Sunbringer by Hannah Kaner

Author:Hannah Kaner [Kaner, Hannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2024-02-02T17:00:00+00:00

SOLOM’S HOME WAS ALL BUT EMPTY. THEY HAD ENTERED through a narrow door as the chaos of the archives spilled out onto the plaza, and locked it fast behind them.

Up on the second floor, his furniture was mainly covered in dust sheets and cobwebs, except for cabinets that displayed all manner of items from far beyond the Trade Sea. All of them were freshly dusted and polished: a gaming board from an emperor labelled with a note of parchment, a piece of embroidered art preserved in glass, a bracelet of shells, each as blue as a dragonfly and, dangling from it, the preserved body of a tiny coloured bird the size of Inara’s thumbnail.

Telle was standing at the corner windows by the blooming roses, looking over the cobbles, tense and still. There was a bloodstain at the gate where a body in pale robes had been taken out and covered in sheets. There were still two knights in blue guarding it, and six in yellow who were attempting to get near. Archivists were milling around the square in small groups, gesticulating and arguing, or being questioned by the Yether guard. Skedi was sure that if he and the others attempted to leave they would be spotted, arrested most likely. They were trapped.

Telle couldn’t keep her eyes off the blood, and the body beneath the sheet. She stood like a statue as the sun fell, and Inara alternated between peering around the room and crouching on one of the sheeted chairs, silent and guilty.

Skedi, however, had grown impatient with the doleful silence. For the first time, it wasn’t his fault at all.

‘Elo will come for us,’ he said certainly as the shadows lengthened. ‘When he finds out, he will come.’

‘No, he won’t,’ said Inara softly. ‘He doesn’t want us.’

Skedi batted out his wings. How wearisome that Inara wanted to be both a rebellious grown-up and a petulant child at once.

‘You know that’s not true,’ he said.

The doorhandle shook. Someone was coming. Inara looked up, scared and leapt to her feet.

‘Skedi, they’ll see you.’

Telle turned, perhaps feeling the vibration of Inara landing, and Skedi shrank. Too late to hide.

Solom came through, looking haggard. Behind him was the boy who had saved them from the forum, the signer from Blenraden. The former looked around, relieved to see everything still in order, and Skedi stayed very still, gathering up his will for a lie that might pass him off as another of Solom’s trinkets.

But Solom spotted him almost immediately, and his eyes widened.

‘You’re not mine,’ he said.

The Brahim boy looked up and flinched, his colours immediately wrapping tight to his skin as he recognised a god. Skedi tentatively grew in size to a hare.

‘No,’ he said, then nodded at Inara. ‘I am hers.’

Inara held out her arm, and Skedi flew to her and landed, creeping closer to her hair. Solom stared, curious. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Where is your shrine?’

Though Skedi had never stopped yearning for a shrine, Inara and the others were so used to it he had almost forgotten it was strange not to have one.

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