Dawn of Cobalt Shadows (Burning Empire Book 2)

by Emma Hamm

  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 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, husban
d,” 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 brought Sigrid to this place.

  “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 were lacerating her as they left her body. But it was the only way. She couldn’t think of anything else that would save her people, her kingdom, and the man she loved all at the same time.

  In that moment, Sigrid realized she didn’t want to have to choose between any of them.

  She wanted them all. And she would have them all.

  Eivor slowly stood, her hands twitching at her sides. “There was a woman who arrived in camp. She said she was looking for you.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Camilla.”

  “Good.” Sigrid looked up at the ice again and then all around them at the shattered remains of an empire long forgotten. “She’ll help us get home.”

  “Us?” Again, Eivor looked up at her with so much emotion in her eyes that it almost made Sigrid uncomfortable.

  “Yes, us. Did you think I was going to let you stay here? When there are so many who don’t see your worth?”

  Sigrid felt almost a little guilty at the order. Eivor might want to remain here with her people, regardless of how they treated her. But she refused to leave the medicine woman who had been so kind throughout this entire ordeal. She wanted to make certain Eivor saw the world the way it should be. That she didn’t have to hide her face just because she was different.

  Although, she wasn't all that certain the other Beastkin would’t react the same way the ancients had. She was strange looking even for them. But that didn’t mean time couldn’t change the way they saw her. Sigrid was certain, given the right chance, her people would see Eivor as something more than just a woman to cast aside and never touch. They would see her as a person. Odd, yes, but a person.