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

“I have to go,” she said, not sure how to turn off this connection they suddenly had between them. “They’re coming.”

“Who?”

“We call them ancients. The ones who came before all the Beastkin, the legendary ones that still live in the old ways. There’s...” She paused to exhale a long breath. “There’s so much I need to tell you.”

“Good.” There was a long hesitation between them, and then Nadir added, “I’ve missed you.”

Gods, she’d missed him as well. More than she could really say to him when the figures of the ancients were striding toward her.

Water splashed around Aslaug’s legs in great, diamond waves. Sigrid tilted back her head and stared up at the ceiling made of blue ice above them. This place shouldn’t be able to exist, and yet, here it was. She shouldn’t exist, and yet, a dragon lived inside her.

Eivor raced in behind the matriarch, and a small band of braves slowed behind the two of them.

The medicine woman stopped in front of her, hand on the rat skull at her waist and mask back on her face. “Sigrid? You are well then?”

“I’m better, thank you.” Her eyes weren’t on the medicine woman though.

Aslaug stepped forward and reached with a shaking finger. She touched a finger beneath Sigrid’s ear, staring at the blood that now slicked her fingertip. “He calls for you, doesn’t he?”

“Who?”

“Your mate.” Aslaug took a step back, her eyes wide as if this was something she hadn’t imagined. “There’s another dragon.”

“There is.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

Something in the words resonated deep in Sigrid’s chest. It was almost as though Aslaug was accusing her of something, but she didn’t know what the accusation was. She sat up further, bracing her shoulders against the altar. “I wasn’t aware you needed to know.”

“Of course we need to know!” the matriarch spat. “There are prophecies that are being fulfilled in this moment. If we had known this was the prophecy, then I never would have—”

The silence that rang in the room after her angry words were like stones falling from a mountain peak. Sigrid watched as an avalanche of emotion fell among the ancient Beastkin. Even Eivor, trusted and kind, took another step away from Sigrid.

“What is this?” she asked. “What prophecy are you speaking of? How could anything change just because another dragon exists?”

“It’s not that he exists,” Aslaug corrected. “It’s that you’re mated. It’s too late to change that now. Your dragons have seen something in each other that cannot be broken except by death. I will not see the last dragons fall into ruin for fear.”

“You have to explain.”

“I cannot. I will not, because there is far more here than you know.”

“I want to help, but I can’t if you won’t—”

Aslaug lifted a hand for her to stop speaking. Sigrid watched lines of exhaustion appear on the matriarch’s face. “It is done. There is no going back from the future in which we now find ourselves. We will endure, as we always have. For now, you must go back to your people. Prepare for the war which is coming, and do all that you can to keep the Beastkin armies alive.”

“What?”

The matriarch turned and left with the braves. The trickling sound of water was all that remained, other than her own ragged breath and the ticking of Eivor’s nails scratching the skull at her waist.

Sigrid shook her head in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s all they’re giving me?”

“I’m sorry,” the medicine woman whispered. “I didn’t know.”

“What didn’t you know?” Sigrid stood then, marching to the medicine woman’s side and grabbing her shoulders. “Eivor, tell me what is going on.”

“I can’t.”

“Eivor, now.”

When the woman still didn’t respond, Sigrid did the only thing she could think of. She reached up, grasped the edges of the woman’s mask, and ripped it off her face. Throwing the hated thing away as far as she could, she listened for the sound of breaking wood.

Eivor whimpered and covered her face. She whined and fell to her knees, scrambling to find something, anything to cover her own ugliness.

“No,” Sigrid growled, slapping the woman’s hands away from the monstrosity of her own features and following her to the ground. “You will no longer hide your face. I don’t care what they say of you or who you think you are. I declare it now, Eivor of the ancient Beastkin, you are mine.”

The medicine woman froze. Her shaking hands came up to grasp Sigrid’s wrists. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You are under the protection of a dragon. I will stand between you and all harm, but you need to pledge your life to me. Everything that you are is now mine. I will take you from this place, and you will return to the Earthen home with me. Together, we will stop whatever it is the ancients think is coming, but I need you to tell me what it is.”

Tears welled in Eivor’s eyes, slipping down to disappear in fur and feathers. “I can’t tell you, Matriarch. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot go against everything I am to tell you. It’s forbidden.”

Sigrid released her hold on the woman with a harsh exhale of breath. She wouldn’t hurt Eivor. The creature had been thoroughly useful. She would break eventually. For now, she needed to return home.

She straightened her spine, squared her shoulders, and glared down at the creature which huddled at her feet. “Soon, nothing will be forbidden to me.”

Eivor looked up at her with wide eyes. “Then you are choosing the path of a god?”

“That is what the ancients wanted, isn’t it? To turn me into a god, and then use me in whatever way they wanted? Now they throw away their only tool. I will find out what this prophecy is whether you tell me or not. And I will use it against them all to make this world become what it deserves to be.”

She didn’t like the choice. It burned in her throat like the words