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

she saw no one. It seemed as though no one lived here other than the medicine woman and the souls of long passed things.

“This is where you live?” she asked quietly as they rounded a large boulder. “Alone?”

“Not alone. They’re all within the enclave.”

“Which is where?”

Eivor sighed, then pointed ahead of them. “Further on! We must pass through the ancient mother first, so we know she has blessed our journey. Stop asking so many questions, youngling. All will be revealed in time.”

She didn’t want to wait. Secrecy wasn’t necessary in times like these, and she wanted to tell Eivor exactly what was going through her mind.

At the moment she opened her mouth, a rather large gust of wind pushed through the ancient skeleton above her. The echoing groan was a sound she’d never forget her in her life, nor the shifting of the tail that sent shards of ice raining down from above.

Perhaps the soul of the first matriarch wasn’t all that much of a myth then. Sigrid glanced up at her ancestor and blew out a breath through her teeth. “Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll wait and see what is to be revealed.”

The wind died down.

She followed Eivor for a while until they finally reached a small doorway carved in the great ice monolith. Symbols had been buried in the ice, refrozen so they would never move. Sigrid reached out to touch her finger to one which looked like a snake eating its tail.

“What is this symbol?”

“That of a house which lives within.” Eivor pointed out others buried in the crystal clear ice. “So many of them used to live here. Some are long gone. Others are still here. We’re a dying race. Still, we exist for those who need us. Like you.”

The medicine woman ducked through the doorway, and then disappeared into the shimmering wall of the frozen waterfall.

Did she want to follow? This was her chance to leave. She could turn around immediately and go back to the keep where she would be warm and safe. It wasn’t likely another snowstorm would pop up on her way back. If she were to believe the medicine woman, that was the ancestors guiding her anyways. She could forsake them and all this madness.

She reached out again and touched a golden medallion at the top of the doorway. A dragon had been etched into the soft metal, wings spread wide and mouth opened in a roar.

It felt as though she were meant to be here. Her entire life had drawn her to this point in time where she could finally figure out her story. The story of her ancestors, and where she’d come from.

After all this time… she wouldn’t be alone.

Taking a deep breath, she plunged through the doorway and into the unknown beyond.

12

Raheem

The damned sand had clogged his nose so deeply, he couldn’t even breathe. Raheem pressed a finger against one nostril and exhaled as hard as he could. Still, it didn’t dislodge the particles which had stuck so far up his nasal cavity that he feared they’d never get out.

And still, he’d missed this place.

He stared up at the Red Palace and felt something shift inside him. A small sliver of humanity that meant the world to him. This was his home. Not that emerald green place, so lush and overgrown that it overwhelmed him. This place with its golden colors and brightly decorated people.

The front gates to the palace stood open, guards on either side. They didn’t give him a second glance when he carefully walked by. He’d wrapped his head in a scarf so no one would recognize him.

Were they laxer in their protection of the sultan? Not a single guard even asked where he hailed from or what his business was in the palace. Anger bubbled in his throat, pushing words against his tongue until they wanted to fly from his lips and shred the guards to pieces. They should be more prepared to protect their sultan at any cost.

Bymere looked better than he had expected. Though it had been over half a year since the war, he’d thought it would be far more damaged than it was. A dragon had destroyed the city, after all.

The buildings were still sheared off at the tops, but they weren’t scorched anymore. Someone had painstakingly washed all the red rock and now built on top of the broken pieces. He could see the line where the damage had cleaved through the stone, and the new stone which mended the structures.

A gaggle of children raced past him, one of the larger boys striking his shoulder as they ran.

“Slow down!” Raheem shouted after them.

Their laughter trailed behind them like a beacon of brightly colored intent. They were probably going to steal something from one of the many vendors set out on the street. The moment he thought it, another man came charging down the main street, waving his hands above his head.

“And there’s the shopkeeper,” Raheem said out loud. A bemused smile spread across his lips. Oh, how he’d missed this place and all the people who had no problem expressing themselves. Earthen folk were cold compared to the loud, boisterous shouting of his homeland.

He strode through the streets confidently and without fear. No one would attack such a large man, but also because there was little violence within the shadow of the Red Palace. Up through the gardens of the palace he went, then slipped through a side door only the servants knew about.

Again, no guards tried to stop him. Why weren’t there people at every entrance to the palace? Had Nadir lost his mind? Or had Abdul finally convinced him a god king no longer needed guards?

Raheem was going to give the boy a piece of his mind. He was foolishly endangering himself at every moment. Guards needed to be on their posts at all times. It didn’t matter if they were tired. The man who fell asleep on watch was whipped publicly to remind everyone else