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

me and Serik. “And I still don’t see how this has anything to do with you and your shepherds.”

“It has everything to do with us!” Heat radiates from Serik like the desert sun. “The Sky King exploited and turned his back on the shepherds, just as he’s done in Verdenet and Chotgor. And he’ll do the same to Namaag, too, if you sit back and do nothing to stop him. Our only prayer of salvaging our independence is together—united. The Imperial Army would lose three-quarters of its strength without the warriors conscripted from the Protected Territories. The empire would face the real possibility of falling to Zemya, putting us in a position to make demands of the Sky King.”

There’s a good chance we’ll fall to Zemya no matter who unites, but I don’t mention this. It might prompt Ihsan to continue to side with the Sky King. The alliance has kept his people safe in the past.

“How is any of this Namaag’s concern?” Murtaugh says. “If the other territories are being mistreated, it’s no one’s fault but their own. They shouldn’t have allowed the Sky King to gain such a firm hold. Make him respect you.”

“We didn’t allow anything!” I think Ziva’s going to throw her half-eaten scone at her uncle, but Yatindra grabs her wrist.

“Breathe, Ziva. Remember what we talked about.”

“The rest of the continent doesn’t have the same bargaining power as Namaag,” Serik explains, staying remarkably composed. “The Sky King is dependent on your aqueducts, so he’s had to respect you, but don’t believe for one second that you’re safe. Once he’s drained Chotgor and Verdenet of people and resources, the Sky King will come for you.”

“You cannot scare us into aligning with you based on these unfounded, and frankly ridiculous, claims,” Murtaugh says sharply, as if that’s the end of the conversation.

But King Ihsan taps his fingers against the side of his face and paces silently for a moment. “I don’t mean to sound dismissive,” he finally says, “but if your claims are true, do you honestly expect to succeed with an army of ravaged, war-torn people? Greater numbers do not always amount to greater strength.”

I force my lips into a smile, but my face feels as if it’s fracturing into tiny pieces. Because our situation is even grimmer than he knows. “I know we can succeed,” I say, “but only with Namaag’s strength and leadership.”

Murtaugh shakes his head sternly and leans forward to whisper into the king’s ear. Ihsan’s dark brow lowers and the tangle of dread in my gut knots tighter. If he doesn’t agree, we’re finished. Dead at the hands of the Sky King or the Zemyans. It hardly matters which.

Finally Ihsan says, “Allow me to consider it for a time. The Sky King has been slow to respond to my missives. And our shipment of Ashkarian goods hasn’t arrived for two weeks. I’d like to make some inquiries.”

Murtaugh looks like he’s going to crash into the swamp like a felled tree. “Your Majesty!”

Yatindra glares at her husband while Ziva flops back into her chair with a satisfied grin.

King Ihsan ignores all of it. “I also wish to send scouts to ascertain the conditions in the other territories and validate your claims before I make my decision.”

Serik nods diplomatically, but I squirm in my chair and blurt, “That will take weeks.”

“Is that a problem?” Ihsan turns back to me.

Serik’s fingers clamp around my wrist and tighten with warning. “No, of course not,” I whisper, lowering my chin.

“It isn’t wise to rush such important decisions,” the Marsh King continues. “If we are going to form a tightly knit alliance, I want to know you as well as I know my own kin. So, please, make yourselves at home in the treetops.” He holds out his arms as if he’s offering us a magnificent gift. But the glint in his bark-brown eyes feels less like an invitation and more like a warning.

Or a threat.

CHAPTER TWELVE

GHOA

I STARE AT THE ZEMYAN SORCERER, HATING HIS SMUG, thin-lipped smile. How he glances over one shoulder, then the other, making a show of looking for my ice dagger. He even pats the blue papered walls and rustles the elaborate tapestries adorning the throne room, though it’s obvious that the blade I forged is gone.

It vanished.

But how?

Zemyans can manipulate the weave of the world to conceal things that do exist or to create replicas of things that don’t. But never, in twelve years of battle, have I seen a Zemyan stamp out something that I know for a fact was corporeal.

It isn’t possible.

Yet, Kartok stands before me, unharmed.

“How did you do that?” I shout.

“How did I do what?” His grin becomes even more oily. “Did you misplace something, Commander?”

I raise my hands and direct every morsel of strength I have left into my palms, to forge another blade and prove I’m not losing my mind. But my cold is so depleted, steam instead of ice rises from my hands.

Kartok lowers into one of the ornate council chairs and crosses his long legs, hands resting on his knee. “You and your sister are so alike. Rage all you’d like, Ice Herald. It only benefits me.”

I scramble to my feet and lunge at him with a furious roar. “I am nothing like my sister! I will never use my power for you!” He’s so thin and rangy, I should be able to snap him in half, but I’m even slower and clumsier than a magic-barren warrior. He slides his chair a fraction to the left, and I hit the slippery floor. My momentum carries me into the wall. The crunch of my nose reverberates through my skull, and as I curse and writhe, a hanging tapestry rattles loose. It covers me like a death shroud, making me scream even louder, because I’m nose to nose with the Sky King. His face flawlessly rendered in peach and gold threads.

Condemning me. Smothering me.

I fight against the cloth. It’s surprisingly heavy, or maybe I’ve become pitifully weak.