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

to his side and pulled his hand away from the wound. “What has Nadir done now?”

“Not Nadir.”

Her hand froze just a hair’s breadth away from his wound. Camilla looked up and met his dark gaze. “Then who?”

“The Alqatara. They’re a… insane group of people in Bymere who have always been the last effort for war. They trained their children as warriors, raise them with no fear of death or repercussions. I have my suspicions they also are partly involved with the Beastkin as well.” He winced, shifting until he could prop his back against one of the wooden posts holding the tent up. “They want to turn Nadir into a god, apparently.”

Camilla smiled, then went about prodding at his wound. She needed to take the arrow out, and then it would need to be packed with whatever healing herbs the Bymerians had brought. “They’re more alike than they know.”

“Who?”

“Sigrid left to see the ancients. With their knowledge, and potentially their power, she too would become something like a god.”

“Two new gods?” he asked with a coughing laugh. “Whatever will the world do with them?”

“I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks. I only care what we think of them. And they are, without a doubt, still the same people. They need us now more than ever, Raheem.” Her fingers found purchase on the end of the arrow shaft. It had almost gone all the way through him, which made her job a little easier. “Ready?”

He met her gaze, set his jaw, and nodded.

With a single quick movement, she shoved hard at the muscles of his shoulders. The arrow went through his back just enough for her to grab the metal head. She yanked it out, perhaps a little too aggressively.

Raheem let out a groan, then shook his head. “I guess I deserved that.”

“You did just kill many of my countrymen and are out there burning them as if their families don’t want to know what happened to them.”

“I’m sure they know by now. War isn’t something people tend to keep quiet.” He grabbed the wadded up fabric of his shirt and pressed it hard against the bleeding wound. “You have to know, I didn’t want to do this.”

“I know.”

“There is no possible way for me to stop them. I have to fight with them if I want to be there when Nadir returns. And I have to be there.” He looked at her with a gaze so earnest it brought tears to her eyes. “He cannot be left to fend for himself when all these advisors want to destroy him.”

“I know.” She did. She truly did. And still, her heart ached for the place they were all in. Fighting each other when all they wanted was…

Peace.

She wanted peace more than she wanted anything else. She wanted to go back to the time when she and Sigrid had lived together in a gilded cage, and Sigrid was going to marry a good man.

Gods. She couldn’t even remember his name anymore. He was just a blurry face in the wake of so much pain.

Camilla knelt in front of him, placed her hands on his knees, and stared up at him. “What are we going to do, my dear friend?”

“We need them both back in the same place as they were before. We need to restart everything over in a better way.”

“Then I need to find Sigrid.”

“Can you?”

She hoped she could. She had all the more reason to now.

25

Sigrid

She leaned her head back against the stone altar, mouth falling open in a silent gasp that made her heart hurt. The sound of his voice… it was a balm on her aching soul.

“Hello, husband,” she said.

Tears welled in her eyes even though she shouldn’t have allowed them to. He had betrayed her. Betrayed their people and renounced all that he was because of an allegiance to his own people. She couldn’t blame him for that. She had done the same.

And yet, her heart still ached. She wanted to hear him speak, to understand where his thoughts were, if he was still okay or if the year they hadn’t seen each other had changed everything.

“Sigrid.” He said her name again, and she couldn’t tell if it was because he couldn’t hear her anymore or if it was a whispered prayer. “How is this possible?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I’m glad it is.”

How could she tell him that she’d missed him? That leaving him had been the hardest choice she’d ever had to make. She’d do it again, but her heart would shatter a thousand times over. It killed her every time she thought about leaving his kingdom. Of the pain she had caused.

A tear slid down her cheek. Water seeped through the furs around her legs but she didn’t care. If she froze to this spot, she would do it with happiness.

“Where are you?” he asked, his voice sounding as though he were standing next to her.

“A cave filled with ice actually,” she replied with a laugh. “I’m no longer with the Earthen Beastkin. I have so much to tell you.”

“As do I.” Was that the sound of rustling? As if he were moving and sitting right next to her? “I made a decision I shouldn’t have, Sigrid.”

“That’s not particularly new.”

“I’m afraid I changed everything again,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have done it, but it’s already over with, and now I don’t know what to do.”

“What did you do, Nadir?”

“I have to see you,” he replied. “There’s too much to explain, and too much of it affects us both.”

Her stomach turned. “I was about to say the same thing to you.”

A crunching sound far from her suggested more people had arrived in this ancient place. She hadn’t thought Eivor would go to find the others, but apparently she’d thought too little of the medicine woman. She had been in a lot of pain. Bleeding from her ears and nose probably wasn’t what the medicine woman had expected when she had