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

her cot and reached for her hand resting on top of the patchwork blanket.

“Matriarch,” he said quietly.

Nahla tilted her head to look at him, her eyes unfocused and dark. “Would you call me mother? At least once in your life?”

He wanted to. Gods, it was the right thing to do for a woman on her deathbed who was asking so little.

But he couldn’t. The memory of his real mother kept rising to the forefront of his mind. He remembered the way she had smelled like jasmine from the baths she took with the concubines every morning. How she refused to wear jewelry, because she said her skin was plenty pretty enough without marring it with stones from the earth. He remembered how the henna on her hands had always been flowers because she loved them so much.

With a sad look, he shook his head. “My deepest apologies, Alqatara. We both know why I cannot do that.”

Nahla sighed. “I do, but I wish that life had been kinder to both of us.”

“There’s little we can do to change what has been done.”

“And yet, an old woman can dream.” Nahla’s hand shook in his grasp. She threaded their fingers together and hesitantly lifted them up. “You became a good man, Nadir, without any advice from me at all.”

“It’s hard not to be when I was raised in a group of men who were kind and honest to a fault.”

“They were,” she whispered. “You’ll find that out soon enough. You’ve survived in a pit of vipers and somehow, impossibly, you turned out to be a dragon who will devour them all.”

They were back here already? He’d thought maybe she would want to have some sentimental words. Not talk to him again about becoming a god, leading the people through fear. What was this woman’s end game?

Nahla coughed, forcing his gaze back to her face. “Listen to me, boy. I couldn’t be there for you when I should have been a mother. I know that.”

“You did what you could.”

“Don’t interrupt me, Nadir. I’m dying, and I only have a little bit of time to say this. You must promise me you will never again fear your dragon. You and he will rule this land without war, bloodshed, or fire. The people need to trust you to protect them, and that they no longer need to fight.”

He didn’t want to argue this when she was about to die. She didn’t need to hear him say he didn’t really believe her, or that he didn’t think he could do what she wanted him to do.

Instead, Nadir curled her fingers within his hands gently. He pulled her closer and tucked her hand against his heart. “I will do all that I can to make you proud of me, Nahla. Matriarch of the Alqatara. Your memory and your story will live throughout the ages. I will never let anyone forget you.”

“That is the duty of the Qatal. We are forgotten as soon as the air leaves our lungs.”

“I will not forget you. My children will not forget you. Their grandmother was a warrior who saved the kingdom countless times over. No child of mine will not know this.”

Nahla’s lungs rattled as a breath wheezed out. “Good. That’s good, my son.”

He drew her hand closer to his chest. Pressing her fingers against his skin in hopes that she might feel his heart beating strong there. Her legacy wouldn’t die with her. Nadir was still here, he was still strong, and he would save the kingdom as she’d wished. Perhaps not for her, but because of her.

He didn’t know how long he knelt beside the cot. It didn’t matter that his knees ached as they pressed into the sand, nor that shivers danced down his spine as wind funneled through the hole in the top of the hut. Instead, he intently listened to her discomfort and waited for the moment when silence fell heavy around him.

The passing of her soul was as quiet as a blanket of snow. It touched upon his shoulders in the sudden quiet. The last exhale from her body sang like the low tune of a flute before it disappeared from this world forever.

Nadir should feel more of a loss than this. His heart ached for her, for the loss of a soul who had been taken too young. But it wasn’t that of a son who had lost his mother. For that, he regretted her actions for her. Perhaps, if they were given more time, he might have loved her as she deserved. As it was, he could only gift her with little more than clearing his throat and a quiet nod.

“Rest easy, warrior,” he murmured. Leaning forward, he touched a finger to each of her eyes and gently closed them. “Your fight has ended.”

Gods, this was his mother. The woman who had brought him into the world and she was gone.

Now he would never know where he’d come from. What he’d looked like as a child… Nadir let out a slow sigh. It didn’t matter. None of that mattered, regardless of her capabilities to birth him. She’d given him up. That had to be enough, so his thoughts didn’t try to drown him.

The tent flap stirred behind him. He knew it was Tahira.

She let out a soft sound. “So she’s gone then?”

“Yes.”

“Was it—” she hesitated, then cleared her throat. “Was it painless?”

“As far as I could tell.”

“She wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know how weak she was,” Tahira replied. “It’s better if we tell people that she went out without a fight at all. That she was… peaceful. In the end.”

He watched her throat bob with deep emotion that he couldn’t respond to. How did one let another person know that he wanted to be there? That he wanted to share the same feelings as her but couldn’t bring himself to think of this cold, dead woman beside him as anything other than the leader of the Alqatara?

Nadir opened his mouth to reply with