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

“I know who I am.”

“Do you?” She lifted a dark brow. Tahira grasped the curtains on his balcony and twitched them open. The starlight beyond framed her dark hair and gave her an otherworldly look, as if she were a djinn who had stepped out of the sands. But this wasn’t a wish he would have made.

He didn’t want this.

Nadir’s lips twisted into a snarl. “You can tell that woman I have no interest in anything she can teach me.”

“We’re going to send someone to take the throne in your place. You’ll need to harm yourself somehow in a way that will force you to hide your face while it heals. Not exactly the best way to hide, but effective in its simplicity.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“You will.” Tahira stepped beyond the curtain and melted into the darkness. Her voice was all he could hear, but the words were like a lightning bolt to his soul. “The Alqatala of Falldell call upon you, Sultan, to greet them as one of your subjects. Whether you want to see your mother or not, you cannot deny us when we summon you.”

“What?” he stammered, his voice shaking. “The Alqatala of Falldell are a children’s tale. There are no more assassins that can call upon the king, or legendary warriors who protect Bymere.”

No one replied to his shouted question. The Beastkin woman—assassin— was gone.

It wasn’t possible that the Alqatala were real. They were only characters in children’s stories who came out in the middle of the night to right the wrongs of the kingdom. As sultan, he would know if they were real. Someone would have suggested he use them at some point, that he call upon the powers that were far stronger than any army.

Try as he might, he couldn’t really remember the stories. Only that they were terrifying men and women who moved impossibly fast. People used to say they were actually djinn. His brother had tried to capture one by buying a ridiculously expensive lamp from a street vendor who said he’d seized one of the Alqatala within its fluted neck.

Obviously, the man hadn’t done so. They had rubbed the lamp for hours, lit the oil within it, to no avail. Disappointing for boys as they were, but probably for the best. They wouldn’t have known what to do with a legendary warrior such as that.

And his mother?

Nadir purposefully stayed away from the thought. He didn’t want to know there were even more dragons out in the world. The last thing he needed was yet another threat in the kingdom for him to worry about. It wasn’t possible that the woman was alive.

Besides, his father would have taken care of such a threat a long time ago. The woman who had birthed Nadir would have a claim on some portion of the throne if she wished it, although his father had done everything in his power to make sure Nadir would never take the throne. Hakim had been the perfect son, the picture of health, until someone from Wildewyn had killed him.

Shaking his head, Nadir turned toward his bed. In the morning, it would seem like a dream. And if the Alqatala did send someone to take his throne while he traveled, he would turn the man away. That was the smart thing to do. There was no reason for him to do anything else.

He huffed out a breath. “Go to sleep, Nadir,” he told himself. “This will all disappear in the morning with the tail ends of whatever nightmare holds you awake.”

With that, he flopped down on the pillows, shoved his head under a particularly thick carpet, and folded his hands over his chest. The bed was so comfortable it nearly made him weep. He wanted to sleep so badly that his body actually hurt from it.

And yet, he couldn’t fall asleep no matter how much he wanted to. There were too many thoughts dancing in his head.

Was the woman telling the truth? That was his primary concern. If she were lying, then he could dismiss it all. But if she were telling the truth… then he had to do something about it.

He couldn’t go to Falldell. Not when there were so many things he needed to watch over here. He didn’t trust any of his advisors taking the throne, and he certainly didn’t trust some man he didn’t know. This could all be some elaborate ruse to take the throne from him, and what an end that would be.

If she were telling the truth, however, that was almost a bigger problem than he wanted to think about. A mother? Gods, he didn’t know what to do with a woman who wanted to see him only have twenty years of existence.

And then there was the issue of the Alqatala. They could kill him in his sleep if he didn’t do what they wanted, and no one would question their actions.

He sat up and scrubbed a hand down his face.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Sleep evades once again.”

Nadir stood from the bed and left his bedroom without a goal in mind. He needed something that would help him sleep. The healers would have something. Perhaps a draught that would knock him out for a few dreamless hours.

However, he couldn’t go to them. He’d already asked them a few times to help him sleep and they would eventually get suspicious why he was asking so much. No one could think him weak. He was the Sultan of Bymere. There wasn’t a reason for him to have sleepless nights when the kingdom was beginning to prosper once again.

It had only taken three seasons. A remarkable comeback after a war, his advisors said. Even the people whom he spoke with on a weekly basis expressed their appreciation for his abilities. They were happier now than they had been before the war, they promised. That had to account for something.

Something in his gut twisted at the thought. It all seemed