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

was really a dragon. He’d been raised his entire life to believe that there were no others like him. Beastkin weren’t mythical creatures who could fly through the sky and breathe fire. They were regular animals, blending into the crowds of beasts until they were impossible to tell which was which.

It had been easier to believe she wasn’t like him as well. He hadn't wanted to think that another shared his curse, the affliction that had made him different since he was a child. The affliction that he was certain would earn him death one day.

Now, things were different. He wanted to know what Sigrid was doing, because after all this time, he wasn’t truly alone.

They passed through the twin snakes, which he swore turned their heads to watch them, and continued down a path toward a city made of white stone.

The houses were a familiar style to the Bymerian peasants. Made of white mud and bricks, they were built from the ground up by careful hands. Each stretched out of the sand with a small opening on the top for smoke to leave if they were cooking, although most would cook outside.

This was the legendary Falldell? The small huts stretched as far as his eye could see, but there was no palace. No castle for any of their leaders to stay.

“Where is the leader of the Alqatara?” he asked. His spine straightened and his hands fisted. Surely, they wouldn’t have played him like this? They wouldn’t have brought him here only to force him to make yet another journey?

The woman glanced at him and raised a brow. “In the home ahead of us.”

He looked for something more extravagant than all the others, but didn’t find anything other than yet another white brick house. “Where?”

The hide curtain in front of the home’s doorway shifted. A familiar woman stepped out of the home, striding toward them with confident steps.

Dark slashes of brows drew down the moment she saw him. Yet another person who immediately reacted with hatred when they cast their eyes on his face. Would he ever get tired of it? Yes, but there was still a thrill in his chest when he realized someone immediately didn’t like him simply because he existed.

Nadir dropped into a mocking bow. “Tahira.”

“Sultan.” She faked a curtsey. “Welcome to the home of the Alqatara.”

“I’m afraid I don’t believe you’re the leader of these people, darling. But I have no time for such foolishness. My kingdom is in the hands of one of your own, and if you have double crossed me I will—”

She clapped her hands hard, forcing him to pause in the middle of his sentence in shock. Had she really just interrupted him?

“I’m not interested in a pissing contest with you. We’re not hurting the kingdom. The matriarch would like to speak with you.”

What else could he really say about that? They’d already gone around with this conversation, but he wanted them to know how important this was. Bymere was his home, and he’d only just realized that. He wasn’t willing to give that up without a fight.

Following Tahira, he swept aside the leather covering and stepped into the small hut.

There wasn’t much inside, but he didn’t know why he expected more. The inside was painted a warm yellow, likely from the tiny water plants that grew next to any oasis in the desert. A fireplace in the dead center was cold. It was too hot for them to have a fire. A few paintings hung from the walls, but it was the cot in the corner that caught his attention.

A woman laid out on the small bed. Patch-work blankets laid across her lap, a thousand colors all tangled together in something so beautiful it hurt his eyes.

Not because the blanket was well made. It wasn’t. There were stitches coming out of every corner, pieces of it falling apart, and one side wasn’t even finished being sewn. But it had clearly been made with love.

It was an emotion he didn’t quite know how to understand yet. Like a butterfly, it flitted at the corner of his eye. Always out of reach, but something he desperately wanted to know.

The woman under the blanket was so small he almost didn’t notice her. The folds of her face were lined with hardship and a difficult life.

Tiny, so tiny it almost scared him, she shifted underneath the blanket made with love and smiled up at him. “My son, it’s good to see you.”

He bowed to the Matriarch of the Alqatara. “My lady, it is an honor as few sultans receive.”

“I had hoped to see you before time took me away from this world. You are just as handsome as I thought you would be.”

The words didn’t quite sink in, even as he straightened and met her gaze. Then, all at once, it rushed down upon him like a waterfall of emotion. He saw the straight edge of her nose, the square shape of her jaw, the slight curl to her gray hair that was so rare in Bymere.

Above all else, he saw the tears in her eyes and suddenly understood what that meant.

Nadir didn’t know how to process the thought. His knees went suddenly weak, and there was nothing for him to catch onto. Instead, he took a shambling step forward, halting before he could get too close to the bed. “What did you say?” he croaked.

“My son,” the matriarch said again. “You may call me Nahla, if you wish. You were named after me, and the sands where you were born.”

“Mother?” he asked. His mind raced to catch up with the conversation, but he couldn’t think past the word. Mother.

He’d always had one in his life. The word meant a warm-hearted woman with hair that turned red in the sun and a smile that could light up the entire palace. The woman who would chase him and Hakim through the concubines’ quarters with laughing bubbling up into the ceiling.

Until he realized she wasn’t his mother