Throne of the Horde King, page 41
And that hurt.
It hurt more than I expected it to, and I’d even been prepared for this.
But then I reminded myself that I was the daughter of the Seta Kalliri. I took pride in that because I’d grown up with accomplished, intelligent, and independent females all my life.
As the silence stretched out between Arik and me…I decided that I wouldn’t beg. I wouldn’t beg to stay if he wanted me to leave. I had more pride than that. It welled in me, flooding my entire body.
If Arik didn’t want me as his queen…then I would leave.
And I love him enough to do just that, I thought suddenly.
I stifled a sob at the painful realization, muffling it against the back of my hand when I turned away. I heard a sharp sound break from his throat, but I stepped toward the stretch of windows when I saw him reach for me.
I loved him enough to leave. Because I wanted him to succeed in Dothik. If I wasn’t in his plans for the future of Dakkar, then it was for a reason. A reason only he could see.
And he was right. He was the king. The most powerful male on this planet now. More powerful than all the Vorakkar and the Sorakkar.
He had the world on his shoulders. I didn’t want to add to that burden. I wanted to help alleviate it.
I cried silently as I looked out over the wildlands. Arik was hovering behind me—I could feel his presence like a touch, and it only made me cry harder.
“Kara…” he murmured. I waited for him to take it all back. I waited for him to say it was a mistake, that he wanted me to be here with him, to stay.
The moments ticked by.
In the end, he said nothing.
I’d thought that he could love me. I’d thought I’d seen it, I’d thought I’d felt it…but I’d been wrong. Because if he loved me, how could he do this?
And so, I could love him enough for the both of us.
See this through, I couldn’t help but think. See the vision through.
“I’ll go,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around my waist, hugging them to me.
The words felt like glass as they scraped across my tongue.
“I’ll go back to the North Lands. If that’s what you want, Dothikkar.”
Chapter 57
It was strange the way my mind and my body protected me against an unfathomable thing.
But as I descended the grand staircase down to the main courtyard of the Dothikkar’s palace, I felt numb. I could not feel joy, and I could not feel pain. I could not feel the sting of excitement, and I could not feel the crushing despair of heartbreak. There was static in my mind, but it felt like a comforting buzz, filling it, consuming me so I wouldn’t focus too deeply on anything else.
Like Arik, who was standing close to the group of darukkars—ones from his own horde—already astride their pyrokis. Errana and Kalik were also accompanying me back to the North Lands. Despite the lack of close confidants Arik trusted within the palace, he was still plucking them from their posts to guide me back to the orala sa’kilan.
Errana was watching me, a twist of something I thought resembled pity on her face. Kalik was looking at Arik, his brows slightly furrowed. And Arik was looking at me, but his expression was wiped clean and he held himself stiffly, his hands clasped behind his back. Even his tail was still.
We’d been apart for two days as preparations had been made for the journey. This was the first time I was seeing him since the night in the library, and the pain that began to wiggle in my chest almost broke me out of my numbness. But then I thought of the quiet of the temple. I thought of the wind that whistled through the columns of the atrium when we left the door open. I thought of the quiet hum of the priestesses’ prayers, lullabies to me because I’d heard them all my life.
There was one last matter to speak of, however.
And so when my booted feet met the stone of the courtyard, I walked to Arik, though I kept my gaze on the notch of his throat, smooth and golden and strong. I stopped when there was a reasonable distance between us. Close enough so that he could hear me. And far enough away that I wouldn’t be able to smell him, so I wouldn’t be tempted to throw myself into his chest, to breathe him in, to beg him to let me stay.
Dignity. This was about my dignity. He’d already crushed it under the heel of his thieving boots, but I’d tried to pull myself back up in the last two days. I’d hardly cried. I’d hardly done anything. The only thing I’d done was make plans as I’d sat in my chair in the library. I didn’t touch a single tome when I was within, an oddity in itself which always made Kalik, my guard, frown.
I simply looked out the window at the wildlands, and I traced the paths back to the North Lands in my mind. I planned how I’d tell Kalloma about the child, wondering if she—and the other priestesses—would allow me to stay in the temple. If they voted against it, despite Kalloma’s wishes, I could journey to the saruk of Rath Hidri. He would allow me entry to his outpost. I could live there. I thought I could even be content there. One day.
Then I planned for the East Lands. I counted the heartstones in my mind. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. We would need all of them.
But I knew something that no one else did, not even Arik. That this act of eradicating the fog would destroy them all.
They would turn to dust in my hands. Sacred stones that had been prayed over for centuries. Gone in a moment.
If anyone knew that the heartstones would be destroyed in the process, I wasn’t certain they would wish to continue. A sad truth. One I never would’ve thought possible had I remained in the temple all this time.
Now, however, I’d seen the desperation, the greed in people. I’d seen it even in the Laseta Kalliri’s face. She’d been furious when she’d learned of Arik’s plan to send me away. She’d come to me at dawn the following morning, urging me to speak with him again, urging me to change his mind in whatever way I could.
She’d grown frustrated by my listlessness, by my lack of response. She’d tried gentling her tone. She’d tried raising it. But she could not get me to react. And it was then that I’d seen it. Her own fear. Her own anger.
The Laseta Kalliri had lost her way, driven by the greed of this city, driven by her need for power.
That morning, I thought I could finally understand why Arik was doing what he was doing. I could see it take shape in my mind, like a wispy cloud on a clear day. The edges of it were blurred, but it was tangible. I could see it. Though I might not fully understand it.
He was stronger than I was, that was for certain.
Because I thought I’d burn a whole city down for him in my own weakness.
In the end, the Laseta Kalliri had left in a stiff anger. I didn’t tell her about my vision. I didn’t tell her about the heartstones. Truthfully, I didn’t even think I’d tell Kalloma once I reached the North Lands. Not because I didn’t trust her, but because I was afraid she’d try to stop me.
Arik looked at me steadily now. I could feel his hardened gaze roaming my features though I kept my own down.
“The morning after the black moon,” I told him, my voice sounding far, far away. “We will meet you on the plains of the East Lands. Inform the other Vorakkar and the Sorakkar of Rath Hidri. That is when it must be done. Hanniva.”
Please.
I added in that word as an afterthought because I realized I was speaking to the Dothikkar of Dakkar after all…whose predecessor I had murdered.
I flinched, my breath hitching, the thought threatening to break me from my state of calm. And I couldn’t allow that. Not now. Not now.
“Nik,” came his voice. I furrowed my brow, not expecting that word. “You will stay in the North Lands. The Seta Kalliri will come to the East Lands, but I want you nowhere near the fog, Kara.”
It stung. The bitter part of me, the part that wanted to make him hurt as much as I did, wanted to remind him that he didn’t care what happened to me. Giving such an order made it seem like he did.
“I will be there,” I informed him, hardening my voice, feeling a spark of anger which was vastly preferable over hurt. “Or will you give me your Dothikkar order to stay behind?”
“I will if I must,” came the words.
Kalloma will respect my wishes, I thought to myself. If Arik wanted me to stay in the North Lands, then he would have to ride there personally and chain me up.
Knowing he wouldn’t do that, I simply said nothing.
The distance between us felt like miles and miles of dangerous wildland.
I would see him again, lysi, but would we ever speak again? And if this was the last time we spoke…I didn’t want it to end on this note.
Softening my tone, I said, “I know that you will do great things here, Dothikkar.”
I tamped down my own pain into a tiny box inside me, stuffing it until the seams threatened to burst.
Arik stilled.
“I believe it,” I whispered, briefly meeting his eyes. Those molten eyes that I had so desperately wanted to see when he’d come to the orala sa’kilan, eyes I’d only ever seen in my dreams. “With everything I have in me, I believe it.”
When I turned toward the pyroki that Errana had prepared for me, I swore I caught a brief flash of panic on Arik’s face.
“Kara,” came his soft murmur, so quiet no one else could hear.
Stilling, I turned my head to look at him. My heart seemed to wiggle in my chest, shifting beneath the bones that protected it, trying to break free. As if it didn’t want to be a part of me anymore.
In a brief moment of desperation, I pleaded with him silently.
Say you didn’t mean it.
Say you want me to stay.
Say you believe me about the child. Our child.
Say that you love me.
In the end, he said none of those things.
“Be safe, lysi?” he murmured. He stepped back, and the disappointment I felt almost made it impossible to breath.
Looking away from him, I scanned the courtyard for the last time. It was early morning. Dark still. As if he hadn’t wanted anyone to see me leaving the palace. Had he even told the Laseta Kalliri?
This early, no one stood at the gates, though it had become common these days. Dakkari passing by would press their faces between the steel, if only to catch a glimpse of the new Dothikkar through the windows of the palace. His supporters gathered almost every day at the entrance, as if they were ready to battle again for the throne.
Still hiding me away? I couldn’t help but wonder.
Then I nodded, accepting it, feeling that knowledge slide down my throat like acid and settle in my belly like a stone. All of my insecurities and fears wrapped into a single thought: that he was ashamed of me.
Then I took a breath.
My lips quirked in a small smile I couldn’t quite feel.
I wasn’t ashamed of me though.
And that knowledge felt like a comforting balm as I stepped toward the pyroki. I pulled myself up onto its back. The creature was smaller than Syok, more comfortable for me to ride, and yet…strange. I was so used to Arik’s pyroki, that gentle beast I’d grown so fond of, who was being treated like a prince in the Dothikkar’s own enclosure.
I looked at the palace behind me. Golden light seeped from some of the windows, but the majority of the palace was dark.
Then I looked at Arik, though he’d stepped back in such a way that it cast the majority of his face into shadow.
Swallowing, I faced forward. Forcing myself to look away before I withered with my despair.
“Are you ready?” Errana asked me quietly when she pulled her own pyroki up to mine, side by side.
“Lysi,” I said without a moment’s hesitation.
She sighed.
“Let’s get you back home,” she said.
Chapter 58
The orala sa’kilan was just as I’d left it.
A quiet fortress, shrouded in ice, high in the mountains of the North Lands.
I thought it strange that the cold bit at me bitterly now when I’d lived here all my life. But the winds wove through my cloak and made me shiver violently—and the frost had long passed. This was the warmest it would ever be, and I felt frozen.
Our travel pace had been merciless. Partly because of me. I hadn’t wanted to stop. I’d barely slept. I ate on the back of my pyroki, who I didn’t want to name because I knew she would not be mine. The others were exhausted. I was too. And yet my own pain was driving me to reach home. To reach Kalloma and my family. To reach my tower. To reach my bed.
The gates parted when we stopped before them, the sound like a sharp crack as it echoed through the pass. The pyrokis were restless, but the darukkars urged them forward as Kalik and Errana went to either side of me, their necks bending and turning, seeking out dangers that I knew were not there.
As we stopped in the courtyard past the gates, I saw the door open at the top of the stairs.
For the first time, I realized how much the orala sa’kilan resembled the palace. With its tall columns, its glittering turrets and towers, and its grand staircase that led to ornate doors.
Kalloma stood on the threshold, her slippered feet stepping beyond the temple and already making her way down the stairs. The Seta Kalliri—the High Priestess of all of Dakkar—and her face was pinched with worry, relief, and desperation to reach me again.
A tightness in my chest released at the sight of her, and suddenly my exhaustion crashed down on me, threatening to unseat me from the pyroki’s back when I nearly slid down her side.
Kalik caught me, his lips pinching down into a frown. We had been traveling for only a week. And I could see he was still concerned about the nausea that had begun to plague me toward the end of our journey.
So soon, I thought, remembering the bile at the back of my throat. And not soon enough.
Kalik helped me slide down to the courtyard on trembling legs.
“Are you all right, Kara?” he asked me, his expression unusually somber.
“Lysi,” I whispered, but my eyes were on Kalloma.
She’d just made it to the bottom of the stairs, and I broke free of Kalik’s gentle hold, striding toward her quickly, my legs moving faster than I thought possible.
And when she caught me up in her arms, uncaring that the travel party could see her weakness or the tears I caught shimmering in her gaze, I buried my face into her neck and breathed her in. She smelled of our soap. She smelled like…
“Home,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut when the tears began to slow and wet her neck. “I’m home.”
Kalloma didn’t say anything.
She only held me as I began to cry, as the shield of numbness I’d held close shattered into a million pieces in her familiar embrace.
That was when the wretchedness of loss, of heartbreak finally hit me.
And I crumbled.
Chapter 59
Two weeks later…
“Is this the final list?” I asked Nassik, looking over the parchment with what I knew were scrawled names. Some of which I could actually recognize as I traced my gaze over the writing.
“Lysi,” Nassik murmured, running his finger down the column of sixty new names we would be adding to the guard rotations. Fifteen members from each of the districts—Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western—and no more. Handpicked, tested, and studied with their loyalties cemented.
And, most importantly, not a part of my father’s old force.
“With room for more, should we need it,” Nassik added.
The Laseta Kalliri was not in attendance at today’s meeting, for which I was grateful. Nassik still didn’t trust the priestess. Neither did I, but I could not deny that she was useful to me. Despite her obvious rancor at Kara’s sudden departure, she’d attempted to move beyond it.
A sharp pain went through my chest at the thought of Kara, as it always did. I rubbed at the spot, catching Nassik’s gaze on me, and then I straightened.
If he’d noticed my increasing restlessness, my shortness with some of the guards or the way I’d refused to have my private rooms touched by the palace staff…he hadn’t mentioned it. Though I knew it was only a matter of time before he barged into my rooms and washed the damn furs on my bed himself.
But then Kara’s scent would be gone. Permanently.
And I couldn’t have that.
It was already fading, day by day. Even with my sharp senses, it was growing more and more difficult to catch her familiar and comforting scent.
Kalik came into the room then, the door shutting heavily behind him.
He tipped his chin up at me, meeting my eyes.
“Thespers are sent,” he informed me. He slid to his usual place along the wall, leaning against one of the tall chests that held a variety of maps—taken from the Heart, where Bakkia had moved in in my absence. “Are you certain you don’t want the darukkars to accompany us?”
He meant to the East Lands. Which we would depart for come morning. And there was still so much to be done here in Dothik.
“Nik, they should stay behind. And you sent a thesper to the orala sa’kilan too?” I demanded quietly, shooting him a quick look. The one I’d had Nassik write out, ordering the Seta Kalliri to keep Kara at the temple.
Kalik rolled his neck, a sharp crack sounding at the movement. “Lysi.”
He’d just returned from the journey north not four days ago. They’d made it to the North Lands in a single week, he’d informed me. It had made my temper flare, wondering why they’d kept such a punishing pace with Kara in tow. But then Kalik had informed me it was Kara who hadn’t wanted to stop…
Which only made that familiar sting in my chest all the more apparent. Guilt, perhaps. An ache so deep that sometimes I thought I couldn’t breathe.
Because I knew that I’d driven her away. That she’d wanted to keep going because she couldn’t wait to put more and more distance between us.
