Dawn of Cobalt Shadows (Burning Empire Book 2) by Emma Hamm (best e ink reader for manga .txt) đź“•
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- Author: Emma Hamm
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She didn’t know what to do until she saw the pillar of smoke. There shouldn’t have been a fire this time of year. Winter was already covering the mountain peaks with snow. The runoff should have been enough to keep the wetlands so wet a fire wouldn’t start.
Then it dawned on her. Hallmar had said the Bymerians were coming. Surely, he didn’t mean this soon, had he?
She’d taken a detour that exact moment. Sigrid could wait a little longer. The rest of them could wait for her when there was clearly something happening in the middle of Wildewyn. They needed her.
Unfortunately, the moment she reached the fires, she didn’t know what to do.
Great swaths of land had fallen under the hungry flame. Bonfires were piled as far as the eye could see over the swampland. They dotted nearly every patch of land that wasn’t swallowed by the floods of winter. Bodies burned upon them.
Bymerian soldiers were gathering their own men and those of the Earthen folk, stripping them down for whatever they could use, and then tossing them atop the pyre. A few of the Earthen folk were still alive. She could hear them groaning and then the angered shouts as the flames consumed them.
Even in the form of an owl, she gagged. How could they do this to people? It didn’t matter that they were enemies. They were still human, and they could so easily throw them into the flames. Alive or dead?
She eyed all the moving pieces of the army, surprised that the number was so small. Then, she realized the lift was still moving. They were still delivering more and more men into her homeland. This would be a war to end all wars. The dual kingdoms of this empire would end, and soon it would be under one ruler.
Unless she could stop it.
Though her wings were aching, she lifted into the air and took flight. Making her way across the battlefield on silent wings.
Nadir must be here. Maybe he would listen to her, or see reason when she explained what was happening. Sigrid wouldn’t have wanted this. Didn’t he love her enough not to attack her own home? Let her have her peace for a little while longer.
But she didn’t see the Sultan of Bymere at all. No one here looked like Nadir that she could see. A fact that made her heart ache. Why wasn’t he here? Would he attack his enemies without even coming himself?
A familiar man stumbled away from a burning pyre, his arm covering his face. Even so, she knew the large man at once. Camilla followed Raheem to a tent which had been set up near the base of the mountain, surrounded by soldiers with flint-and-steel eyes.
She waited until he was hidden in the tent before landing behind it. As she had so many months ago, she wiggled underneath the flaps between stakes driven into the ground.
Raheem was alone, a rarity she was sure if they were truly at war. How had he managed to get his own tent? Had Nadir made him general once again? Camilla found it hard to believe when he’d sided with the Beastkin. The Bymerians couldn’t possibly be so forgiving of that kind of transgression.
Yet, here he was. Standing alone in a tent guarded by a handful of soldiers armed to the teeth.
She waited until he’d settled down. He reached for the hem of his shirt to pull it over his head, then she changed while the fabric covered his eyes.
Let him be frightened of what she could do. Camilla might be an owl, but that didn’t make her any less weak than a dragon.
“Hello, Raheem,” she said quietly.
He froze in his movements, then slowly continued to pull off his shirt. She’d always thought he was a younger man, but his body revealed a story of years. Hardship decorated his flesh in the shape of scars. Small, deep, long, all manner of injuries dotted his body across nearly every surface. He was a network of fighting and battle.
No wonder they’d made him general again.
Slowly, he turned toward her and placed a hand on his bleeding shoulder. “Camilla. I thought I might find you here.”
“Here, of all places? Did you think I would run to you the moment you attacked my homeland?”
“No,” he said, sinking down onto a small cot in the corner. “I thought you would wonder what was happening though. I didn’t expect the Beastkin to fight for the kingdom which has forsaken them time and time again.”
A shadow passed in front of the tent flap. “General? Do you need something?”
“You’re dismissed, soldier.”
“With all due respect, the advisors have stated we’re to remain by your side.” The soldier’s voice was hesitant, as though he didn’t want to follow the orders of the people who led his country.
“I think I’ve earned the right after today’s battle. Go, be with the others and see what you can help with. I don’t need good soldiers wasting away outside my tent.”
They both waited for the sound of footsteps. Camilla counted them as they left. She’d thought they would leave at least one soldier with them. Bymerians were ever so fond of eavesdropping.
“There,” Raheem said. He grunted and leaned back on the cot, pulling sticky fingers away from the wound on his shoulder. “We’ve at least some privacy now.”
“What have you done to yourself?”
“I think you should ask the Earthen folk who are likely in the trees somewhere nursing their own wounded.”
She wanted to be angry with him. She wanted to shout at him for his foolishness and explain that this attack wasn’t going to end well for anyone. He’d started something he couldn’t end. Or, well, the sultan had.
Camilla had to remind herself that Raheem was a man of the crown. He didn’t have a say in what the sultan did.
Sighing, she strode
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