Throne of the Horde King, page 5
“Whose daughter is she?” I asked next. “One of yours?”
A gasp rose from the line of the kalliris. It was the Second Priestess, who had a look of fury on her face.
“You dare question our vows to Kakkari? In her own temple?” she asked me, the words spat out.
“She is my daughter,” the Seta Kalliri said, her voice loud and clear, ringing in the vast expanse of the atrium. Did I detect a hint of pride in her tone? “Though not by blood. My vows have never been broken.”
Despite there being rumors about her and a son from a highborn family when she’d been a kalliri in Dothik? Rumors that had nearly cost her the title of Seta Kalliri? Or did her sister priestesses not know about that?
I grunted, crossing my arms over my chest, though my mind was still stuck on the female.
“So you have kept her a secret since her birth. Hiding her away in this frozen temple, knowing the Dothikkar will never care to look. But do you not know that there are others like her?” I asked. “Other hybrids?”
The Seta Kalliri straightened, her eyes snapping to mine.
“Neffar?” she asked quietly.
A small laugh rose from my throat.
“I wish to speak with her,” I said.
“That is out of the question,” the High Priestess said immediately.
“Then what did she mean about the heartstones?”
She said nothing.
“It seems we are at an impasse in negotiation,” I said, my tone soft, seeing the last of the sun’s rays vanish on the horizon. I smiled, flashing my teeth. “And your goddess awaits you in your sanctum.”
The Seta Kalliri blinked before she swallowed hard. But there was a look in her eye, one that looked like…recognition. It was brief. A small flash of it, and then it was gone. “I’ve never heard of the line of Serok. Where does your line come from?”
“You may know me from a different line, Seta Kalliri. My father’s line,” I told her, my smile only widening. “Considering you trained in Dothik.”
I would let her think on those words however she saw fit. She frowned, blinking as if trying to place me.
“But I know the rules of the priestesses,” I murmured, inclining my head. “No male is allowed to sleep within the temple, and so I will sleep outside. We still have much to discuss, you and I. Like I said, I am not leaving until I know everything. Food and water for my pyroki would be appreciated.”
“There is a cave nearby that you can sleep in,” the Seta Kalliri finally said. There was a small relief in her voice, as if she wanted me gone—at least for the night. So she could regroup and make up new stories and lies to keep me at bay. “You and your pyroki. I’ll send Beyla out with provisions.”
“Once she returns from locking your daughter away in her tower,” I finished for her.
The Seta Kalliri’s eyes flashed with anger, but she kept it restrained. “Lik Kakkari srimea tei kirtja, Vorakkar of Rath Serok. Have a restful sleep. I am certain I will see you again in the morning, if the frost does not send you scurrying away.”
“That is probably what you will pray for tonight, is it not, Seta Kalliri?” I murmured gravely as I stepped past her, dragging my fur pelt from its place on the banister. Darkness was descending within the atrium and fast. I turned my back on her, my eyes fastening on the door. “But I have endured much worse than a cave in the North Lands, I assure you.”
I had no intention of sleeping outside, but she didn’t need to know that.
A flurry of energy rushed past me, and the door opened with a rush, making me pause. But I knew what she was doing. Reminding me of her power. Reminding me of whom I spoke to with such brash disrespect.
“There are humans with your same gifts, Seta Kalliri,” I said. A small intake of air came from behind me. “So if you think to surprise me with them, it isn’t anything I haven’t seen before.”
With that, I left through the open door. It closed firmly behind me with a resounding bang. The icy cold immediately whipped at my cheeks and threaded its fingers through my thick furs.
“Vok,” I hissed, feeling the cold begin to seep into my bones as I descended the stairs.
Better get used to it, I steeled myself silently.
It would be a long night.
I had a tower to climb, after all.
Chapter 8
Kalloma was furious with me. Naturally.
But she wasn’t the yelling sort. When she came up to my tower after the evening prayers, it was her quiet disappointment that made discomfort curl and settle in my belly.
“Why would you do that, Kara?” she asked me softly, standing on the threshold of my room, though she didn’t step inside it. “You risked not only yourself in doing that but us all.”
“Nik, I was saving you,” I said, feeling that spark of anger reignite in my belly.
“Neffar?” she rasped, her brow furrowing.
“You lied,” I whispered, standing from my desk where I’d taken to transcribing Bekkar’s book as a means of distraction. “You lied to them all. And I know why.”
Kalloma went silent, watching me carefully.
“You knew this whole time how to stop the fog, didn’t you? How to help the hordes,” I said, desperately wanting it to be false. “And you did nothing.”
“You do not know what you speak of,” Kalloma said. “And speak very carefully from now on, Kara.”
“Is it true?” I demanded, facing her, setting my jaw with determination. “What did you see? What did Kakkari show you that’s made you so frightened?”
Kalloma looked out my window, refusing to speak. I waited long moments before I realized that she would not give me an answer.
“Has he left?” I tried instead.
“For the night, lysi,” Kalloma bit out.
But he will be back was what went unspoken.
“It’s him,” I told her. “It’s him that I see. That I’ve always seen.”
Judging by the way her lips pressed together, I assumed she’d figured that out already.
“Knowing that, do you really think that you can keep me from speaking with him?” I asked. “Because he is here. And I think deep down, you know that it’s already too late for whatever you were trying to prevent.”
Kalloma looked as if I’d just slapped her across the face. Her face went pale, and then she closed her eyes, spreading her hand out on my door to keep herself steady.
“You are my daughter, Kara,” came her ragged voice. “And I have always kept you safe! I have always tried to protect you. Even though it is against my duty, I have always put you first.”
It was as much of a confession as I would get.
“I don’t want to be the reason that the orala sa’kilan falls, Kalloma,” I told her, anguish tearing at my chest. “I don’t want to be the reason that you fall. Not like this. Never like this.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“I’m not a child anymore,” I told her. An obvious point, but one I felt she forgot sometimes. “Yet you treat me like one. I’m older than some of the priestesses in this temple, and you have Beyla drag me from a room. I may not have experienced everything you have in life, but not because I didn’t want to—because you would not allow it. You cannot keep me in the dark forever.”
Kalloma’s shoulders sagged. I could see the exhaustion in the lines of her face. Had she not been sleeping lately?
“Whatever is coming…” I said, gentling my tone as I approached her, winding my arms around her neck to hug her tightly. Her own arms came around me, and I pressed my face into her neck, inhaling that familiar, comforting scent of her skin. “Whatever you have tried to keep from me, I’m not afraid of it. You said it is my purpose. So tell me what it is. Tell me what you saw. Tell me what Kakkari showed you. Prepare me.”
Kalloma pulled away from my embrace. Her eyes flickered back and forth between mine, and I saw the raw pain in her gaze. It brought a lump to my throat.
Her voice was a ragged whisper as she told me, “She showed me two paths.”
“Tell me.”
“She showed me a path that led to your death, Kara. A painful, long death that I feel whenever I try to sleep.”
I took a step away, biting my lip as her words sank into my very bones.
It was as I suspected.
“And the other?” I asked.
“The other takes you away from this place forever. Never to return,” she said. She smiled, though it was sad. I watched in disbelief as tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them back quickly. “And still, that is the path I desperately pray for you to take. The path that Kakkari will guide you toward.”
“Paths can be changed,” I said quietly. “You know this.”
“Perhaps,” she said quietly, cupping my cheek with a small smile. From the expression on her face, I knew that she didn’t believe it. Whatever Kakkari had shown her…it had shaken her. “Of course.”
I’d never given much thought to death. I’d been so consumed with wanting to leave the orala sa’kilan—with wanting to see Dakkar, see the hordes, the outposts, Dothik, Drukkar’s Sea, Bekkar’s campaign trail, the Trikki—that death seemed…peripheral.
Now, in a single moment, I was faced with it. Staring right at it.
A raw, aching restlessness rose. In some ways, it was greater than my fear.
I didn’t show my terror to Kalloma. Not terror that I would die. It was terror that I’d die without experiencing life.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said softly.
Kalloma regarded me carefully. Likely wondering if I would be all right after hearing about the prospect of a painful, long death. Would anyone be all right after that?
“I must meet with the Niva Kalliri now,” she told me. “To speak about our…guest. But I will come check on you before I turn in for sleep.”
“Nik,” I said, hoping my tone didn’t sound too hasty. “Nik, you rest, Kalloma. Please try to get some sleep tonight. Put all thoughts of me from your mind, and let your body restore itself.”
Her eyes strayed past me, flickering around my small tower. On my desk, her gaze zeroed in on the old, open tome, though I’d been careful with the binding. She saw my pages of parchment and the pot of kreki ink next to them.
“You’re nearly finished,” she commented, seeing the size of the stack. “Finish quickly, rei kassiri. Then you will always have a piece of home when you leave.”
When you leave.
The words filled me with excitement, trepidation…and agony. Because I could never imagine saying goodbye to Kalloma.
She left without another word, and I stood at the threshold of my door, staring down the dark, circular staircase, listening to her retreating steps though I couldn’t see her anymore.
When she reached the lower level, I closed the door before pressing my forehead to the heavy steel. It was cool against my flesh.
A chilly breeze met my back, gently swirling my dress around my ankles. That felt nice too. During my conversation with Lomma, I’d felt overheated. I felt terrible going behind her back. But I needed to speak with the horde king, even if I had to sneak out of the temple. Kalloma might never allow it, but I needed to explain about the heartstones and—
“I thought she would never leave,” came the dark, velvety voice. “I’ve been freezing my deva off out there.”
A ragged gasp tore from my throat, and I whirled around.
There, sliding through my open window—which had most certainly been closed—was the horde king of Rath Serok.
Chapter 9
Trying to calm my racing heart, and still partly in disbelief, I sputtered, “How did you get up here?”
The Vorakkar jumped off my window ledge. I thought that it was a miracle he hadn’t knocked off any of my potted ice plants in the process, but he was surprisingly graceful for someone so large.
My tower was the highest peak of the temple. Judging from the ice that he shook from his furs and the way he immediately darted to my flickering fire basin to warm his hands, I’d say he had to have been climbing for hours. Probably since he’d left the atrium.
“You climbed?” I whispered.
“How else, saila?”
I reared back, a hot flush flooding up my neck.
Saila meant darling. It was a soft name. Meant for…lovers.
And I liked it entirely too much falling from his lips, even though he seemed to say it flippantly and without care.
Taking a step back, I felt the cool steel of the door press into my back. I was only wearing my nightdress. It was entirely too thin, and I shivered as the cold greeted my spine. I’d wanted Kalloma to think I was heading to bed because I’d known she would come up to the tower after the evening prayers. But now I regretted changing my clothes.
The horde king’s eyes flashed. His gaze dropped down the length of my body, and I watched his throat bob when it grazed over the hardened peaks of my nipples. A sharp, gruff sound emerged from his lips.
He shouldn’t be here, I thought, my heart racing, my cheeks flaming. If Kalloma ever found out…
“Are you a kalliri?” he rasped, those eyes meeting mine.
“Wh-What?”
“Are you a priestess?” he wondered, rounding the fire basin though his hands must still be cold and the ice on his fur pelt was only now beginning to thaw, dripping over my floor. Instead, he was approaching me. “Have you vowed yourself to Kakkari? Because I am having very improper thoughts at this moment, and if you were a priestess, well…that would be the gravest disappointment of my entire week, saila.”
To buy time, I could think of nothing else to say but “Just your entire week?”
He grinned, and I felt the warm slide of it low in my belly. The wide breadth of his shoulders blocked the entirety of my vision. He stepped closer until I couldn’t see my bed or my desk or the window through which he’d come.
Only him.
“My entire month,” he corrected. “But you should take even a week as the highest of compliments, saila, because I’ve had a vokking rough one.”
Belatedly, I remembered that looking a horde king in the eyes was forbidden unless he gave his permission. Yet I couldn’t look away. It was like I was outside of my body. It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel real talking to him in the flesh. For a moment, I thought I had slipped into the cracks of my gift. Had I fallen asleep? Or was I awake? Sometimes, I couldn’t be sure.
But he was here. Standing in front of me. I could smell him. He smelled like everything I loved. Old tomes. A crisp breeze from the south. And the raw earthiness of soil as it sifted through my fingers.
That was new. I’d never smelled him before, had I? I knew his face, his voice, but not this. Not until now.
His hand came to rest on the door, caging my head in, swarming me further with his scent. It was all around me. He was all around me. Warmth seeped from him, heating me in ways I hadn’t thought possible.
Still, I shivered. His smile widened when he saw it.
“Are you a kalliri?” he asked again, his voice becoming rougher, deeper.
“Nik,” came my answer. “I am not.”
His touch came then, as if he’d been waiting for my answer. His strong hand rose and cupped my jaw. I nearly gasped. In the back of my mind, I realized that this was the first time I’d ever spoken to a male. Ever been touched by one. Ever been touched like this.
I’d thought I would be terrified, trembling where I stood. Instead, I was boldly meeting the eyes of a Vorakkar, and instead of shrinking away, I shifted closer.
“Then let me look at you, saila,” Rath Serok rumbled softly.
The pads of his fingers were rough and calloused. Though his touch was gentle, those callouses scraped at my skin, but I didn’t mind the sensation. I was wholly focused on his face, on the strange expression that flashed there the longer he studied me.
Because that was what he was doing. I had the feeling he was committing every detail of me to memory. Perhaps because he’d never seen a hybrid before? Or was it that he was trying to place me? Because I was as familiar to him as he was to me?
“Do you know me?” I whispered, the question slipping out before I thought better of it.
His brow furrowed. I almost regretted asking it because his hand slipped from my jaw, coming instead to rest on the jut of my hip. He held me there, keeping me in place. Afraid I would dart away?
“Should I?” he returned.
His hot palm seeped into the thin dress. A flood of arousal made me dizzy. Despite my lack of experience with males, sexual desire was not hidden among the kalliris. Though they were not allowed to lie with another, they believed that there was power and pride in satisfying their own needs. A special connection to one’s body, which only strengthened one’s bond to Kakkari.
I was no stranger to sexual desire. How many nights had I lain in bed, pretending to be Lessa as I imagined Bekkar between my thighs? The strong warrior king, undone with lust for her? How many times had I pored over accounts of sex, of mating? And the old accounts of enemy hordes taking their mates in the old way? The tradition of the kassikari.
Kalloma’s library held the best books with those accounts, and I had been reading them since I was old enough to know what sex was.
“Because I know we have not met before,” he continued. “I would have remembered you.”
Disappointment flooded me, though it made more questions rise.
Even still, I said, “You shouldn’t be here.”
“And yet here I am,” he said, that smirk maddening. I held my breath as he leaned forward briefly, lowering his head so that it hovered just above the column of my neck. Smelling me? His hand on my hip clenched tighter. “What would happen if the kalliris found me up here?”
“You would be banished from the temple,” I said immediately.
“Then let’s make sure they don’t find me,” he answered easily.
Quick-tongued Vorakkar, indeed.
I might’ve known him, but I didn’t really. I knew next to nothing about the male that had me pressed against my door.
“Do you have an answer for everything?” I wondered, meeting his eyes when he pulled back.
