Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology) by Addie Thorley (best romance ebooks .txt) 📕

the briars. After which, we spend the better part of three days trudging back and forth across the narrow switchbacks leading up the mountainside. My feet ache and the thin air refuses to fill my lungs. When at last we reach the pass and begin our descent down the other side, I want to skip with joy. It can only be easier. But I quickly discover the leeward side is even steeper and more difficult to navigate. The path is hardly wider than my foot and it gives way to sheer cliffs that vanish into thick curls of fog.

About halfway down the switchbacks, buildings appear through the mist, built on plateaus carved into the mountainside. The houses and shops cling inexplicably to ledges like lichen, following the shape of the rocks from one level to the next.

“We have to pass through the village—it’s the only way down,” Ivandar announces. “Which means I’ll need to disguise us.”

“That is not a village!” I point to the impressive watchtowers and the fine houses made of gleaming orange and yellow stone. Delicate, arced staircases cascade from one plateau to the next like a fountain. It’s expansive. And breathtaking. And, once again, nothing like the Zemya I remember from our siege. “Why would you hide such an impressive city in the mountains? The cities I saw when we invaded three years ago—”

“Torinth is smaller than most of our cities, so yes, it’s a village. And all of our villages and cities are impressive if you truly look at them. We are masters of illusion, remember? Things are rarely as they seem.” He lets his words hang in the air, rife with deeper meaning—his people and their magic aren’t what they seem. “It’s safer if our enemies think our land is barbaric and not worth conquering.”

Ivandar pauses before we round the final bend, then passes a hand over himself from top to bottom. His royal visage ripples, like a blurred reflection in a pond, and transforms into a gangly, pig-nosed messenger boy.

When he raises his hand toward me, I shield my face with my arms and lurch back. “Under no circumstances will you touch me with your devil magic.”

“You do realize you look nothing like us?” He glares specifically at my chestnut hair and sun-freckled cheeks.

“I’ll turn my hair white with frost. And conceal my freckles with ice,” I announce. But when I reach into my core, there isn’t enough cold to cover a fingernail, let alone make myself look even partially Zemyan. “I don’t understand why you need to be disguised at all,” I say, preferring to argue over accepting the inevitable.

Ivandar peers around the bend at the guards in the watchtowers. “Kartok will have sent soldiers to look for me. He’ll pretend it’s out of concern, of course. But I have no doubt he’s instructed them to push me off a cliff and never breathe a word of it to my mother.”

“Why are you in this position?” I ask, genuinely curious. “Why would your mother side with an advisor over her own son when you’re seemingly capable and devoted to your country? I can understand why Kartok would be jealous and wish to undermine you, but I don’t understand why Danashti would allow it.”

Ivandar pulls his fingers through hair that’s now chopped short and in the shape of a bowl. “Kartok saved my mother’s life eight years ago, and she’s bowed to his whims ever since. She was gravely ill with the sweating sickness, and none of the royal healers could do a thing. The entire nation was prepared to enter mourning, and I, at twelve years old, was being whisked to council meetings and tugged down dark corridors by members of the nobility. All of them trying to prey on my youth and inexperience.

“But then Kartok appeared. He was one of the many royal sorcerers serving at the war front, creating illusions and enchanting weapons. But he claimed his father had been a healer, and asked for a chance to see if there was anything he could do for my mother. The royal healers agreed—there was no reason to object at that point. Kartok entered her chambers alone, and when he emerged not an hour later, she was sitting up in bed, groggy and weak but considerably better. He told us he had bled her and administered poultices, things the other healers had attempted a thousand times.

“The entire country celebrated his astonishing work, and my mother named him Generál Supreme for his efforts. Then she never looked my way again.”

My hand jumps to my throat, where Kartok carved me open and erased the scar entirely. Disquiet settles on my skin like the heavy mountain mist. I don’t know if it’s because I experienced Kartok’s unnatural healing firsthand. Or if it’s because I can’t imagine having your own parent cast you aside like that. As horrible as it is to imagine my parents’ horror and disappointment when they learn of my disgrace, at least I had their pride and adoration to begin with. I can’t fathom losing it without reason. Especially so young. I would have been completely unmoored. Not to mention jaded. How exhausting must it be, and how resilient must Ivandar be, to continue striving to prove himself, year after year, when it’s obviously fruitless?

“That must have been difficult,” I say without meaning to.

He looks at me askance. “Don’t mock me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“We need to be through Torinth before nightfall. I’m not strong enough to hold both of our illusions longer than that. Are you ready to cooperate?”

He raises his hand again and I start to shake my head, but the stern voice of reason I first heard at the beach reprimands me again. Put your arrogance and prejudice aside and do what you must. Focus on the greater goal. Get to the Kalima.

The thoughts feel so visceral—like fingers clamping around my shoulders, shoving me forward—that I reach out to steady myself against the rocks, even though I haven’t actually moved. My thoughts