Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology) by Addie Thorley (best beach reads .txt) 📗

head has been shoved into the swamp and my lungs are screaming for air. I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed to see my king until now. When it’s being denied. The hovering threads of darkness pull taut and shiver against my fingers. Prodding. Ready. “Please!” I beg.

The other patients gape over at us, and the healer bustling between their beds looks ready to throw his instrument tray at my head.

“Go!” The guards thrust their spears at my face. I have to make a choice: concede and retreat or blacken the entire infirmary and do as I please.

I know what I want to do, but being belligerent won’t foster trust and convince King Ihsan to join us. And there’s no reason to force my agenda if King Minoak isn’t awake to hear what I have to say.

The agitated tendrils of darkness nip at my cheek. Why must he be awake to receive your message?

“Fine,” I say to the guards, making a show of tramping back the way I came. After they slam the door behind me, I noiselessly sneak back around the building and situate myself beneath the rear windows of the infirmary, where Minoak rests.

I wrap myself in shadows, perch on a branch near the window—which is open to let in fresh air—and summon the threads of darkness from the room. I may not be able to speak to my king in a traditional sense, but that doesn’t mean I can’t express my worries and needs. Plant the seeds of our rebellion while he sleeps, so when he finally does wake, he’ll think the ideas were his own.

It’s exactly what I did to the Sky King all those years ago, when I was lobbying to be named commander of the Kalima warriors. The choice that set so much of this madness into motion. Those same feelings of urgency and need twine through me now, tingeing my voice as I whisper into the darkness.

I sing fragments of old desert songs, relay my plans to free the Protected Territories and unite against the Sky King. I spare no detail about the war front and Temujin and the Zemyans. Anything I can think of to combat the inevitable barrage of opinions he’ll be faced with when he does wake.

“Please, let it be soon,” I pray as I send the ebony tendrils back through the window. I watch them wash over Minoak’s face and settle around him like smoke. Then I ease out of the tree and slowly make my way back to our barracks. Turning everything over in my mind. Begging the First Gods to show me the truth. And the path forward.

“You were gone for an eternity,” Serik says when I finally hobble through the door. “I was beginning to think you fell into the swamp. We were just about to send a search party.” His tone is playful, but he eyes me expectantly. Waiting for me to tell him where I went. Why it took so long.

For half a second I consider spewing everything. What would he think of Yatindra’s coldness—despite my efforts to be kind—and the guards’ refusal to let me see Minoak? But, as always, our cabin is crowded to the point of suffocation; anything I tell Serik, the entire caravan will hear. And if I tell him about Yatindra, he’ll think I followed her to pick a fight. He’ll be frustrated that I angered the guards in the infirmary, who could report the incident to Ihsan.

Nothing good will come from Serik knowing the truth. Not until I figure out if the reasons behind Yatindra’s hostility are cause for suspicion, or if I’m just reading into everything because I’m broken. Ruined by the past. Unfit to be trusted because I can’t trust in return—not even my allies.

A painful scowl twists my face as I ease onto the floor and painstakingly untie my boots. “I walked farther than I should have, so it was difficult to get back. I ended up going down to water level for a while to soak my leg,” I lie.

“I’m sorry again … about what I said earlier,” Serik says quietly. “I shouldn’t have pushed you about Ziva.”

“It had nothing to do with that,” I assure him, but he still insists on helping me with my boots and lifts me onto my bed. He rubs my feet and brings the food he set aside for me, since I missed our midday meal.

“I’ll do better,” he promises. Making me feel like the most despicable creature on the continent. Even worse than the bloodsucking mosquitos.

But I paint a smile on my face and murmur, “So will I.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

GHOA

I SPEND THE REST OF THE NIGHT INSPECTING THE WALL THAT opens into a passageway. If that mousy little servant has the power and intellect to access it, I should certainly be able to manage it. But no matter how I scrape and claw, no matter how much thick blue paint jams painfully beneath my fingernails, I find nothing. And now my hands are slick with blood, my wrists rubbed raw from the manacles, making the search even more impossible.

“I’m not surprised,” the Sky King’s voice drawls from everywhere and nowhere. “You have always been lacking, incompetent.”

I shred every window curtain in response. Not that it does any good—the king isn’t real and neither are the curtains—but it passes the time and helps to block out the specters hell-bent on driving me mad.

Once I’ve destroyed everything within reach and yelled myself hoarse at the unrelenting illusions, I crouch beside the invisible door to wait. I don’t care who comes through the tunnel next. I’m going to incapacitate them with ice, or the sheer force of my desperation, and get myself out of here. Then I’ll assassinate the empress and generál supreme and send this hideous palace crashing into the sea. After which the people of Ashkar will gladly welcome me back—the savior of the empire—and the Kalima warriors will spend the rest of their lives wishing they hadn’t betrayed