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

but did—and I can’t fathom betraying them. Even if it would be in my best interest.

I don’t know what that says about my loyalty.

Or my heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

ENEBISH

GHOA DID EXACTLY WHAT SHE SAID SHE WOULD. SHE SENT the imperial warriors marching off into the tundra, and I don’t know who’s more shocked: me, Serik, or Ghoa herself.

I spotted her, watching me deliver my speech. Her face was pale, despite a thick smearing of dirt. Her jaw was rigid and her eyes were pinched into slits. For a second I assumed the worst—the imperial warriors would appear from behind her and come crashing down on us. But then she leaned heavily against the wall, like a satchel held together by a thread.

She let me finish speaking. She watched, expressionless, as the Chotgori miners celebrated. And now she’s unnervingly quiet as we help the jubilant and tearful workers climb out of the ore mines. She even carries an armful of picks and doesn’t issue a single command as she plods along in the middle of the pack.

She always makes a point to lead. Always.

“I don’t like it,” Serik mutters in my ear. “It isn’t right. Look at her.” He waves at Ghoa, a good twenty paces ahead of us. Her face and hair are so caked with red-orange dirt, she must have rolled around in it. Or purposely smeared it all over herself.

“Maybe she’s trying to blend in? Maybe she didn’t want to frighten or intimidate the workers and make our task more difficult?” I say.

Serik’s frown is immediate. And incredulous. “Ghoa has known about their suffering for years. She obviously doesn’t care about upsetting them. And intimidating people is her primary goal in life.”

“I know, but she’s been through a lot these past months—” I start to say.

“No amount of torture could change her nature,” Serik cuts me off. “Selfishness is the foundation of who she is.”

I bite my lip and take several silent steps. “I just know how discouraging it is … to fight and struggle to free yourself from the past, only to have everyone sneer at your efforts and insist it’s impossible.”

“Except there’s one teeny, tiny difference between you and Ghoa: You never did any of the things you were imprisoned for. Ghoa did. Then she blamed you. You should doubt and despise her more than anyone.”

“I know,” I mumble again, kicking a rock. “It just feels wrong to be so critical when she actually upheld her end of our compromise.”

Serik stares at his cousin’s back, grinding his teeth as the Zemyan prince sidles up beside her. “Or maybe she has a secret agenda and we’re helping it along.”

“What could she possibly gain from taking in another horde of weak, traumatized people? Or by helping the Zemyan prince warn the First Gods? None of it benefits her.”

“Everything benefits her.” Serik stops and grips my shoulders tight, prompting curious looks from the Chotgori workers who stream around us. “Every choice she makes is for herself and no one else. Never forget that. She wants you to question and doubt and hope. Just enough to keep you clinging, so she can string you along and use you.”

Ziva appears out of nowhere, like she always seems to these days. My little shadow. She motions toward Ghoa and Ivandar and reaches for a swathe of darkness. “I can sneak up there and listen to their conversation, if you’d like?”

“Yes,” Serik insists.

But I reach out and disrupt Ziva’s grip on the shadows. “Not yet.” Serik may think Ghoa hasn’t changed, but something about her expression and demeanor feel so familiar to me.

It isn’t until we ascend into the frigid wind and the shepherds immediately resume moaning that I realize Ghoa reminds me of myself. When I first arrived in the winter grazing lands outside of Sagaan—the day I began to wonder if everything I’d stood for and fought for was a lie.

The temperature plummets with the setting sun. By the time the moon rises, the tendrils of night are the stillest I’ve ever seen them. Entombed in ice. It would take every Sun Stoker in the Kalima to make conditions even somewhat comfortable, and we’re headed even farther north. Beyond the shelter of the city.

Thankfully, the Chotgori are far more capable and prepared to withstand the cold. They raid the imperial barracks—or reclaim them, I should say, since the empire did the raiding. The buildings and everything inside them were the Chotgori’s to begin with. Methodically, they hand out jackets and hats and cloaks and load blankets and furs and sacks of salted cod and seal meat onto a fleet of sleds recovered from a nearby barn.

We lend our help, even Ghoa, and as the supplies dwindle, the gnawing in my stomach threatens to devour me. What if none of it’s for us? The Chotgori could be grateful for their freedom but too exhausted to aid us. I said they were under no obligation to join our cause, but I obviously didn’t mean it.

Once each sled is packed, seven women make their way to the front of the crowd. Most are gray and stooped with age, but two are tall and broad-shouldered with copper hair down to their waists and faces that look no older than mine.

They’re the seven chieftains of the Chotgori clans, and even though they’re as dirt-caked and haggard as the rest of the mine workers, I recognize them in an instant thanks to the silver bands soldered around their necks. They’re each given one when they become chieftain, and they acquire additional bands for heroic deeds.

The oldest woman, whose entire neck is covered in silver, raises her hands and mumbles in their melodious tongue.

One of the younger chieftains interprets: “You have done us an extraordinary service. As a token of our thanks, we offer you a sled of provisions, but we must stay and rebuild—” The girl stops translating and says something to the eldest chieftain in Chotgori.

The old woman gives her head a terse shake,