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

Read book online «Dawn of Cobalt Shadows (Burning Empire Book 2) by Emma Hamm (best e ink reader for manga .txt) 📕».   Author   -   Emma Hamm



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too good to be possible, but he didn’t know how to find out whether everyone was telling the truth.

It seemed as though he didn’t know what truth sounded like anymore. He’d lived for nearly his entire life so wrapped up in lies that the world seemed a darker place. It was hard to see in the shadows when everyone around you had them hanging off their shoulders like tendrils of night.

“Sultan?” the librarian’s voice broke through his thoughts. “It’s rather late at night, Your Highness. I hadn’t thought to see you.”

Where was he? Nadir looked around, only to realize he’d somehow ended up at the library. Why was he here?

Looking at the old stacks brought memories of his brother back to the forefront. Hakim had always harped on Nadir, saying that a good king knew the history of his kingdom so that he didn’t repeat the mistakes of sultans past. Nadir hadn’t been that interested in reading books. To tell the truth, he hadn’t been all that good at reading. The words sometimes switched on him while he was attempting to read them. Letters shifting and jumping until they created similar words that weren’t quite right.

He rubbed the back of his neck and met the gaze of the librarian before them. The man was older than he remembered, but he did remember him. No one could forget the round spectacles on the man’s nose, or the rather large mole right next to the wire.

“Ah,” he replied, “I hadn’t thought to find myself here either, but thusly I have arrived.”

“Is there something I can help you find?” the librarian asked, looking over the top of his spectacles which unfortunately shifted the mole directly onto the rims. “It’s a rather large library.”

“I think I remember my way around.”

“Take the gloves please.”

The gloves? Nadir looked down at the velvet pieces in the man’s hands as he thrust them out. Why in the world would he wear gloves?

The librarian grunted. “The books are too fragile to be touched. The oils on your hands will ruin them, Sultan. Royal or no, I won’t have you destroying books because you got it in your head to visit after ten years of silence.”

“I could have you beheaded for such insolence,” he replied while taking the gloves.

“And then who would run the library? Better to let me do what I know, and you do what you know.” The man looked down at the book in his hands, sat back down at a desk Nadir hadn’t noticed was there, and ignored the sultan entirely.

He couldn’t really argue with the old man. The librarian was correct. Nadir had always valued people who knew what they were doing, and did their job well. This librarian had been around since before they’d lost his brother, and that said something sincerely important.

The library stretched before him. Shelves more than five men tall stretched up into the ceiling with ladders interspersed, so librarians could reach up to the highest peaks. Those were the less popular books, but from what he’d heard, those were the ones that contained the most secrets.

How did these stacks work again? He should remember simply because his brother had dragged him here so many times, but he couldn’t for the life of him think what system they used. The stacks seemed to loom over him with judgmental weight that made his chest tight.

What was he doing here?

Still, his feet managed to move without him telling them to. They remembered the path he’d taken with his brother. They remembered how to move through the library quietly.

His hands knew the gloves like they were old friends. He slid the kid leather over his hands, catching on calluses he didn’t remember having. And when he reached the very last stack abutting the wall of his palace, his hands reached for the ladder and pulled it into place.

Nadir didn’t know what he was looking for. Somehow, his body had a mind of its own in this moment. It knew where to take him, what his mind needed to calm down.

At the very highest peak of the stack in the library of Bymere, an ancient book rested. It appeared as if no one had picked it up for centuries. Dust had settled in a fine layer over the red leather, so thick he left fingerprints in it when he lifted up the tome.

Brushing his fingers over it, he touched the golden clasp that held it shut.

“The knowledge of the Alqatala,” he murmured, reading the words that had been inlaid with gold leaf.

Lifting the book, he blew the dust off its cover, and then slowly made his way back down the ladder. Perhaps there was something in here that would tell him what to do next. Something that would explain why he was given this task by legendary assassin who shouldn’t even be alive.

And yet, it seemed as though they were.

Nadir took the book to a small seating area in the back corner where no one would find him. There was a candle and a box of matches on the table next to the chair, although neither had been used before. He placed the book carefully on the small table, struck the match on the side of the matchbox, and lit the candle.

The wax heated, and for a moment he saw figures in the candle flame. Dancing figures who lifted their arms above their heads and swayed to music he could almost hear. Drum Beats, ancient and powerful, flowed through his veins like water.

What was happening to him? This wasn’t something he’d ever seen before. Nothing he’d experienced, and yet, there it was.

Shaking his head, Nadir settled onto the chair and resolved to spend the rest of the evening in the library. He was going to discover what this Qatal wanted from him, this assassin woman who had broken into his palace with the sole intent to speak with him.

He’d deal with thoughts of his mother later, but for now, he needed to know what the

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