Night Spinner (Night Spinner #1) - Addie Thorley Page 0,99

nights ago. My poor, misguided cousin. He was so eager to fight and rebel and belong; I always knew it would be the death of him. He became entangled with the wrong crowd….” She glances pointedly over her shoulder. “Temujin killed him.”

“What are you talking about?” Temujin bellows, but Ghoa speaks over him.

“The people of Ashkar will be so relieved to have such a violent criminal off the streets. Especially if you consider the loss of life at the war front, which is also his doing.”

I stare at Ghoa, trying to make sense of what she’s saying. Two nights ago Temujin sat in my tent until well after midnight, listening to me pick apart memories of Serik. He couldn’t have killed him then. He didn’t even know Serik was alive.

“I didn’t kill anyone!” Temujin echoes my thoughts.

“There’s no point lying, deserter,” Ghoa snaps. “He was found with your ram branded across his back. It was quite gruesome. It’s in all of the papers.” She motions one of her warriors forward with two fingers, and they present her with a sheaf of parchment. She unfurls it, and the rendering is so horrifying, my body goes limp, pulled to the earth by a heaviness that has nothing to do with Varren’s crushing grip. The body is facedown in the muddy riverbank, but the short red-brown hair is so distinct. As is the cloak tangled around him in the current, complete with a glaring hole in the goldwork at the hem. The scorched ram consumes the whole of his back, red and raw and livid.

A terrible, high-pitched wail drowns out the maddening strains of fiddle music, and it takes several seconds before I realize the sound is coming from me.

Serik is dead.

Because I let him leave the realm of the Eternal Blue. Because I didn’t go with him.

I gape at Temujin, tears pulsing behind my eyes. The ram is unmistakable. “How could you?” I screech.

“I didn’t kill anyone!” he hollers again. “It’s a setup!”

But I can’t stop shaking my head because if he didn’t do it, who did? Ghoa and Serik may have had their differences, but she wouldn’t kill him. Punish him, definitely. Send him to Gazar, probably. But she wouldn’t murder him.

Would she?

“I’m afraid it’s your word against mine—and the masses’.” Ghoa waves the paper.

“The people will never side with you,” Temujin roars. “They adore the Shoniin. They need us. We’re more aware of their struggles than you and the usurper king will ever be.”

Ghoa patiently waits for him to stop yelling. “Are you finished?”

“I will never be finished!”

“In that case, take him to Gazar,” Ghoa orders her warriors. “I’ve heard more than enough.”

“Am I going to Gazar as well?” I ask as they drag Temujin away.

Ghoa laughs and pats my cheek. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I send you to Gazar?” But her palm scorches my face and there’s an icy undercurrent to her tone that makes my entire body stiffen.

Ghoa dismisses the rest of the Kalima and we trek alone across the city to the Sky Palace. As we walk, the tendrils of night sense my presence—a trickle of errant threads, at first. But with every step, more and more dive at my face and cling to my coat. Offended that I’m not reaching for them.

Even if I could command them, I don’t know what I’d do. Because I still don’t know who to trust. Ghoa and Temujin are both so entrenched in their agendas, they would do almost anything, hurt almost anyone, to further their opposing causes.

And I am caught squarely between them. A loyal, whimpering dog, desperate for a master—like Serik said.

Thinking of him nearly stops my heart. I picture his moon-eyed smile and mischievous grin. His ink-stained fingers and gold-dust freckles. I try to conjure his voice, try to re-create the exact tenor of his laugh, but it’s already fading. Slipping through my fingers like smoke. Tears stream down my cheeks as Ghoa leads me through a narrow servants’ entrance behind the gatehouses and into the Sky Palace.

I’ve been inside the royal complex many times. When I was a member of the Kalima, we reported directly to the king in his lavish throne room, but now Ghoa leads me to a hidden staircase at the end of the hall. We spiral up, up, up, and the higher we rise, the more the knots in my stomach tighten. I’m unsure whether to be relieved or disappointed that I’ve been spared an audience with the Sky King. On