Dawn of Cobalt Shadows (Burning Empire Book 2), Emma Hamm [list of ebook readers .txt] 📗

the lion’s feet blasted sand in every direction, but it didn’t matter because they were long gone by the time the grains would ever even touch them.

Wind blew past him, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Nadir remembered what it felt like to be free. The wind rustled through the long length of his hair, the curls brushing against his face.

Freedom flowed through him in this moment with a powerful beast racing across the desert sands.

He didn’t know how long it took them to reach their destination. Only that he enjoyed every moment of it. His thirst disappeared in the wake of awe and happiness.

Eventually, as the sun touched the horizon and the moon began to peek its face out, they reached a place where the lion began to slow. Its sides heaved, but he didn’t think it was from exhaustion. If anything, the animal seemed ready to run even more. They must have been going for hours according to his tracking of the sun. And still, the beast was ready for more.

Was this a Beastkin? He couldn’t imagine that it was. The legends always claimed some Beastkin in Bymere were far larger than what the action animals were like, but that was just a legend. He’d seen the Beastkin before. They were the same as the other animals, impossible to distinguish unless they had some kind of birthmark that crossed over when they changed. It wasn’t like that; the change didn’t make them more powerful.

Had he been wrong?

The woman in front of him patted a hand to the lion’s sweaty side. “Not bad. I think you’re losing your touch a bit though, old friend. That took us at least an hour longer than it should have.”

The lion huffed out a breath.

“Don’t argue with me. You know it would have been much easier if I took one of the younger ones.”

Again, the lion let out a growling chuff.

“Fine. We were safer with you. I’ll give you that. The older ones do know how to fight better.” And with that, she slid off the lion’s back and looked up at Nadir expectantly. “Well? Are you coming?”

Why was he following this strange woman’s orders? He’d never taken well to people telling him what to do, but this woman appeared out of the desert and he did whatever she wanted. Still, he found himself sliding off the lion’s back and looking at her expectantly.

Trying to take back a little bit of control, he squared his shoulders. “What now? Am I to meet your leader?”

“She called for you, didn’t she?” The woman turned away from him, muttering just loud enough for him to hear, “Why, none of us will ever understand.”

He didn’t either. There wasn’t much here for him. Of course, he should have visited a long time ago. Sultans were meant to know all the districts of their kingdoms without just assuming that one was running on its own. But that’s how the Falldell had always been.

It wasn’t really a part of his kingdom. It stood on its own with the understanding that should Bymere need to call upon it, that it would rise up and devour anything in its path.

Right now, he felt as though it were going to consume him.

He followed the strange woman, who had yet to give him her name, over the last dune and then gaped at the city he had never known was hidden in the sands.

A wall surrounded the entire place, writhing with carved bodies of snakes, twining around each other. There seemed to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of snakes so large he couldn’t fathom their size. The gate appeared to be the only place where one could enter the kingdom, and it was here where the snakes’ heads began.

Twin faces stared at him, large rubies glimmering in their eyes. It seemed as though they could actually see him. Their expression so vivid, and their fangs so sharp.

The woman gestured with her arm for him to get a move on. “Come on then, Sultan of Bymere. The Alqatara will only wait for you so long before they decide to move on without you.”

“And what exactly is moving on?” he asked as he rushed to her side. Sand kicked up at his feet like gold coins rolling through the desert. “What do the Alqatara want with me anyways?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know everything the mistress wants. She says she wants to see the sultan. We make sure that she sees him. It’s as simple as that.”

“Have any other sultans been brought here?”

The woman didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to. There were journals kept by each sultan. Private thoughts and dreams that each one detailed while he was seated upon the throne. They were meant for other sultans, certainly, but there were no secrets among those of the same blood. He’d read many of them, and no one had ever been brought to the home of Falldell.

Nadir edged past one of the large snakes, watching it carefully to make sure it was actually a sculpture and not a Beastkin about to lunge at him. “When was the last time anyone saw one of the Alqatara?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Today,” was her response.

He snorted. So she wasn’t going to give him much of a response then. She’d earned that right. He could only assume that she was one of the Qatal as well, a deadly assassin who could easily kill him without a second thought.

That didn’t make him want to poke at her any less. A voice deep inside his head whispered, “Just try her. See what she can do.”

He’d done that with another woman recently, and he remembered how soundly Sigrid would have defeated him. He’d tired her out first with tens of warriors. A memory that still plagued him to this day.

Why had he been so afraid of her when he’d first seen her? Was it because he’d somehow understood there was a connection between them?

Nadir certainly hadn’t believed she