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

“The Alqatara are Beastkin?”

“How do you think we were named the eight armed assassins?” Solomon reached up and removed the wrapping covering his face. “There is more to this world than you could possibly know. The Sultan needs to be prepared as no other.”

“That doesn’t include a war right now then. How are you going to stop this madness?”

“In whatever way it takes.” Solomon finished pulling off the bindings and looked Raheem dead in the eye. “If you try and stop me, I will be forced to kill you. I am a Qatal. You will not stand in my way.”

If Raheem could have spoken, he would have said the boy didn’t frighten him. There were many who wished for his death, and none had survived it just yet. But he couldn’t say a word to the haunting face before him.

Solomon looked like Hakim, a strange thing to realize when Hakim wasn’t closer to the other two by blood. They were all half-brothers. Each a bastard in their own way. Hakim would never have lead the Beastkin, because he wasn’t tied to them other than through his father. Nadir could never lead the Bymerians, because he wasn’t truly royal. And this one, this boy, would never lead anything, because his mother was viewed as a monster.

What had happened to this family? What poison had spread through the line of the sultan that had cursed his offspring so?

Raheem blew out a ragged breath, turned on his heel, and made his way toward the desk. A bottle of brandy awaited him in the bottom right drawer, as it always did. He planned to make good use of it.

Uncorking the bottle, he pulled out two glasses and gestured with one toward the cut on Solomon's face. “Was that your plan?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Solomon nodded in agreement to the drink, and put his blade back into its sheath at his hip.

“Just barely. They won’t believe you forever, and as good an actor as you are… not everyone will believe you’re the sultan.” He handed the assassin a glass and toasted with him. “You’ll need me if you want to convince them.”

“How so?”

Sipping the brandy, Raheem lifted a brow. “You aren’t so foolish as to immediately deny a need for assistance?”

“We are the Alqatara. When help is offered, we take it.”

“A wise motto. Better than I expected.” Raheem sank into the chair behind the desk and stared around the room where the boy had grown up. This place was as toxic as it was beautiful. Even the flowers here were poisonous. It was no wonder Nadir had become a rather vain, arrogant man when this place had groomed him so.

Perhaps the Alqatara would teach him to be even better. Sigrid had opened his mind to a different future, one he could already see the sultan had placed into his kingdom. Now, the Alqatara would change him even further. Would he recognize the man who returned?

Solomon sat in the other chair, crossed his legs, and sipped the brandy. “How can you help, Captain?”

“If I believe you are who you say you are, others will follow. Of everything, I am the closest to the sultan.”

“They are so easy to fool?”

“Oh, they won’t be fooled. This place is full of those who are dangerous and poisonous, but look like flowers in a garden. Being a royal is a game that you must play the right way, or you’ll lose your head. I can help guide you.”

Solomon coughed. “You were banished from ever entering the kingdom again.”

“And yet, I’m here without a single word from anyone.” Raheem set his glass on the desk, then touched the ring mark from where Nadir always set his glass. “Let me be your shield between the viper’s pit and the spitting cobras.”

“Why would you do that?”

“For Nadir. For the boy I helped raise and the man I always knew he would become. I think you can help. Or perhaps, the Alqatara can help. If this is the plan, then we’ll see it through to the end.”

Solomon lifted his glass once more in a toast. “To changing the kingdom.”

Mimicking the other man’s movements, Raheem slowly lifted his own glass and stared at the amber liquid within. “To changing the world.”

13

Sigrid

She stepped through the ice and into a world that didn’t seem possible. Man and beast living side by side inside a tomb made of cold air and frigid water. Homes were carved into the ice and into the mountainside beyond. Animals scurried past, some Beastkin, others not.

Her heart caught in her throat. These people, they were… perfect. Every inch of their bodies contained modifications she couldn’t have imagined. Though they were all tribal, with furs and tattoos flashing as they moved, they were also intrinsically working together to survive.

Each of the houses had a kind of marker over them. Some were leaves and dried flowers bound together in a rope-like structure, hung over the opening of the doors. Others were carved directly into the ice or stone.

The Beastkin here were massive. They were all the same height as her. Some even larger. They walked by her with faces bared, unlike the medicine woman who had come to collect her. Tattoos marked their skin, designating who or what they were.

A man strode past her with his arms full of logs. Scales had been tattooed from his chin to forehead, and a forked tongue stretched out of his mouth. His gaze locked onto hers, golden eyes turning to slits. And she swore he flicked out his tongue when she passed, tasting the air and her scent.

“Eivor?” she called out.

The medicine woman had disappeared in the flood of Beastkin making their way around their homes. A small dog ran by her with a startled yelping call. Children raced after it with sticks in their hands.

She’d never seen a life like this, where humans and animals were so… together. A woman walked by with a