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

With a desperate shriek, I reach for a dagger of starfire and hurl it at the smear of shadow stealing over the dunes.

CHAPTER THREE

GHOA

THE SPICE TRADERS LOOK LIKE THEY’RE GOING TO WET themselves.

A pathetic man and woman hunch behind their rickety cart, faces pale as sand, hands trembling. Skiffs of yellow turmeric and rusty paprika escape the burlap sacks and float on the breeze. I grin as I inhale the pungent air.

Frightened witnesses are cooperative witnesses.

“Have you passed any caravans along this route?” I demand, gazing down from Tabana’s towering height.

They eye my warhorse—her sleek black coat draped in imperial blue and gold. Then their gazes continue upward, to the saber gleaming through the folds of my cloak, the glint of my lamellar armor in the harsh winter sun, and settle at last on the tinkling strands of my ponytail, singed white with frost.

“W-we’ve seen no one, C-Commander,” the man babbles, dipping into a pathetic bow. “Not a soul.”

“You’re halfway between Verdenet and Sagaan on one of the most heavily trafficked roads in the Unified Empire,” I say quietly. Dangerously.

“Most people choose not to travel this late in the year,” the woman says.

“Which is how I know you couldn’t have missed them.” I slash my arm, and frost ravages the spice bags. “Surely you’ve seen wagon tracks or footprints in the snow? Or heard the braying of sheep? Voices, even, that seem to come from nowhere?”

Just because they haven’t seen my traitorous sister and her ragtag group of rebels doesn’t mean they aren’t here. I know Enebish would have run to Verdenet. I know it as surely as the heady burn of ice overtaking my fists. Yet somehow she and Temujin and his Shoniin, and every skies-forsaken shepherd on the grazing lands, has vanished without leaving a single footprint or wheel mark in the snow. I feel like I’m tracking shadows, chasing phantoms.

Which isn’t far from the truth.

I nudge Tabana forward and the traders scream as her platter-sized hooves nearly sever their toes. “Do you know the punishment for obstructing imperial justice?” I ask, twirling my fingers idly in the air.

The woman screams as intricate patterns of frost climb the wheels of their cart. I nudge a few fractals onto their cloaks, let them nip at their cheeks. The man drops to his knees, babbling incoherently.

“Tell me what you know!” I shout.

Before he can confess, a screech fills the air. My eyes snap up to the sky, and invisible fingers seize my lungs. For one breathless moment I’m convinced it’s her eagle, diving at me with blood-soaked wings, daggers of ice still protruding from her chest. But as the raptor streaks closer, I see it’s too small, too spotted, and too alive to be Orbai.

The imperial falcon glides overhead, releases a scroll of parchment, and climbs back into the low-hanging clouds before I’ve unrolled the missive. The frosty strands of my ponytail harden further, scraping the back of my neck like a blade.

Whoever wrote this letter hasn’t given me an opportunity to reply.

I unfurl the parchment.

Return to Sagaan at once.

The note isn’t signed, but the Sky King’s hand is unmistakable. A flurry of annoyance billows through me as I stare at the ornate loops.

“Find them. By any means necessary,” he’d ordered me from the bowels of the treasury, where I led him to safety during Temujin’s thwarted execution. We sat in prickling silence for hours, listening to Enebish’s starfire ravage the Sky Palace and the Grand Courtyard. Finally he spoke: “I’m giving you complete control. Full confidence. Prove I’m not a fool to continue putting my faith in you.”

But how am I supposed to prove anything if he recalls me before I’ve had the opportunity to search? It’s barely been a week.

A week should have been more than adequate. A competent commander would have found them in days. Hours.

I can’t tell if the voice of censure is coming from myself or the Sky King, but it makes no difference. We are one and the same. His will is my own.

The spice traders scream, which is when I realize I’ve crushed the missive in my fist—though not before freezing it. Brittle shards of parchment escape my fingers and slash around us on the wintry breeze. The woman falls to the ground beside the man and they cover their heads, finally ready to cooperate. But orders are orders. Without a word to either of them, I bring Tabana around and dig my heels into her flanks.

We ride northward for five days, the snow-streaked grasslands blurring past, until the city of Sagaan rises up around me. A fortress of towering spires and impenetrable walls surrounding the glittering splendor of the royal complex. What used to be the royal complex, I correct myself as I gallop into the wreckage. The white façade of the Sky Palace is blacker than crumbling coal, the spires are ensconced in scaffolding, and the acrid tang of smoke still blankets the air.

The rebuilding will take months. Years. An opened wound, left to fester.

No matter how many times I see the devastation, I will never get used to it. And I will never forgive Enebish. Not only did she turn her back on me, but she turned her back on the Sky King. On our empire.

“Welcome home, Commander,” Reza, my page, calls from the front of the blue stone treasury building.

I look past the boy, my eyes narrowing into slits. This smoldering wreckage is not my home. And where in the name of the Sky King is Varren? My second-in-command always greets me to relay messages and reports from the war front. Why am I stuck with this knobby-boned child who knows nothing? He isn’t even supposed to address me—or leave the barn—and I’m about to remind him of this, but his eyes are so eager and adoring and he pulls his shoulders back in an effort to impress me. This small show of veneration defrosts my anger a fraction.

Until he opens his mouth again.

“Did you make any progress,