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

After what feels like years, but is probably no more than the length of a night, the door slides into existence. My mind snaps to attention and I lift my hands, practically crowing with relief when Hadassah, rather than Kartok, shuffles into the room.

I launch myself at her like a snow panther at the end of the great freeze—wild and half mad with hunger. My fingers sink into her flesh and I shove every morsel of cold from my core into her body. But her skin only cools a fraction. Her lips part with a scream as she hits the floor. The bowl of sludge she’s carrying falls and a lumpy spatter coats the wall, not frozen in the least.

It’s hardly the ambush I imagined, but it’s good enough. I scramble over her as if she’s a bloodied corpse on the battlefield, and lunge for the tunnel.

“Stop!” she shouts.

I run faster, flinging myself through the door as it begins to slide shut. I almost think I’ve made it, when Hadassah’s fingers close around my ankle. She yanks me back with surprising strength and I slam into the ground, unable to catch myself due to the blasted manacles. She tugs me swiftly back into the room, as if I’m the scrawny maid and she’s the seasoned warrior.

“Let go!” I kick at her face.

“I’m trying to help you!” she snaps as she dodges my strikes. “He’s coming. He’ll recapture you immediately. And kill me.”

Her warning knocks me so off balance, she’s able to snatch the bowl of muck, vault over me, and disappear down the passageway before I can recover.

The door clicks shut behind her, and Kartok appears less than a minute later. “Good morning, Commander. How are you feeling this fine day?” he asks, even though the answer is clear.

I look like death. And worse, I feel like death. But I bare my teeth and say, “These accommodations are most restful. I feel stronger than ever.” I wag my fingers and a flurry of frost spirals between us. Just a trace, and it melts immediately, but enough to prove I’m not powerless. That his goddess wasn’t strong enough to rip the ice from me. Not even when it’s already depleted.

Kartok’s expression darkens. Before I can blink, he’s on top of me, knees jabbing into my shoulders, hands forcing another waterskin between my lips, tipping more of the scalding hot-spring water down my throat. He pours until the vessel is empty and water dribbles down my chin. Then he looms over me, breathing hard. “How do you feel now?”

The burning sensation invades my body faster and hotter and stronger than before. I feel like I’m spitting flames. But I can still feel the ice nestled deep within my chest. It’s shrunken—a tiny stone that used to be a boulder—but it’s there. Proof that Zemyans have never been and will never be as strong as Ashkarians. Not even their goddess.

“Well?” Kartok digs his pointy knees into my shoulders.

I reach out with shaking fingers and touch the toe of Kartok’s slipper. His stubbled cheeks redden as a beautiful lacy crusting of frost overtakes the beadwork. I want to gloat, but only a rasp of breath escapes my scalded throat. Finally I manage to wheeze, “Do you still have perfect faith in Zemya?”

“Do not speak ill of the goddess!” Kartok flings his arms to the sides and the sky-blue walls of the throne room splinter like broken glass. I close my eyes and take a final, gasping breath, waiting for seawater to rush in and pummel me. But the deluge doesn’t come. Not a single drop of blue-black water seeps through the cracks. Instead I see moving shadows and refracted light. I hear low murmurs and dragging chains. I knew I couldn’t be the only prisoner, but the replica of the throne room is so convincing, I had almost started to believe the sorcerer’s lies.

Now I see the truth: I am surrounded by dozens of identical glass cells, most of which are occupied by Ashkarian warriors. Though, I do spy a few gray-clad Shoniin and even some Zemyans. They are always pale, sickly looking people, but these Zemyans’ veins glow blue beneath their translucent skin—like the jellyfish that glide through the water beyond—as if they haven’t seen the sun in half a lifetime.

Most shocking of all, however, is the sound of far-off singing. The melody is distorted by the water and the glass, but it’s a song I know by heart: the music of my childhood. Every night, Papá would croon the soothing lullaby at my bedside until I drifted off to sleep. The words are different, of course—strange Zemyan lyrics that are too smooth and menacing—but the tune wraps around me like a sheath around a sword. Snug and protective.

The singer is a Zemyan woman, kneeling with her hands pressed against the glass. On the other side, an imperial warrior, who looks as small as our youngest recruits, kneels in the same manner, palms held up to the woman’s. The child’s slim shoulders shake in their unmistakable blue and gold, and the louder they cry, the louder the woman sings. Her voice rings out, strong and clear, and pops of color burst from her fingers and spread through the glass between them like a watercolor painting.

The colors form the fuzzy image of a dove and a lion, the characters from the song, and they twist in a dizzying whirl that’s both haunting and mesmerizing.

Beautiful. It’s the only word to describe it. But it can’t be beautiful because Zemyan magic is vile. Wrong.

With a loud clap from Kartok, the cracks in the throne room knit back together, blotting out the other prisoners.

“You can’t leave me here to rot like them,” I say, my voice gaining conviction. “My power will rebuild—there’s nothing you can do to stop it—and when it does, I’ll obliterate this prison.”

“Impossible,” Kartok says, but his reply is a second too slow. A note too high. “Even if you managed to break the