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

he felt alone and unappreciated back here. Now it’s my turn, since we don’t have to worry about tracks in the sand, and it’s easier to manage the net of darkness, where I can adjust for the shepherds’ obnoxious wandering.

Secretly, I’d hoped Serik would decline to lead the march to Namaag so he could walk with me, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. The shepherds trust him and, more important, they listen to him. As they should—he works so hard to be a good leader. I just wish I could be up there with him instead of stuck back here eating dust with the seething princess.

Serik waves when he spots me, but when he sees Ziva walking ahead, his smile falters. Shame drags at my shoulders. I know what he’s thinking: This isn’t you. Don’t let Ghoa and Temujin turn you into a cynic. We need Minoak. Which means we need Ziva. Which means you need to play nice.

You know you’ve hit rock bottom when Serik has become the voice of moral reason in your head.

I look away and turn my focus to the shadowy dunes. Where Temujin and his Shoniin are undoubtedly lying in wait.

For the first few leagues, I jump at every sound. My fingers grasp for the darkness with every flicker of movement on the horizon. But two days pass and the Shoniin never come. No one does; the roads are all but abandoned. I don’t know if it’s due to the terrible weather—the wind is still cold and punishing, pelting our cheeks with sand and whipping the animals into a frenzy—or because we only travel at night, but we encounter one solitary man leading a sorry-looking llama.

Where are they?

Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe Sagaan didn’t fall as easily as planned, and the Shoniin and Zemyans can’t spare warriors to patrol this road. Or maybe the siege ended so quickly, they’ve already conquered Namaag and we’ll be greeted by Kartok and Temujin when we reach Uzul.

I try to picture the continent under Zemyan rule. Will they spare the young? The old? The ancient cities, with their stunning architecture and rich history? Or will they burn everything to the ground, like my village in Verdenet? Will they execute the Sky King? Ghoa?

The image of her head on a block fills my mind, her expression grim and defiant as a Zemyan blade hurtles toward her neck. I tell myself I don’t care. She deserves even worse. But I can’t stop from flinching as the steel slices through her flesh.

Another night of travel passes—which means another night of sweating and straining to conceal the meandering group. It also means another night of staring at Ziva’s pathetic slumped shoulders. She walks several paces ahead of me but well behind the shepherds. She isn’t tall enough or strong enough to help carry her father’s litter, and the shepherds aren’t the most trusting of people who aren’t like them. More specifically, of people who are like me.

Every day, she tries to worm her way into the throng; and every day, the shepherds ram their shoulders together, creating a wall to keep Ziva out.

To keep both of us out.

Add to that Serik’s increasingly frequent backward glances, and the irritating notes he’s been passing to me through the masses, asking if Ziva and I are making progress, and I feel like I’m going to explode. Or collapse. Probably both.

Fine.

I grit my teeth and force my bad leg to move faster until I catch up with Ziva, who’s kicking dust at the shepherds’ backs. I won’t be her mentor, but I suppose I can try a little harder to be her friend.

“They’re kind of unbearable, aren’t they?” I say.

Ziva jumps and scowls at me. “What are you doing here?”

“Walking. And talking to you, if that’s okay?”

Her frown deepens. “Why would you do that?”

“I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting. I’m just frazzled and exhausted … and hurt,” I add in a small voice.

I haven’t wanted to admit it, as if acknowledging how Temujin and Kartok and Ghoa destroyed me will somehow give them even more power. But it actually makes me feel slightly better. Stronger. Because that feeling—that vulnerability—is what separates me from them.

“Believe it or not, I know a thing or two about being hurt and betrayed,” Ziva says after a long silence. “Your empire—our supposed protectors—tried to kill my father.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. And I mean it. “That’s never what I fought for.”

She nods and we’re quiet again, gazing out at the midwinter desert. The shepherds see nothing beyond the tunnel of blackness, only the path ahead, where I want them to go. Like blinders on a horse. But Ziva can see everything: the dunes, tinged purple in the moonlight; the frost dusting the tiny cactus blossoms; and the fox slinking through the brush and pouncing on an unseen quarry.

“When did your power present?” I ask, trying to sound friendly.

“Why do you want to know?” Ziva eyes me like I’m trying to trick her. “When did your power present?”

“At the stroke of midnight, on my eleventh birthday.”

She snorts. “Of course it did. You must have done something quite heroic.”

I know she’s mocking me, but I shrug and answer truthfully. “Not really. Zemyan raiders sacked my village, Sangatha, when I was eight, and set fire to our hut. My mother pushed me out the window to save me, but I fought my way back inside. I refused to leave them to die. But it was too late. The roof collapsed. I only survived because I was barely through the door and avoided the worst of it. I guess the Lady of the Sky appreciated my effort.”

“Both of your parents perished?”

I nod. “Along with most of my village.”

“I don’t know if my mother is alive,” Ziva admits, voice choked. “I couldn’t save them both. There wasn’t time. Papa was bleeding, and I didn’t know if there were more assassins lying in wait. So I ran.”

“I’m sure your mother’s fine,” I say, though I’m sure of no such