The Horde King of Shadow (Hordes of the Elthika #1)

Chapter 7

SARKIN

The storm hit hard in the late afternoon.

Levanth, my navigator wing, had been tracking the storm system through the night—I knew she’d barely slept. And just as we passed over where the Dakkari’s sea met our own, the dark clouds turned the day into night, just where she’d predicted.

Purple lightning pierced the sky open, and with every bolt, I felt Klara’s hand tighten further into my abdomen. I envisioned dark bruises tomorrow morning from her grip alone, even worse than the ones I’d received in rider training all those years ago.

The rain that pelted us slowly made her grip slicken, the mount getting wet. Her clothing was unsuitable for riding, the soles of her boots slipping across Zaridan’s scales.

When my Elthika veered suddenly, narrowly missing the bolt of a lightning strike, Klara slid. I caught her panicked gasp, even in the deafening roar of the wind and rain, and felt her hands scrambling for anything she could find in her desperation—my vest, my thighs—her dull claws digging.

Quickly, I twisted, grabbing her by the arm as her legs kicked to try to right herself, hanging off the side of the mount. Her eyes were wild with fear when I met them, and I kept a grip on Zaridan’s tethers with one hand while I tried to prevent my future wife from toppling off the back of my Elthika with the other.

“Stop fighting me!” I growled, irritation making me snap. A child could ride on dragonback better than her. A child would know how to lean with an Elthika in flight, when to brace their thighs, when they could relax them. “Stop fighting her!”

Zaridan veered sharply to the left, giving Klara more control to right herself.

“Fuck,” I said through gritted teeth as I blinked the rain from my eyes. “Come here!”

I let go of Zaridan’s tethers, tightening my inner thighs to keep me rooted into the mount, and twisted in my seat. Klara was shaking, soaked through, and I grabbed her by the waist, lifting her easily.

The beginnings of a screech left her when she found herself dangling in midair over the side of Zaridan, which I promptly quieted by dropping her between my legs.

“Brace your thighs and hold this,” I growled into her ear, finding her hands and guiding them to the leather-wrapped curved bar that ran across Zaridan’s mount. The bar was a little too large for her small palms, but she gripped it like her life depended on it—which, in her mind, very well might’ve been the case—her knuckles going white.

She was shivering, and I pressed down into her back, her bulky and rigid soaked satchel meeting my chest. The afternoon was dark. I had wanted to reach the citadel by midnight, but she wouldn’t last until then. Not in this storm.

I searched the wing for Feranos, finding him flying below. On my cuff, I pressed the small ridge and a single light flashed out, beaming toward him. I saw his head jerk up in response, pulling on the tethers to guide his Elthika’s ascent.

I tapped out my message on my cuff, a series of lights flashing, a language only riders would know. He flashed two back, and I watched him maneuver up toward Levanth to relay my message to the rest of the wing.

It was nearing evening when I finally spied the coastline of Karak in the distance. Klara was still trembling. She’d refused to eat the travel rations or drink from the water skin I’d tried to press into her hands. She’d refused to let go of the stabilizing bar, and I felt a pitying discomfort burn in me, knowing I was the cause.

When we passed over Karak land, I leaned over and thumped my fist against Zaridan’s side three times. The hardness and strength of her scales felt like striking metal, the reverberation going up my bones, discomforting to me, though she’d barely feel it. She knew the signal, however. I felt the response in the powerful swing of her tail as she began to circle back, searching for a suitable clearing.

Around us, the rest of my wing continued on to Sarroth. They had another four hours of flight to reach our horde, but they could withstand a week of this weather before it would start to wear. The Dakkari princess—currently hunched over Zaridan as low as the mount would allow, her eyes squeezed tightly shut—could not.

Zaridan shook the earth when she landed on a rocky cliff at the edge of a forest. The trees shook with the boom, leaves rustling brightly like chimes, and then it was silent, save for Klara’s ragged gasps.

“Let go,” I ordered her, my voice coming out rougher than I’d intended. Her knuckles were still white on the bar, her shoulders trembling.

Reaching forward, I pried off her palms before sliding off Zaridan’s side, landing on the stone ledge hard.

“Jump down. You need to get warm,” I ordered. When she didn’t move, irritation shot through me. “ Now , princess. I don’t need you dying on me of wind chill before we even reach the citadel.”

“Then why even take me?” she snapped, her head jerking toward me, tears in her eyes making them glassy. The whites of her gray-colored eyes—a human trait, I knew, belying her ancestry—were bloodshot, red veins shooting them like roots of a tree. She was furious, even wet and shivering and frozen in place on Zari’s back. Her voice trembled from the cold as she added, “ You wanted me. You wanted this. What’s even the purpose?”

Peering up at her, I observed as she tried to calm down. Taking deep breaths, slowly in, slowly out, life returning to her limbs.

“Jump down,” I ordered again, though I made an effort to keep it soft, when it was not in my nature to try to give comfort. It still came out harsh, even to my ears. “You need to get warm. You do realize that, yes?”

Her lips pressed. After a beat of silence, she nodded and slowly swung her far leg over the mount, though it caught briefly on the bar, nearly causing her to lose her balance.

I growled, stepping forward. “Be careful!”

“I know,” she snapped.

My brows ticked up, and for a brief, startling moment, I had the urge to laugh. She did make an amusing sight, all sodden and annoyed.

Zaridan huffed, and the movement made Klara slide. I caught her small gasp before she was falling?—

I snatched her before she hit the ground, grunting with the force. She was ice cold. And in my arms…surprisingly small. For a moment, I couldn’t help but take the opportunity to study her.

It was the first time I was seeing a Dakkari this close, though I’d studied their continent, their language, their culture, their cities and outposts extensively since I’d been in rider training. Even before then, as boy in my small farming village, I’d ask anyone I could about the Dakkari.

Though she wasn’t quite a Dakkari, was she? They’d mixed their bloodlines with humans over the course of the last two centuries. She looked human—small, vulnerable, and weak.

So small, I thought again, my eyes tracking down the front of her body when I placed her on the ground. She had no tail, as if she was a rider. Short limbs, smooth flesh, dressed in worn brown pants and a green embroidered tunic saturated from the storm. Not unlike any other female, though I had the unyielding impression that she was… soft . Unhardened to this life.

And easily broken.

I couldn’t have picked a worse wife.

She wouldn’t last one riding season. The Sarrothian horde would never accept her. It was laughable.

Though…as she stared back at me in this strange moment of quiet, I could concede she was pleasing to look at, scar and all. Beautiful, even, with her smooth—albeit wind-stung—skin, upturned nose, round face, and full pink lips. The tips of her ears were subtly pointed. Different . She possessed a soft beauty so unlike what Karag valued, and I found the contrast oddly…

And her eyes. Gray and luminous, I felt like they could sear straight through me. I’d never seen a match to their color.

Intriguing .

I had the discomforting sense she was observing me in a similar way, all careful curiosity, and I released her quickly, stepping back. I tapped on Zaridan’s wing, which she lowered, and I walked up to untie a thick satchel, throwing it down before I went to the second one.

When I returned, I said, “Go wait under the tree line. We’ll stay here for the night and wait out the storm.”