Dawn of Cobalt Shadows (Burning Empire Book 2) by Emma Hamm (free novels to read TXT) 📗

crack between her ribs. The pain didn’t register at once. Instead, all she could feel was the cold spread of the poison they'd doused it in.

Almost immediately, she felt it weave into her blood. The drug made her body sleepy, but her mind all the sharper. It had been used many times in a king’s interrogation. Let the mind see all that was done to the body but never have the option to stop what was happening.

She staggered, falling to a knee and pressing her hand to the wound.

A lone scream lifted into the air, a wail of shock and anger. At least her people were reacting. That was the plan, even if it made her heart hurt.

There was the pain. It started quietly at first, something so small that wouldn’t make her entire body rebel until it realized something foreign was imbedded there.

Sigrid looked down at the arrow tip, the green fletching and rune like a sun inscribed on the side. Camilla had made the mark so well, she wondered if perhaps the Bymerian soldier had helped her. That would be a difficult thing for her to explain to anyone else who asked, but she wasn’t about to look a gift in the mouth. Even the Bymerians would wonder if it was one of their own who tried to kill her.

Just in time, she heard Camilla’s voice lifting from the crowd. “Matriarch? Matriarch!”

The Beastkin looked up as Sigrid held out a hand smeared with blood. It doused the front of her dress with crimson.

“No!” a shout echoed through the crowd.

Sigrid listed to the side as her body grew weak and numb. She was so cold. Cold as she’d never been in her life.

As she fell onto the ground, she sent a silent prayer to her ancestors. Let them have used the right amount of poison.

Or she would meet her maker this day.

6

Camilla

Camilla watched the funeral pyre reach for the night sky. And though she knew her sister wasn’t dead, it still hurt to watch Sigrid’s body become engulfed in flames.

What if they hadn’t measured the right amount of poison? What if she never woke up?

It wasn’t a future she could look into without tears building in her eyes. Perhaps that was an even better addition to her act. None of the other Beastkin would even look at her.

Her chin shook, and she took a deep breath to still herself. There wasn’t time for fake emotions like this. Sigrid would be fine. Camilla would make sure of it, and then all would be well in the world.

But it wouldn’t. Her sister was going off on her own, leaving Camilla here with the rabble to take care of something that Sigrid didn’t want to do.

Her heart had nearly broken in two when Sigrid had told her the plan. She didn’t want to almost kill her sister. She didn’t want to submit to this plan that would take Sigrid so far away from her. They were a pair. They went everywhere together, even when they were children.

What would she do without her sister?

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jabbar said. He appeared out of the shadows. How, Camilla could never understand.

The man's skin was white as the moon, silvery in the nighttime. He nearly glowed, and yet, could hide himself whenever he wished. Perhaps that was something to do with the thunderbird side of him. She didn’t really care enough to know.

Camilla dashed a few tears from her eyes and nodded. “Thank you for that.”

“Grieving is healthy, although it can be painful.” He stood next to her and tucked his hands behind him. The fire reflected in his eyes. Dangerous eyes that saw far too much. “You will miss her?”

“How could I not? She was my sister.”

“You’re all sisters if I remember it right. There’s more to those tears than just sadness at losing one of your own.”

“You know nothing about my pain,” Camilla spat. “We were raised together as children, spent every waking moment together. She was an extension of myself as I am an extension of her.”

One of the Earthen Beastkin stepped forward and placed a bundle of lavender on the pyre. It immediately went up in flames with the rest of Sigrid’s things placed beside her. The sudden burst of light reflected in Brynhild’s eyes, who looked at Camilla.

“It should be her,” Brynhild said, pointing at Camilla with a shaking hand. “That’s what Sigrid would have wanted.”

So, it seemed she wouldn’t have to plant the seed at all. Sigrid had thought the Earthen Beastkin would want someone stronger to be their leader. Camilla had agreed with her, and shock froze her next to Jabbar.

“Me?” she finally stammered. “Why me?”

“Because Sigrid trusted you as no other. She thought the world of you, Camilla, and that’s something the rest of us should respect.”

“We were sisters once,” Camilla murmured. “I thought of you as my family in the days when we served the Earthen folk, but I left you to be with Sigrid. I journeyed across the lands, and I didn’t stay by your side when you needed me most. Why would you give me any chance to make amends for that betrayal?”

“Because you see it as a betrayal.” Brynhild fell to one knee and pressed a hand against her chest. “You deserve to take her place. You will honor her memory and continue her work to make us a better people.”

Jabbar stepped forward at that. “There’s no reason why we should add someone to the council who knows nothing of what we’ve spoken of. There are plenty of us who could step into—”

“No,” Brynhild interrupted. A ripple of fur unfurled from the top of her head to her toes in a single wave that promised her beast—a bear—was very close to the surface. “You will not twist my words now, Jabbar of Bymere. It was one of your people who tried to kill her.”

“Mine?” Jabbar laughed and opened his arms wide. “Prove it.”

“The arrow. It was marked with the symbol