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

The Sky King is dead.

The Zemyans have taken Sagaan.

I still don’t understand how it’s possible. They were advancing, yes, but they would have had to sprout wings and fly to reach the capital so quickly.

Unless someone in Ashkar helped them. Snuck them in.

I see Enebish’s starfire demolishing the buttress and crushing the Sky King for the millionth time, and her name explodes from my throat like a cannonball. “Hypocrite!” I bellow. “How dare you condemn me for what happened at Nariin, then go and do something even worse! You’ll be responsible for ten times as many deaths!”

No matter how deeply I breathe, I can’t seem to fill my lungs. No matter how tightly I clutch my forehead, I can’t slow the blood pounding my temples like fists. Enebish is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister. The one person I was certain I could never lose. She owes me everything. I have always been her everything.

And this is how she repays me.

You shouldn’t be surprised. You shouldn’t allow it to hurt you.

It doesn’t hurt me.

But as the wagon lurches forward, I see her dark eyes peering up at me through the smoke of her burning village in Verdenet. I feel her tremble in front of me on the saddle as we ride back to Sagaan. I hear her breathing even out with sleep, her thin body sinking into mine as if I’m the most comfortable bedroll she’s ever slept in.

“Enebish!” I scream her name again. I know she’s nearby. “At least have the courage to look me in the eye as you drive your knife into my back! How can you fight alongside the people who murdered your parents? How can you help them destroy the empire that gave you refuge? Do you realize what this means for Verdenet?”

She doesn’t answer, because she’s a coward. But that doesn’t mean she can’t hear me. I take a deep breath and continue shouting. I have enough accusations to fill the entire journey to Zemya. But after less than five minutes, the wagon creaks and a pale face fills the small, barred window on the door.

“Hold your tongue, or I’ll hold it for you,” a gruff voice threatens. I can only see the upper half of the man’s face. His eyes are the color of a glacier, framed by thick blond eyebrows, and pale patchy stubble covers his sallow cheeks. It’s hideous and unnatural, as if all the color was leached from his body as punishment for his wicked magic—just as the legends claim.

“If you want to silence me, come in here and do it!” I spit.

He chuckles and the sound sends gooseflesh racing up my arms. “They told me you were fiery. I’m delighted to see you’re living up to expectations. It will make our time together so much more interesting. As for your tongue … why would I come in there when I can quiet you from here?”

His bone-white hands slip through the bars, grasping for me. I scramble back, well beyond his reach, but his arms grow, stretching across the compartment like the taffy Mamá used to make each year on the Sky King’s birthday. I press myself against the farthest wall, but the Zemyan easily catches me. His knobby fingers squirm between my lips and grab my tongue.

I scream and claw at my mouth. The pain is staggering, blinding. It feels like the farriers’ tongs are wrenching my tongue. I have to make it stop. But my fingers find nothing to grab. There’s no hand inside my mouth, even though I can feel it there.

It’s all an illusion. His vile Zemyan magic.

I curse for a full minute, wishing it was in fact his hand. At least then I could bite him. When I finally run out of breath and fall silent, the pain abates. But the instant I open my mouth to resume yelling, the wrenching fingers return with a vengeance.

“You’ll quickly learn it’ll be much more pleasant if you cooperate,” the Zemyan says.

“Filthy, depraved sorcerer!” I yell, even though I know it will cost me. I need him to know I won’t cooperate. I will never cooperate.

I grip the iron bars and summon my ice, commanding them to bend, to shatter. Willing the entire wagon to explode. But of course it doesn’t. My palms don’t even feel cool against the metal. I emptied every reserve I had to save my traitorous warriors. It could take days, weeks, for my power to regenerate. If it ever does.

I sink back to the floor and seethe as the wagon lurches onward, league after league. Day after day. My captors don’t bother feeding me. Each night when we make camp, firelight flickers through the bars and the smell of roasting meat fills the air, but the Zemyans don’t fling even a splinter of bone my way. Instead they feed the excess to their dogs—small, mangy mongrels that gulp and snap loudly.

I make a vow, then and there. When I escape, I will roast those mutts on a spit and eat them for spite, savoring every sinewy morsel. Then I’ll whittle their bones into arrows and put them into the hearts of their masters.

The longer we travel, the warmer it grows. Wetness floods the air, blowing down my neck like a hot breath. The smells of salt and sand somehow overpower the putrid stench of the wagon.

The last time I breathed these foreign scents, I was the one leading the charge. Riding down from the Usinsk Pass on Tabana, the Kalima streaming behind me like a never-ending cloak as we stormed Karekemish. Not only did we breach the Zemyan capital, we advanced all the way to Empress Danashti’s seaside palace before we were finally driven back by their magic. The empress’s best sorcerers made it look as if the entire city were sinking into the sea, and we thought we would drown if we didn’t retreat.

I had never seen the sea before, and it felt dangerous in a