Sky Breaker (Night Spinner Duology) Read online

  SKY

  BREAKER

  ADDIE THORLEY

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  FOR LOR AND COURT, THE WORLD’S BEST SISTERS

  I’M GLAD WE DIDN’T KILL EACH OTHER AS KIDS, BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’D DO WITHOUT YOU NOW.

  “For love is like a tree; it grows of itself; it sends its roots deep into our being, and often continues to grow green over a heart in ruins.”

  —VICTOR HUGO, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

  CHAPTER ONE

  ENEBISH

  DARKNESS RISES AROUND ME LIKE A SHIELD—GIRDING ME with armor, enfolding me in steel, deflecting the whispers that climb the cavern walls like goblin spiders.

  It’s easy to tell when people are talking about you: They huddle into groups and throw hasty glances over their shoulders. They murmur in hushed tones and jump when you enter the room, their smiles too wide, their faces too bright.

  I want to tell the shepherds not to bother. I’m hidden in every inky shadow, pressed into every murky corner of these caves. Which means I hear every skeptical and disapproving word they utter.

  Sand scuffs beneath my knees as I crawl along a narrow ledge jutting over the mouth of our cavern like a swollen lip. Nearly a thousand homeless shepherds are camped below, their tents and animals spread throughout the system of limestone caves hidden beneath the sand dunes of Verdenet.

  I heard countless rumors of the caves when I was young. Traders claimed they were an ideal place to take refuge from snow squalls and hide from caravan raiders. If you could find them. According to Southern legend, such a staggering number perished in search, the dunes are composed of disintegrated bones rather than sand—that’s what makes the desert look so white. But we accomplished that part of our journey without much trouble—the only part that hasn’t been riddled with it—thanks to the darkness. The tendrils took me by the hand and led me eagerly toward the eternally blackened tunnels and shafts.

  Though, I don’t think anyone in our company would call the caves ideal. They are frigid and gloomy, with wet floors and walls covered in luminescent moss that, while beautiful, is deadly to the touch. And don’t even get me started on the goblin spiders and fire geckos and the banshee vipers that scream like a dying child when they lunge from their crevasses to bite your ankles.

  It’s the last place nomads accustomed to the boundless grasslands and open sky of Ashkar would choose to live. The last place I would choose to live. But when you’re being hunted by the Imperial Army for liberating a notorious criminal, and then you’ve been betrayed by said criminal after they allied with your greatest enemy, you have to make concessions. Hide somewhere no one would suspect. Somewhere no one else can find.

  Temujin taught me that.

  “Enebish!” My name ricochets through the tunnels so loudly, a cloud of bats take flight. I bolt upright, underestimating the height of the serrated ceiling and the sharpness of the rocky floor. The back of my head bashes against a stalactite and my bad leg drags across a protrusion of rock.

  I close my eyes, curse behind clamped lips, and pull the cocoon of darkness tighter around me, wishing it could block out voices as well as light.

  “Enebish!” they yell again. It has to be at least five shepherds, all shouting at once. My entire body shudders. The complaints and demands are never ending. And the most ironic part is, the shepherds doubt and disparage me with one breath, then cry for my help with the next. I am the problem and the solution. Their scapegoat and their savior.

  Which is to be expected, I remind myself. A good leader lives and dies by their successes and failures. They are confident and unflappable—no matter how grim the battle—until the war is won.

  You wanted this chance.

  Now all I want is for more than two minutes to pass without being criticized or summoned. I want to actually disappear for a few hours to bathe in the geothermal pools hidden at the backs of these caverns, where the rocks are yellow and the water is electric green and surprisingly warm. Hopefully hot enough to scald away my exhaustion and anxiety and doubt.

  I try not to consider what that says about me—that I want to be alone again, so soon after two years of solitude at Ikh Zuree. That I’m ready to surrender my title as leader just two weeks after guiding the shepherds from the desolate grazing lands outside of Sagaan.

  When Serik’s voice joins the shouting, I sigh and release my hold on the darkness. If he’s entered the fray, it means one of two things: it truly is an emergency—or he’s so tired of the shepherds’ squabbling, he’s going to strangle someone, which will create an emergency.

  I pick my way down from the ledge and amble toward the shouting. I should probably hurry, but my feet drag through the puddles. And, for once, it has nothing to do with my old injuries. The first dozen or so times the shepherds summoned me like this, I raced from my bedroll with my heart in my throat, my mind spinning with every horrible scenario:

  The tents were on fire.

  Shoniin scouts had found the caves.

  The children had brushed against the deadly moss.

  But no.

  Cezari had tied his goats too close to Yimran’s camp and they’d eaten large holes through their blankets during the night. Now Yimran’s family would freeze to death and they were demanding recompense from Cezari. But Cezari couldn’t give them his blankets or his family would freeze to death.

  “We have a Sun Stoker. No one will freeze to death,” I assured them with patient platitudes and gracious smiles. After which, I had the immense pleasure of spending the entire day patching the slobbery blankets. Yimran’s family insisted they shouldn’t have to do it. And Cezari didn’t have time, since his goats were clearly starving. He had to take them aboveground to find whatever meager weeds were growing through the sand.

  By the time I finished mending the blankets, my fingers were as gnarled as an old woman’s and my skin was covered in pinpricks of blood. I was too young and wiggly to learn how to sew when I was a child in Verdenet. And Ghoa was more concerned with teaching me how to draw blood, rather than stanch it.

  When I presented the blankets to Yimran, do you think he or a single member of his household thanked me for my efforts? Of course not. They snatched the pile of blankets, careful not to let our fingers brush, lest I infect them with my scars or wickedness or whatever it is they’re afraid of, and hurried away. They even cast wary glances over their shoulders, as if I might throw the sewing needles into their backs like knives. After I helped them.

  The next time, the shouts had been so frenzied, I thought surely there was news from the scouts. Or someone had fallen down a shaft and died.

  The latter wasn’t too far from the truth.

  Emeric had been moving his bedroll in the dead of night so he could sleep right in front of Serik’s heat, instead of waiting for his turn in the rotation. That night, he accidentally stepped on a dog’s tail, and when the creature yelped, the jig was up.

 
The group wanted to cast him down a shaft. Or banish him to the punishing desert. Someone even suggested I bring the stars down on him, which earned them a glare as hot as a bolt of starfire.

  “I don’t just throw stars at people,” I growled.

  The shepherds looked down and away. At their feet or at the rocks. Because they saw it with their own eyes: how I’d tried to kill Ghoa. How I’d ravaged the Sky Palace with starfire during Temujin’s rescue.

  I take full responsibility for what happened in the Grand Courtyard. The night and starfire are my obligation. But I do blame Ghoa for framing me for a massacre. For manipulating me and deceiving me to the point that I felt compelled to use my power against her. I nearly let her turn me into the monster I’d spent years running from. A monster these people will never forget.

  The shepherds part as I limp through the main cavern toward the commotion, but it doesn’t make me feel important or revered, as it did when I was a member of the Kalima warriors. Instead of bowing with respect and veneration, the shepherds recoil and raise their hands to cover their faces, as if I might slash them with my beastly claws. Or bring the night crashing down on them for sport. No matter that I haven’t so much as raised my voice since we left Sagaan.

  I am not responsible for Nariin! I want to fill every tunnel and crevasse with the truth. Why bother calling for my help only to scramble away when I answer?

  I didn’t expect the shepherds to warm to me immediately. But I did expect them to give me a chance. Ghoa and the Sky King had left them to freeze and starve to death on the winter grazing lands. And the unified Zemyans and Shoniin will invade Sagaan any day—if they haven’t already. These weak, flailing shepherds would have been the first to perish. Or be taken prisoner.

  I make my way around a cluster of stalagmites that form a sort of partition between the caverns, and slip into the smaller room, where we’ve been storing food and supplies.

  Serik stands in the center of the space with his arms outstretched, holding back two shouting men who have large riotous groups gathered behind them.

  “You’re trying to kill my family!” the older of the men, Iree, roars.

  “Only because you’re determined to kill us! You broke the code first!” Bultum, a round-cheeked and generally good-natured shepherd, screams back.

  “I’m going to kill you both if you don’t stop hollering!” Serik bellows loudest of all. Flames leap from his palms, and it wasn’t on purpose if his surprised yelp is any indication. It does, however, effectively force both sides to lurch back.

  If there’s one person who’s discovered they dislike leading even more than I do, it’s Serik.

  “We should let the shepherds tear each other apart,” he’d muttered only two nights into our journey across the grasslands, during which time we had to deal with a broken wagon wheel, arguments over camping spots, unfair grazing rotations, and places where people could build fires. “Survival of the fittest and all that.”

  I’d rolled my eyes at Serik’s overblown suggestion. “They’ll settle soon enough. They’re just frightened and anxious and out of their depth. Think of all they’ve been through. We must be patient.”

  Little did I know the shepherds wouldn’t settle. Their panic and paranoia would only grow. It wasn’t long before Serik’s dark thoughts began circling my own mind.

  “I’m glad to see you’re de-escalating the situation.” I flash Serik a teasing smile as I approach the standoff. We learned quickly that you can either laugh or cry at these exasperating disputes, and I try to do the former for the sake of both of our sanities.

  “You try reasoning with them!” Serik flings his arms above his head, and another burst of heat rushes from his hands. His control over his Kalima power is still tenuous at best, and his aggravated gasp makes me smile even wider. Which makes him even madder, but I can’t help it. He’s kind of adorable when he’s frustrated: his freckled cheeks get all ruddy and he pulls at his hair, which has grown nearly to his ears now.

  “We only want what’s rightfully ours!” Bultum’s small but terrifying wife, Emani, yells from behind him.

  “Our portion of grain doesn’t belong to you,” Iree spits back, and several others in his company agree. “If your family squandered your portion, you can’t dip back into the grain and take ours.”

  “What are you talking about? We’ve had nothing for days—can’t you see that?” Bultum gestures to his family, who do, indeed, look rather emaciated. But no more than anyone else. Between the snow-covered grasslands and the punishing sand, Ashkar is not a bountiful or forgiving place in the winter. We’re all slowly starving.

  I join Serik in the center of the fray, which causes both sides to retreat even farther. “What’s going on? Who’s stealing from whom? And why? We portioned rations just this week.”

  It was an excruciating process. We had to convince all of the shepherds to place their provisions into a common collection, which was then redistributed evenly to ensure everyone had food. The ones with plenty were obviously incensed and the ones with empty oil casks and grain sacks reached greedily for the piles.

  “Exactly!” Iree jumps in. “We were all given portions, but they’re dipping into ours.” He points at the half-filled burlap sack in Bultum’s hands.

  “Because we had no portion after you stole ours!”

  “How dare you accuse us of thievery!” a young man behind Iree shouts.

  I wait for them to stop yelling, trying to keep calm, since Serik is rubbing his temples like he might explode. “What do you mean you had no portion?” I ask Bultum.

  “I mean exactly that! When I came to collect our rations, there was nothing to collect. Iree has never liked me because my sheep produce finer wool, so I knew he was to blame and I made restitutions where necessary.”

  Iree’s eyes look as if they’re going to pop from his skull. “Your wool is no finer than ours!”

  “I’m certain your portion is here.” I rush to the stacks to conduct a thorough search. “Maybe it just fell behind the rocks or was misplaced in a different pile?” But there’s nothing in any of the potholes, nothing tucked behind the outcroppings.

  “You want us to perish so there will be more for you!” Emani cries, melting onto the shoulder of an old woman next to her.

  “You want us to perish!” Iree’s family shoots back.

  “You’re bickering over nothing!” Serik’s boot knocks the bag of grain from Bultum’s hands. Everyone falls silent as wheat scatters across the wet cave floor. “These meager rations won’t keep us alive for much longer anyway.”

  “Serik!” He’s right, of course. But I want to kick his head as hard as he kicked the grain for admitting it out loud. For giving the shepherds even more reason to fear and doubt. “Thankfully, we won’t need the rations much longer,” I say quickly, making my voice cheerful. “We’ll find King Minoak soon. Then we’ll rise against the imperial governor and retake Verdenet. Once we’re in Lutaar City, there will be plenty of food. It’s only a matter of days.”

  Serik cuts me a weary look. Temujin is the one who informed me of the Sky King’s attempt to assassinate King Minoak. Temujin is also the one who claimed Minoak survived and escaped. And Temujin has proven less than trustworthy.

  “You said it would be a matter of days when we arrived last week,” Iree groans.

  “Precisely,” I say with more conviction than I feel. “We’ve only been searching for a week. That’s hardly any time.”

  I look to Serik for support, and even though I can tell he’d rather continue spewing his depressing realism, his hazel eyes meet mine and he nods. “These things take time. We must continue to have faith.”

  “Time is the last thing we have,” Bultum says, snatching up the now empty grain sack. “We won’t survive much longer.”

  “You and Iree can split our portion to counteract the shortage,” I offer, because I clearly have to give them something.

  Serik gapes with horror, but it’s too late—I’m already ha
nding over the bag of wheat.

  “And we’ll assign Azamat to guard the cavern,” I say. He’s old and far from honorable—he stole my staff as soon as I entered the winter grazing lands back when I first left Ikh Zuree—but he has no family, no loyalty, and, most important, he’s so stubborn, he cannot be bought.

  This seems to appease Iree, Bultum, and their families. Though, they don’t thank me. That would require acknowledging I did something right.

  “Do you know how hungry I am?” Serik mutters as the groups trundle their separate ways.

  “Did you have a better solution?”

  “Oh, I can think of a few…. If you let me knock out their teeth, they won’t be able to eat. Problem solved. Or we could let nature take its course and allow the shepherds to starve. Then the survivors can eat the weaker people who perish first.”

  “Serik!” I swat him hard.

  “I know, I know. Patience, resilience, no cannibalism. Blah, blah, blah.”

  “There’s nothing ‘blah, blah, blah’ about it. You’ve always wanted to be a warrior. Well, here we are. In the heat of battle.” I gesture across the cramped cavern, so overrun with bleating animals and bickering shepherds, it’s impossible to hear yourself think.

  Serik appraises the group with narrowed eyes. “I guess I imagined being a Kalima warrior would involve more adoration and swordplay and less … thankless drudgery.”

  He massages his blistered palms. Barely an hour passes when he isn’t required to warm the chilly air or heat the bathing water or clear a path through the drifts of snow and sand so the shepherds can leave the caves in search of roughage for their animals. Half the time he doesn’t even manage to accomplish these tasks. His power is too new, too volatile. He stands there, ears red and face grim, as the shepherds shake their heads in disappointment—as if he should be able to flawlessly control the sky after mere weeks with a Kalima power.