is so loud, I almost miss Ziva’s shattered voice, rising from her huddled form.

“W-what if I asked you to trust me?” she yelps. Her words are so faltering and the shepherds are so loud, she has to repeat herself three times and climb onto a tall protrusion of rock before they hear. And it would have been better if they didn’t.

“Why would we put our trust in a child?” an ancient shepherdess barks.

“And a thieving one at that!” someone else growls.

Ziva clutches her skinny arms around herself. She begins to shrink, but then she peers at her father and stands back up. She pushes her chin-length curls behind her ears, looking more like the fiery girl I chased to Sawtooth Mesa.

“I’m not a child!” she shouts at the ornery old woman. “I’m thirteen. And I know how strong my father is. He will retaliate against the empire, once he’s able. I also know that running to Lutaar City is futile. The imperial governor feeds people one day, then executes them the next. It isn’t a long-term solution.”

“We don’t have long to wait!” Azamat calls.

Ziva purses her lips. “When did I say anything about waiting?”

“Do we have another choice?” Serik asks.

“We go to Namaag,” Ziva says, as if it’s the simplest, most obvious solution in the world. And maybe it would be if it wasn’t exactly what Temujin predicted King Minoak would do when we sat and speculated on this very subject in Kartok’s false Eternal Blue. The Shoniin and Zemyans could already be lying in wait along the route.

I shake my head, but Ziva continues, her voice growing with conviction. “My aunt Yatindra is married to the vice chancellor.