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

“You mean the peace my father built? The kindness my brother instilled in the people?”

“I mean the poverty!” Abdul spat. “The Beastkin who ran wild in the streets and hunted our men and women! The creatures in the night that terrified women and children in their sleep. You don’t remember the world the way it was when your father and your brother were making changes that no one else wanted. I am doing what is right for this country.”

Nadir put his foot on the first step. “You’re doing what you think is right. That is not your decision, but mine.”

“The council has already decided you are not fit to run this country.”

“You all decided that a long time ago,” he replied, ascending the stairs further. “You did not ever give me a chance. You put thoughts in my head. You whispered accusations and lies that made me choose to do things I never wanted to do.”

“We helped this country.”

Nadir stepped in front of the throne he’d sat in so many times. The golden edges gleamed in the sunlight that poured from the open glass ceiling. He touched a hand to the ornate carvings, remembering his father doing the same thing.

This country deserves someone better than him. Perhaps that was why he would make a good sultan in the end. He would never feel worthy of this throne, or the people it symbolized.

Saafiya reached out her hand for him. The nails were perfectly clipped half-moons, so pretty it still made him shake. Those caramel fingertips had touched every part of him. Including his heart, at one point.

“Husband,” she whispered, her voice a melody he remembered from his childhood. “Don’t do this. Trust us, we want to help.”

“Help?” he repeated. “You don’t want to help. You want to control. There’s a difference I don’t think you have ever understood.”

Abdul pointed at Solomon this time, raising his voice with another accusation. “And who is this? Are you not going to explain the man who looks exactly like you?”

“Would you believe me if I said that was Hakim?”

The startled expression on all his advisors faces gave him the answer he was looking for. They would believe it. They stared back at Solomon with grave eyes and guilt he recognized all too well.

Nadir had worn that expression for years. When he thought it was his fault that his brother had died. If he had just stepped in front of the blade. If he had been a better brother, a better soldier, even though he was only a child at the time.

He sank into the throne and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You killed him. Didn’t you?”

Abdul choked. “I would never attack one of the royal line.”

“You didn’t have to attack anyone. You paid someone to take that blade. All they had to do was scratch him. Poison such as that is impossible to survive.”

“I did no such thing.”

Nadir stared down at Abdul’s hands. He didn’t have to look at them, he could smell his fear. His eyes heated in anger.

“You killed my brother.”

“I say again, boy. I did no such thing.”

Nadir’s hands turned into claws. The scent of fear, guilt, and anger filled the air around him. It wasn’t coming just from Abdul and Saafiya. Everyone in the room was filled with the emotions, so thick it was a curtain around them. Sealing them inside the great hall with the memories of what they had done.

“All of you did,” he said. The great hall was so quiet he heard the drops of water as one of the koi fish shifted in the pools. “You ordered him killed for what reason?”

Always the brave one. Always the foolish one, Saafiya replied, “To save our country from an unfit sultan.”

An admission of guilt. The only one he needed.

Nadir’s shoulders curved in. He sank lower over his knees and looked up, down the hall at Sigrid who stared back at him. She was a pillar of justice, sparkling like a diamond in the darkness.

“Go,” he told her. “Take him with you.”

“Nadir—”

“I don’t want you to see.”

Her gaze softened, then she nodded and slipped a hand through Solomon’s arm. They strode out of the great hall. True to her nature, he heard Sigrid bar the door behind them.

Nadir finally looked at his advisors then. His forked tongue slipped between his lips and tasted their fear in the air.

“Son,” Abdul said, leaving his seat to place it between them. “You don’t want to do this.”

“But I do,” he replied, his words lisping as the dragon took over. “Your reign has ended. So begins the true reign of the God King.”

The change rippled through him and the screams echoed in his head. Nadir didn’t leave the great hall until the cerulean pools had turned red with their blood.

29

Sigrid

“We have to return,” Sigrid said. She tucked her hands firmly under her arms, trying hard to hide their shaking. “There’s nothing we can do if we remain here.”

Camilla stepped forward from her place outside the library. “That’s not true. The army has already returned. The Earthen folk won’t follow the Bymerians here. They have no interest in desert fighting.”

They’d all remained here—Solomon, Camilla, and herself—waiting for Nadir to exit the great hall while wanting to remain out of his way. The screams had echoed for a while and then… silence.

Sigrid had moved them all down the hall much further the moment she noticed blood leaking beneath the doors. The humans didn’t need to see that. It would only make them more afraid, and Nadir wouldn’t want that. They were his trusted friends and family. They were in no danger from him.

“I don’t understand,” Sigrid said with a frustrated growl. “You want to return home. Why are you fighting me on this?”

“I don’t think it’s prudent to return when everyone thinks you’re dead. How many times have you said you wanted to return here? So stay here, Sigrid. Stay with him and help him make this