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

the brush beside her. “Nice shot,” he muttered, clapping a hand hard on her shoulder and then racing toward the meat. There were other things in these mountains that needed the meat as well. They would gather the stag as quickly as possible, making quick work of the gutting process and keeping every bit of the beast for themselves.

The ancients made use of every part of every kill. It didn’t matter what it was. The bones were used for carved runes that they were certain helped keep them safe or speak with the dead. The meat, organs, even intestines were either taken or used in healing.

Sigrid hadn’t ever seen anything like it. She watched the male pull a knife from his pocket then turned away. The gutting of an animal always felt a little too personal for her to take part in. There was something that made her stomach turn about that pop of flesh in the initial jolt.

However, it certainly made her dragon pleased. The creature inside her practically slobbered at the mere thought of fresh, bloody meat.

She looked up at the mountain beyond where the brave trials began. Aslaug had explained that many of their young people endured hardships and tests before they were allowed to join a certain sector of the ancients. Braves were those who hunted, protected the tribes when necessary, and most of the people who were considered warriors.

Sigrid had insisted she should train with these people. She’d fought her entire life. She might even be able to train them in new styles of battle they hadn’t been exposed to before.

Aslaug had chuckled and said a dragon had no need to learn how to fight. The creature would take care of her far more than a blade or sword. What Sigrid needed was to learn a little patience.

She didn’t want to learn any more patience. She wanted to do something other than help these people out and feel increasingly more like she was being taken advantage of.

The first part of the brave trails were handholds hammered into the side of the ice cliff. They were precarious at best. They didn’t look exactly like anyone who had placed them knew what they were doing. But perhaps that was the point.

Sigrid remembered her own training with her mother, and then Camilla’s mother. A warrior was supposed to know how to get out of any situation, even ones that they caused themselves. They needed to be prepared for the surprises of life and battle, reacting accordingly, in a way that would get them out alive.

“Sigrid!” the Beastkin behind her called out. “Come hold the heart for me. I don’t want to spoil the meat with a wrong slice.”

Just like that, she made her decision. She could stay here, with this man she didn’t know, gutting a beast that she hadn’t wanted to kill. Or she could explore this land that the people were so sure they needed to hide from her.

Sigrid looped the bow over her shoulder, hooked the strap of her arrow pack so none of them would fall out, then raced toward the handholds.

“Sigrid?”

She launched herself over a fallen tree and the gap in the ice where she might have gotten trapped. Catching hold of the first one, she thumped hard against the ice wall. The breath might have knocked out of her lungs if she hadn’t been prepared for the impact. Instead, she’d tightened her stomach muscles and prepared her body.

The next handhold wasn’t too far from her reach. She dug her boots into the side of the ice, slipping for a moment before she could swing herself up and grab onto the wooden spike. This one wiggled in her hand, but it was enough that she could continue to hold. Perhaps it would hold her weight, perhaps it wouldn’t.

That was part of the fun.

A grin spread across her face as she scaled the mountain. Her arms burned, her legs ached, her back began to strain. Her body might hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt. She hadn’t used her muscles like this in so long she’d feared she might forget how. This was what she wanted to do.

Sigrid didn’t like feeling trapped. She didn’t want to be in the forest providing for others when there were adventures to be had. Wasn’t that why she had run from the responsibilities of matriarch? She was a young woman, by the gods! She should be able to explore, to enjoy herself, to find out what she wanted out of life without the weight of a hundred people’s lives on her shoulders.

Nearly at the top of the ice mountain, a handhold snapped in half. Crying out, her body rotated until she was facing away from the mountain, holding on by one hand and praying her fingers weren’t so tired that they couldn’t hold her weight.

She gasped, fear racing through her body and making her palm slick with sweat. But that fear quickly bled away when her eyes feasted on the sight before her.

The valley of the ancients laid out like a painting before her. Everything covered in a fine layer of snow except the very center where there were still green things growing. They’d hollowed out a home for themselves, not just in the mountain but within a crater that allowed them to grow food and everything else that kept them alive.

She could see the tiny dots of people moving through their daily lives. No one knew she was climbing the mountain other than the single Beastkin man who had work to do. He might be finished with the deer by now, but he wouldn’t be able to run and tell the others braves what she’d done. Not yet.

For now, she was the only person in the world.

The wind ruffled her hair, cold and biting but still welcome in this moment when she felt a little more than lost. Why had she come here? So far away from her family and friends. She was nothing more