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

it’s only a matter of time before he starts weaving his carefully crafted lies.

“I meant what I said,” I overhear him telling Iree the next day, when the mugginess fades and the first hint of a chilly breeze rustles the leaves. “All of this traipsing across the continent is unnecessary. You’re in no danger. You have no reason to bustle about recruiting allies or whatever it is Enebish has convinced you to do.”

Temujin chose this moment with care, hoping Iree would be weak and pliable, dreading the punishing wind and cold to come, but Temujin doesn’t know how stubborn and grudging this particular shepherd can be.

Iree tugs sharply on Temujin’s rope, sending the rebel sprawling. “Half of my flock perished because of you.”

I tilt my face up to the heavens and praise the Lady and Father. After which I immediately ask Them to help me stay vigilant. Iree won’t always be holding Temujin’s rope, and there are many others, like Emani or Lalyne, who will lap up Temujin’s lies like cream atop fresh milk.

I debate sending them all ahead, insisting I be the one to manage Temujin, but that’s what I would have done before. I don’t want to be that wary and untrusting person anymore. I can’t be. I refuse to let Ghoa and Temujin and Kartok continue to win, and the best way to thwart them is to trust the shepherds and show I’m capable of working as a team.

On our third night of travel, Temujin makes a grab for the darkness. I knew it was only a matter of time. I just didn’t know how much of my power Kartok had siphoned, or how much Temujin could access—or even how he accesses it, for that matter. But it must have dwindled considerably, since he doesn’t reach for starfire.

It happens as we’re breaking down camp at sunset, the group still in fairly high spirits, despite the ever-thinning trees and the snow beginning to crust the grass. One moment, the midnight tendrils are gliding around my neck and cooing in my ears, preparing to shield our caravan, and the next they’re clumsily yanked away. Like a child holding a quill with so much concentration, it stabs through the sheet of parchment.

I could easily snatch the darkness out of his untrained grip and be done with it, but since he’s considerably weaker than before, I decide to use it as a teaching opportunity. I’ve been showing Ziva something new every day—how to coax the ribbons into flat stitches to form the netting that conceals our caravan. How to nudge those tendrils along in the direction you want them to go. How to toss a cluster of darkness to incapacitate a person. And now, how to disable a halfwit. I don’t know where in the skies Temujin thinks he’ll go, or how he’s going to get there, considering Ziva and I can still see him plain as day, but I make a point not to think about the inner workings of his dubious mind.

“Ziva!” I call.

“It isn’t me!” she insists as she scrambles to where I’m folding my bedroll.

“I know. Not even you’re this pathetic.” I shoot her a teasing grin and she shoves my shoulder. “It appears our aspiring Night Spinner has taken a handful of darkness…. How would you react?”

“By taking it back.” She lifts her hand, but I drape my fingers over hers.

“You could … but consider our enemy. Temujin acts like a spoiled, entitled child. That would only start a tug-of-war.”

“You don’t think I’m strong enough to best him?” Ziva’s thick brows flatten into a familiar scowl.

“Don’t look at me like that. Of course you are. But it’s a needless waste of energy.”

“So what do I do?”

“If he wants the darkness, give it to him.”

Ziva cocks her head in confusion. “But—”

“All of it.”

The corner of her mouth curls. With a flick of her wrists, she gathers the night in her arms and thrusts the bundle across the encampment at Temujin, who’s attempting to blend into the shadow of a rock. The oily darkness pummels him like a waterfall, knocking him flat on his back. He gulps and sputters as if he’s truly drowning, and I encourage Ziva to keep the tendrils flowing perhaps a tad longer than necessary.

Two nights later Temujin attempts to steal the darkness again while we’re wading through the deepening snow. This time, the inky weave barely snags and he collapses with a frustrated roar.

I snicker and yank him back to his feet, pleased to be holding the rope tonight, to witness this failure. “I thought Kartok promised you access to Zemyan magic?”

“He did! I drank the hot-spring water. That’s how I was able to wield your siphoned starfire! I don’t know why—”

“You don’t know why the enemy lied to you?” I say with a needling grin.

“He didn’t lie. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”

“The logical explanation is, you’re pitifully naïve.”

“Just kill me and be done with it.”

“Not until you give me what I want,” I say for what must be the hundredth time.

“I can’t give you any information.”

“You mean you won’t,” I correct him. “If Kartok discovers you relayed his plans, he won’t appoint you governor of Sagaan. All of your treasonous scheming would have been for nothing.”

“No, I mean I can’t. I don’t have a choice.”

“ ‘We always have a choice,’ ” I parrot the seemingly valiant proclamation he spewed at me back in the false realm of the Eternal Blue. “ ‘It’s no fault of mine if you can’t bear the alternative….’ ”

“Fine. Yes. Initially, there is always a choice. But sometimes we make mistakes that limit our options, cinching them into a funnel, until every choice has been stripped away and we’re shackled to the path of that original misstep.”

I resume marching without warning, forcing him to stumble to keep up.

“Why don’t you ask Orbai if she can’t or won’t stop trying to return to Kartok?” Temujin gestures up ahead, to the shepherd tasked with transporting my eagle. She’s trapped