Dawn of Cobalt Shadows (Burning Empire Book 2) by Emma Hamm (best e ink reader for manga .txt) 📕

his muscles easing as his mind relaxed. Looking up from his nest, he jerked his chin toward the balcony. “Go on with it then. I’m not going to stop you.”

“You aren’t?”

If she was surprised, he didn’t really care. Of course he was going to let her go. Nadir had no use for her. Too many eyes were watching him right now for him to get her in contact with someone who would get her across the border. The woman would have to fend for herself.

She seemed perfectly capable of doing just that.

“No,” he replied. “I have no fight with the Beastkin. That’s entirely the advisors who have me by the throat with all their lies and scheming. If you disappear then I have the unique opportunity of blaming one of them, having them beheaded, and replacing them with someone I trust. So please. Go.”

She didn’t reply immediately. Nadir hoped the silence meant she had taken him at his word and slipped out the balcony. It would be better for them both if she disappeared quickly.

Something tapped the wood of his desk. A glass? Gods, the woman was pouring herself a glass of brandy, wasn’t she?

He leaned up and grunted when he saw she was doing exactly that. “That’s expensive.”

“I would hope so. You are the Sultan of Bymere after all.” She tossed the drink back and sighed. “Just as good as I remember.”

“As you remember?” he repeated.

The slave in front of him seemed to change. Her shoulders straightened, her eyes gleamed with a deadly intent, but it was mostly the way her sudden demeanor shifted without a single hesitation that made him realize she wasn’t who she pretended to be.

Nadir took a step toward her, his eyes narrowed and his jaw tight. “Who are you really?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.” He gestured up and down her body. “This is all clearly an act, and I need more information than just a lie. You aren’t some Beastkin woman they picked up out of the desert and threw into my dungeon. I’d hazard a guess you wanted to be there, though perhaps not for as long as you actually were.”

“You’re asking for a closely guarded secret, little sultan.” She sucked her tongue over her teeth. “But perhaps it’s time for you to know who we are.”

A shiver of distrust and fear ran down his spine. “We is rather ominous. Please don’t tell me there’s another group within Bymere who wants to see me dead. I’m not sure I could survive it.”

“It sounds as if you don't really want to.”

If she’d said the same thing a year ago, he would have agreed with her. Back then, it seemed easier that he slipped away from life. His kingdom would have flourished under a sultan who cared about them. His lands would have overflown with goods aplenty that he couldn’t seem to acquire for his people.

But now? He understood what to do, and how his ideas could benefit those who had less. He didn’t want to give up his chance to make this kingdom better than what it had been before him. He wanted to leave his mark on Bymere so that all would say his name long after his passing.

Old habits die hard, however, and a part of him still whispered that his people and all that he loved would be much better off if he… simply wasn’t there at all.

Shaking his head, Nadir replied, “I say the words, but they don’t have the same meaning as before.”

“Ah,” the Beastkin replied. “Then I should first say my name is Tahira.”

“I remember,” he whispered. The name had been branded into his mind as another to add to a long list of people he should have saved. The guilt burned in his chest, aching every night when he tried to sleep. “You may call me Nadir, if you’re going to tell me some secret I do not know.”

“I’m telling you more than a secret, little sultan. I’m giving you a chance to change the world as you know it.”

How many people had said that to him recently? The world was already changing. He’d taken the first step the moment he took power back from his advisors and stepped into the role his brother should have had. Did she not see the way the city had rebuilt itself? Did she not see the droves of people who were now flocking to the Red Palace in hopes to see their king?

He tilted his head to the side and asked, “How can I change it more than it already has been changed? The Beastkin might not see the effects of what I’m doing, not yet, but I need a little more time to fix what has been broken.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She started toward the balcony, then glanced over her shoulder. “Come to Falldell and see where you were wrought.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve always thought your mother was dead, because she died when you were just a boy along with all the people you loved. But there was your real mother who still lived. The one who gifted you the treasure that you are now. She summons you to her side.”

A flash of heat traveled from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes. His mother? He didn’t have a mother, not anymore. She had died from a fever that blistered through her body when he was just a boy. There wasn’t another woman in his life other than the creature who had gifted him a curse, not a treasure.

How dare she suggest there was another? It was an insult to his real mother’s memory. He opened his mouth to give her a scathing reply but was interrupted by her laughter.

“Easy, Sultan. There is more to this life than you know. A mother who loves you is one thing. A mother who is useful and ancient is another entirely. Come to Falldell, let us teach you where you came from,