Dawn of Cobalt Shadows (Burning Empire Book 2)

by Emma Hamm

  It was a smart plan, but one she didn’t agree with. Killing everyone in the empire would get them nowhere. And there would be many casualties from every side. What was Jabbar’s plan here?

  Nadir landed hard. The ground shook beneath him and reverberated with a deep grumble at his weight. Every soldier in the field, the thousands of men and women who were defending or attacking, paused to start at the giant red dragon.

  He opened his mouth and hissed at the nearest soldiers. Even the Bymerians stumbled back in fear.

  Wings spread wide, he lowered himself enough that Sigrid could slip from his back. She hit the ground in a crouch, staring at the armies surrounding them. Would they attack? There was always the chance she was wrong.

  Whispers erupted, carried on the wind as people began to recognize them.

  “Is that the sultan?” One of the Bymerians nearby asked. “I thought he’d returned to the Red Palace?”

  “Sigrid?” A man shoved others aside, tearing off his helmet and revealing white hair and a trimmed beard.

  Even her own people began to whisper then. “The matriarch? Back from the dead?”

  Gods, she wished she’d chosen something other than the clothing from the ancients. She had dirt smudged all over her body, likely blood smears from where Nadir had killed his advisors, and gods know what else from flying through the air. Her hair was sticking to her cheeks and she was certain she looked exhausted.

  Because she was. She was so tired of fighting and all the anger these people insisted on harboring inside them.

  Standing straight and tall, she stared into the eyes of those around her. The leopard who had just killed a man changed back into the Beastkin she recognized. His dark eyes swept up and down her form, then he said, “It’s not possible.”

  “I have returned,” she replied. “And now we will all stop this war.”

  Hallmar stepped forward, his hands shaking where he clutched the helm to his chest. “My daughter, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. And looking so much like your mother.”

  His daughter? Of course. Why hadn’t she realized it so many years ago? She even looked like him. That white head had once been an icy blonde, and he’d always treated her like something so much more than just a Beastkin woman he’d had trapped in his castle.

  She wanted to ask him a thousand things, and not enough time for a single thing to be asked. Sigrid tried to pour as much emotion into her eyes as she could.

  Now was not the time to find out the man she’d always considered to be her surrogate father was actually her father. Why had he chosen now? Had the words merely burst from his chest because he couldn’t contain them anymore?

  The distraction was, unfortunately, the only thing necessary for Jabbar’s people to reorganize themselves.

  She heard the whistle through the air as if she’d stepped back in time. Her husband stood in front of her, but not the one she’d actually married. Instead, it was a kind-faced man with worry in his gaze, because he thought the wedding might be too much for her.

  The air rustled with the sound of violence and anger. It stroked through the feathers of the arrow like fingers who knew how to kill, touching the fletching and whispering dark promises along the shaft.

  It struck her right above the place where Camilla had planted her arrow. It felt like years ago when that had happened, and perhaps it was that long ago when she’d feigned her own death in front of hundreds of Beastkin.

  This time, the arrow was true. It didn’t miss her vital organs. Instead, the stone arrowhead sank deep into her heart.

  The pain-filled wheeze couldn’t have come from her. Sigrid couldn’t have made that sound, even when the blinding ache of death filled her lungs. Warm liquid spurted from between her lips.

  She rocked forward, fingers clutching the shaft of the arrow and staring down at it in disbelief. Someone had really tried to kill her?

  “Sigrid!” The anguished shout was laced with more than just Nadir’s voice, more than just the dragon. It was Hallmar, and Brynhild, and Camilla, and Raheem. All the people who cared so much about her who would despair to see her die.

  Nadir roared. Fire billowed from his jaws and his tail lashed out at anyone near them.

  She fell to her knees. Holding onto the arrow with shaking hands as her dragon mate crouched above her and screamed at the world that he would kill them all. They couldn’t understand him, but they could hear the anger in his rumbling cries. His flames turned blue with heat, then white-hot with rage.

  Blood coated her fingertips. She stared down at the thing which had killed her and realized she didn’t want to die.

  What had the ancients said? She didn’t need a throne or a crown to be a queen. She was the woman who her people had prayed for. A dragon queen who would take the world by storm whether they wanted it or not.

  Her people were led astray by someone who wanted to see the world on its knees. Not because he wanted to see them in a place of power, but because he wanted to see himself in a place of power.

  There was so much she and Nadir could do to fix this world. They could force people to see the goodness in each other. They could destroy armies with a single breath. They would never be given the chance, because she knew he would go mad the moment her breath fled from her lungs.

  “Please talk to me,” his voice finally broke through the pain. “Please, Sigrid, don’t leave me now. Not like this.”

  She looked up and saw a man on the other side of the battlefield set aside a bow. White hair, white skin, pink eyes staring at her from a distance. She could see the grin on Jabbar’s face as he celebrated the victory he thought he had won.

  Sigrid would finally die. Raising from the grave in her people’s eyes would have taken every scrap of power away from him. She’d become more than just a matriarch. She would have become a god in the eyes of the Beastkin.

  Looking up, she reached for Nadir’s face even though he was still spewing flames upon the battlefield.

  “My love,” she said through their connection. “Look at me.”

  Nadir’s jaws instantly snapped shut. He swerved, crouching over her, holding his wings around her like he could keep out the world. “Anything, ya amar.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “My moon,” he replied. “My life. The love of my heart.”

  Sigrid touched her blood-smeared fingers to the large scales of his jaw, and smiled. “That’s beautiful.”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he replied, broken and so sad it made tears drip down her own cheeks. “They have taken you from me, as they have taken everything else.”

  “Not yet they haven’t.”

  The dragon inside her burst forth. Flames covering her body and engulfing her in so much pain she wasn’t certain she could survive it.

  But she did, because a dragon could not burn.

  Opal scales unfurled down her body and wings stretched wide as her fingers spread into something so much more powerful than just a human woman. Nadir held her within his leathery wings until she finished her change.

  Only then did he open his arms and reveal that she had not died. That yet again, she survived certain death and came back to her people when they needed her.

  She lifted her slender neck, then touched her head to his. She bumped the top of her jaw along the bottom of his.

  “You said we were to become gods,” she whispered in their minds.

  “You didn’t want to become a goddess.”

  “And yet, now I am.”

  Nadir stroked the top of her head, running his jaw along hers, and then nipped at her neck with his fangs. “Kill him, wife. Before I do.”

  Sigrid shot up into the air faster than she’d ever flown before. Jabbar did the same, his form melting away into feathers as he tried to get away from her.

  Perhaps he thought he could flee the scene, take them somewhere he might have the advantage. Sigrid almost laughed at the thought. He had nearly lost the last time they fought, and now he
thought he could get away from her?

  Lightning crackled along the feathers of his wings as he flew into the air and tried to leave. She caught his tail feathers between her jaws. Pulling hard, she disrupted his flight and spat out the long tendrils in her mouth.

  “Come here,” she thought, shoving the thought through the air and into his mind like a spike.

  His eyes widened in horror as he realized she could speak in this draconic form. Not only could she speak, but she could talk directly to him.

  “It is possible,” she projected, knowing what he was thinking and laughing at his fear. “Come here, thunderbird. Let me feast on your flesh.”

  He lashed out with claws that tore at her chest. Long talons scraped down her scales, searching for any small bit of a gap between them so he might pierce through her flesh as he had with his arrow.

  She didn’t care. Blood dripped from the wounds, but she refused to allow him to kill her. Not now. Not when he had done so much already, and she wanted to taste him on her tongue. The dragon was entirely in control now, and the dragon knew how to fight.

  Sigrid pushed with her back feet, forcing him away in the air. He spun slightly, wings getting tangled in his own momentum.

  Wings striking the air in thunderous claps, she rose above him and then tucked them firmly into her sides. Arrowing down at him, she pushed out a single thought.

  “You thought you were the only one who could create thunder?” Sigrid hit him then, holding him against her chest with her wings. “You thought you were the only one who had lightning inside them? Jabbar, you are nothing more than a weak, frightened little man. I am thunder. I am lightning. I am death.”

  They struck the ground hard. It should have killed them both, but Sigrid landed atop him and shoved hard with her back feet. Her own talons shredded his weak belly, and he stared up at her, gasping for air that had already fled his body.

  His own feet tore at her wings and the leather gave way. It didn’t matter that he’d rendered her incapable of flight. She didn’t need to fly when there was so much of a feast laid out in front of her.

  She lunged back just enough to give her room. Teeth flashing in the dim light of the battlefield, she snapped forward and took his throat between her teeth.

  The ripping of flesh satisfied something deep inside her soul. Blood poured through her mouth in great spurts, crackling with electricity and so much power.

  His wings flapped against the ground, talons scrabbling for purchase and then falling flat as the life faded from the last thunderbird alive.

  Only when she smelled the death in his body did she step away. Her wings were awkward, one broken from his struggles. It didn’t matter then, but it did now.

  She listed to the side, slowly changing back into a person. Sigrid held the broken arm against her chest and whirled to stare as the great beast turned back into Jabbar.

  There was nothing left of the traitor but gristle.

  Her stomach rolled. Had she really done that? Had she torn a man apart, because he’d tried to kill her? Of course, Sigrid had killed before. She had no quarrels about dueling with sword and battle. Men died every day, and she didn’t mind being the one to take that life.

  But she’d never killed as a dragon. She’d never torn someone limb from limb and destroyed them entirely. No one would even be able to recognize him if they tried.

  “Sigrid?” Nadir’s voice whispered in her mind. “You did what you had to do, and you were glorious.”

  Was she? Or had she simply become everything she’d always feared she would become?

  Sigrid looked around the battlefield at the frightened expressions on the faces of every man and woman surrounding them. They weren’t just afraid of her now. It wasn’t fear born of something they didn’t understand. Now they knew what the dragons were capable of. They had seen the battle above them, had seen the way a beast could devour flesh and tear life away from the bones of a man they all recognized.

  She’d made them afraid, and she’d shown them what monsters could really do.

  Swallowing hard, she straightened her shoulders and turned to them. “Go home,” she shouted, her voice carrying on the wind. “Be with your families and tuck your children into bed. You’ve destroyed enough this day.”

  “Why should we?” A voice shouted. “Who are you to tell us where to go and what to do?”

  Nadir reared onto his back legs behind her, straightened his wings, and roared. The guttural cry of a dragon rocked through Wildewyn, flattening trees and sending soldiers onto their knees in fear.

  When the echo of his rage died down, Sigrid stood beside him and sadly cast her glance over all the people who would never understand them.

  “See before you the Gods of the Empire,” she replied. “The dawn comes and brings with it nothing more than cobalt shadows. Go home. Feel no fear in your heart, for you know what gods protect you now.”

  She’d never wanted to say those words, and yet, she had.

  Nadir lifted into the air and grasped her with his back foot. Her broken arm crunched under his hold, but it was the safest way to carry her from the battlefield.

  She held onto the scales of his foot, feeling the talons dig into her sensitive skin, and watched as her homeland disappeared beneath them.

  32

  Nadir

  He hovered above the mountaintop, holding them carefully above the cliff edge where they could watch the sunrise. They’d flown all night. He’d watched the moon rise on the horizon and felt her shivers against his palm, but knew he couldn’t stop even to warm her up. Not yet. Not when the entire empire was hunting them and people were going to try their hardest to ensure their end.

  Carefully, oh so carefully, he let her slide out of his palm and onto the stone surface of the outcropping. As always, Sigrid landed gracefully.

  She was still clutching her arm to her chest. He’d offered to heat her up, to allow her to change so that she might be able to heal the wound with dragon fire.

  She’d refused. He’d never forget the sadness in her voice as she insisted on feeling the pain for at least a little while. She deserved it, or so she claimed. After all they had done to the people of this empire, she could be a little uncomfortable for a while.

  Nadir didn’t like seeing her in pain. It filtered through their connection, just enough that it was already bothering him. The dragon part of his mind wanted to end her suffering immediately. The feelings were distracting enough that he could hardly think straight.

  Hovering above her, he opened his jaws and cast a blanket of flames down upon her person. She no longer wore the clothing the ancients gave her, they’d burned away long ago, and he watched in fascination as her bones realigned themselves beneath the flames.

  Almost immediately, the ache of her pain disappeared. She let out a sigh and looked up at him, physically saying, “Thank you, Nadir. That’s much better.”

  This time, the change didn’t come as easily as it used to. His body didn’t want to shift into the weak form of a human. It wanted to feel the power of wings, the capability of sinewy muscle, and the reassurance of scale armor that protected him from all harm.

  Nadir had to focus far more than ever before, so much that he panicked for a moment. His body didn’t want to let go of the form. Why didn’t it want to let go?

  Eventually, it gave way back to flesh. He landed beside her in a crouch, fists pressed against the ground while breathing heavily.

  “Husband?” she asked, kneeling beside him and sliding her hands along his jaw. “What are we going to do?”

  “About what?”

  The pain hadn’t disappeared from her eyes. In fact, he would argue it had only gotten stronger. “Everything.”

  He wanted to tell her not to worry. That the world would wait for them to figure out what was going to happen. Both kingdoms had seen how the dragons were even larger than before. They had watched her kill and knew that the sultan dragon could kill as well.

  They wouldn’t te
st gods like them. They wouldn't want to know what else the dragons could do if they were angered even more.

  But she didn’t want to hear that. She wanted him to reassure her. To take away the worry and the pain for a little while at the very least.

  Nadir had never been that person for anyone before. He had always been the one who had the worry taken away. His advisors had guided him through difficult situations. They had hidden so much from him that he feared he didn’t know how to be the person she wanted him to be.

  Carefully, he reached up and slid his hands into the long locks of her hair. “Let’s not be kings and queens right now,” he said. “Let’s just be you and me. Let the stars look upon mortals tonight.”

  He tugged her forward by the hair and touched his lips to hers. She softened beneath his touch, letting go of the icy rage that had flooded her being since the first moment they saw the battle in her homeland.

  She tasted like the first drop of water after a summer of desert sun. The icy touch of winter as it first laid hands upon the lands. She was the soothing touch to his burning ache. Why hadn’t he looked upon her beauty before this? Why hadn’t he loved her sooner?

  He drew her ever closer, touching his fingers to her skin. “Habib albi,” he murmured.

  “Your love?”

  “My love,” he replied, pressing her against his chest and pulling away to swipe her hair off her face. “My moon, my stars, my wings. You make me burn, Sultana.”

  “Then find me in the ashes of your soul, my love.” She touched her fingertips to his lips, and he felt his soul take flight. “I choose you over all others now.”

  “Over your kingdom?”

  She didn’t answer him with words. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him back into her kiss.

  As the sun rose on the horizon, rays of light stroking the land, they laid together for the first time. He fell in love with the curves of her body, with the sound of her sighs. But more than anything else in the world, he fell in love with the look in her eyes as she met his gaze.