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

at me when I lifted her from the ashes and onto Tabana. How her dark eyes memorized my face, full of wonder and admiration. How her small fingers traced the grooves in my armor. It was nearly as intoxicating as my parents’ praise. I wanted everyone in the empire to look at me like that. To need me like that.

But they were all fooling me. Using me. Taking, taking, taking until they bled me dry.

I stagger to my feet and run at the Sky King’s throne. I can’t bear to look at it any longer. I can’t stand any of this for another second. With a scream, I thrust my palms forward and a thin layer of frost varnishes the velvet cushion and goldwork of the throne. Not enough to shatter it, but enough to prove Zemya’s vile magic didn’t taint me. Not fully, anyway. I try again, but the sputter of cold vanishes the moment it leaves my hands. Growling with frustration, I pick up one of the small wooden chairs that line the wall and dash it against the throne. Fragments of wood spray into the air and scrape my face, harming me more than the throne, but it feels good to do something. So I grab chair after chair and continue smashing them.

Once they’re all obliterated, I take up a fragment of wood, step onto the seat of the throne—grinning savagely at the smudges my boots leave on the indigo cushion—and swing at the hanging masks.

The translucent strings may look flimsy, but they slice my hands like razor wire. Blood falls in bright crimson spots across the floor and the golden arms of the throne. It’s horrific. And glorious. I scream louder. Strike harder. Smashing face after face of warriors I once looked up to. Warriors I was certain I would eclipse in greatness.

It isn’t until the final mask falls, and the symphony of shattering plaster fades, that I hear a throat clear behind me.

I whip around, fully expecting to find Kartok smirking in the corner, but it’s a Zemyan girl with silvery hair bundled into a topknot, a filthy apron strapped around her waist. Her mouth hangs open and her pale eyes gape at me. As if I’m the barbarian.

I would be mortified if I had any dignity left. Since I don’t, I plunk down on the throne, kick my legs over one armrest, and tilt my head back against the other, face up to the muraled ceiling. Hoping she’ll go away if I don’t respond. Like the mangy opossums in Namaag that pretend to be dead as a method of self-preservation.

The girl shifts from foot to foot and holds up a steaming tin cup. “I’m Hadassah. I’ve brought you food.” Her Ashkarian is slow and her accent is thick, but she seems proud of her effort.

“You can’t possibly think I’d eat or drink anything else,” I snap back.

“I’ll just leave it here, then. In case you change your mind.” With trembling hands, she sets the mug down and steps back. But then she stops and says, “Let me know if you need anything else.” As if I’m a guest rather than a prisoner.

“Are you mocking me?” I swing my legs around and lean forward, perched on the edge of the throne like a coiled snake. “Because I definitely need several things. I need to get out of this prison. I need to prove my warriors made the biggest mistake of their lives when they betrayed me, and I need to conquer this repellant country to salvage my reputation, but you can’t help me with any of that, can you, Hadassah?”

She flinches and looks down at her feet. “No. But if you answer a few questions, I can unlock your manacles.”

I make a show of looking her up and down. “You have the key?”

She reaches into her apron pocket and procures an old brass key, which she swings back and forth.

My entire body tenses. My mind screams to attack and take it from her, but my battered limbs don’t rise to the call. “What questions could you possibly have?”

“What is the generál trying to accomplish?”

The laughter that explodes from my mouth is sharp and cynical. “He sent you in here to trick me into saying something he can use against me, didn’t he?”

Hadassah shakes her head furiously. “He’s hurt me, too.” She unfastens the tie of her colorless blouse and wiggles one shoulder free. She turns to show me the long, raised scars cutting down her back. As if I care. As if it will foster some sort of camaraderie between us. She could have gotten those scars anywhere. They’re probably an illusion! If Kartok did make them, she already knows everything she needs to about him.

“Is it your power he’s after?” she presses. “Rumor has it he’s been obsessed with capturing a Kalima warrior for years, but it’s next to impossible, since they never leave their comrades behind.”

“Enough!”

The blood drains from her already pale face. “Sorry if that’s a touchy subject, but—”

“Even if I knew his aim, do you think I’d tell you anything? I don’t see why any of this matters to a servant.”

Her lips pinch into a scowl. As if she honestly expected her sweet-faced simpering to soften me. It wouldn’t have worked before, and it certainly won’t work now. I’m heartless, soulless, friendless. Nothing but vengeance and fury wrapped in skin.

“Be gone!” I yell, raising my palms. There isn’t a breath of cold left within me, but the girl doesn’t know that. She cries and sprints for the glass tunnel while I laugh and wish her good riddance.

It’s only after she’s gone, when the walls of the fabricated throne room are hardening between us, sealing the only exit, that I realize my mistake.

The wasted opportunity.

I didn’t try to escape. I didn’t even get the key to my manacles.

The Sky King’s laughter refills the echoing hall, taunting me, mocking me, driving me closer, every second, toward the cliffs of insanity.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ENEBISH

MURTAUGH AND YATINDRA