Shadows Rising by Madeleine Roux

Author:Madeleine Roux [Roux, Madeleine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2020-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

Talanji hissed, clutching the blanket to her chest and padding on bare feet to the balcony’s edge. She tried not to look at her visibly withered hands. The loa of graves spoke true. Fires burned bright in the jungles below, eight pinpoints of light in the darkness. Either she was still emerging from sleep or Bwonsamdi appeared shaky, translucent, as if he were only half present.

“How is it possible?” Talanji bit down hard on her lip, a rage building inside that would soon spill out or consume her. “My soldiers patrol the jungle tirelessly, yet somehow they slip by. They raid my city, attack my palace, attack me…How did they grow so strong so quickly?”

Bwonsamdi floated beside her, surveying the work of the Widow’s Bite. Talanji had not been idle, meeting with her council each day to discuss new approaches, new tactics. They had the superior force and superior resources, but their own land worked against them. The Widow’s Bite could use the jungle to stay hidden, their scattered numbers an advantage against an army spread thin by the size of Zuldazar. And many even in the city, she knew, remained suspicious of her rule. Those sympathetic ears might become sympathetic mouths, spreading the lies and terror of the group, eating away at the stability of Talanji’s rule.

“What do we do?” Talanji murmured. “How do I stop what I cannot see? They have no fortress, not even camps. By the time my guards find them, they are already gone. We are chasing vapor, fighting fires that are already smoldering coals.”

“They attack you because of the pact ya fa’da made,” Bwonsamdi told her, waving his hand toward the chaos below. “They think I control ya, and they fear what my queen, a queen of death, might become.”

Talanji glared. “I am not your queen.”

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