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

Chapter 21

KLARA

The wedding feast that night was an uncomfortable affair. At least for me. Sarkin’s horde pretended that they didn’t notice their Karath ’s brooding silence or me fidgeting at his side, at the head of the long table that had been set up during our absence.

It was a beautiful night. Balmy from the waterfall and warm. A bright half-moon was hanging overhead, surrounded by a smattering of stars. It brought me comfort to recognize the constellations. Bekkar’s Sword. Tanniva’s Hand. Dakkar history and story, plastered in the night sky, even though I’d never felt further from home than I did right then in my new one.

Nearly all of the village was in attendance it seemed. Brightly colored banners and ribbons had been hung from various buildings. Tall silver torches lit up the pathways, casting a golden, beautiful glow in the night. The food smelled amazing, though I hadn’t yet tried any of it, my stomach cramping from the palpable tension pouring off my now husband.

I listened to the chatter all around me. Sarkin’s riders had long given up trying to speak to him, and we’d been left on our own at the head of the table. Part of the horde and yet separate. As if everyone could feel the tension between us, they all kept to themselves, seemingly determined to enjoy the feast, which was meant to be a celebration of our union. So why did it feel like a mournful wake?

There’s no reason why I can’t enjoy this party even if Sarkin is sour on it, I thought, taking a deep breath, catching sight of Sammenth and Ryena, both laughing with a small group next to one of the trees that made up the edge of the vast forest. The trunk was wide, protected with a cushioned board, and I watched as they played a game, flinging daggers at the target. The object being whoever struck inside the four circles drawn at random areas of the map won points.

Wine was flowing, darkly colored and rich. My own goblet was half-empty. I wasn’t used to drinking fermented fruit, but the Karag produced a delicious brew. I wondered what they used and if the process differed from Dakkari wines. The Karag ones weren’t as sweet, though they were rich and smooth. And dangerously easy to drink.

Emboldened by the wine, I stood from my seat, catching the sharp jerk of Sarkin’s head when he turned to regard me.

“I’ll be over there,” I informed him, not quite meeting his eyes as I gestured toward the tree.

He regarded the group briefly, seeming like he was on the verge of saying something, but all he did was sharply incline his head, as if I needed permission…which I didn’t.

There was a part of me that was angry. A part of me was mourning. Because for brief moments in Lishara’s temple, though those moments had seemed beautifully and breathtakingly endless, I’d thought that what Sarkin and I had shared had been special . I’d felt connected to him in a way that defied everything I knew.

And he’d taken that away.

He’d retreated, becoming even colder than he’d been to me before. I thought that before we’d left this morning, we might’ve even been on friendly ground. We’d understood what needed to happen. It wasn’t as if sex would’ve never played a part in our marriage. I assumed the question of heirs would eventually need to be answered.

But now?

Our relationship felt more tangled and uncertain than ever. I thought…maybe he regretted what had happened. The harsh sting of that realization hurt more than I thought it would.

My body still ached from when he’d been inside me…and he’d never felt further away. Perhaps this was the real Sarkin. Not the male who’d kissed me passionately and squeezed my ass in appreciation, possessiveness pouring from him with every touch.

I nearly shivered just thinking about that Sarkin. A part of me was worried I’d never meet him again. It wasn’t fair. To dangle that in front of me, a sublime prize I’d never known I needed, and then to snatch it away, leaving me reeling and confused.

I squared my shoulders as I approached the laughing group, even though nerves tangled through my chest. Would this be another rejection at the hands of the Sarrothian?

No, I thought, determination rising. I was Sarkin’s wife, now. They couldn’t deny that, and I needed to start demanding their respect. I would not be rejected, walked over like I’d been in my father’s palace, for the rest of my life. I refused. I was their queen now. I might not have had their full respect yet—I apparently needed to bond with an Elthika for that to happen—but they had to recognize that I wasn’t going anywhere .

This was my home now, whether I liked it or not.

And so I needed to make a home for myself here. I needed to demand it in my own way. Because Sarkin certainly wouldn’t do it for me.

I could feel the burning sear of his eyes on my back as I approached the group. Sammenth noticed me first, and her smile widened, though her gaze tracked to Sarkin first over my shoulder.

“Can I try?” I asked, nodding at the tree trunk. I used to be a good shot, but these targets were small, the weight and balance of these strange daggers uncertain. And I hadn’t practiced on targets in years. It used to be a fun pastime when we’d lived on the wildlands. Though, truthfully, I had practiced endlessly because the young Dakkari boys in my horde had taunted me that I couldn’t ever possibly hit a target.

“For a price,” Ryena chimed.

My steps faltered uncertainly. “And that is?”

She pushed a half-full goblet into my hands. “Drink up, Sorrina . Those are the rules to enter the competition. No one plays without at least one goblet of wine in them.”

My brow furrowed, taking the goblet from her hands, the wine nearly sloshing over the sides. “ Sorinna ? What does that mean?”

Ryena’s head inclined briefly. “It’s the Karag word for queen .”

I blinked, a shot of nerves going through my belly, and I felt no less than a dozen pairs of eyes on me. Even behind me, from those not in the immediate circle of players, including Feranos, who peered at me carefully. Only he suspected what had happened in Lishara’s temple, and I was proud when I didn’t feel my cheeks heat under his cautious scrutiny.

Perhaps he suspected the worst.

I didn’t drink the full goblet. After even just a sip, Ryena seemed satisfied enough, and I traded her for the first dagger. It was slim but heavy. The hilt was etched with decorative markings, the eyes of an Elthika peering back at me, two red gemstones glittering.

“I’ll challenge the Sorrina ,” came Sammenth’s voice. She grinned, stepping up next to me. “And I warn you, the Sarrothian are a competitive people.”

“So are the Dakkari,” I returned. “Perhaps that makes you doubly so.”

Sammenth’s smile widened.

“We’ll see how you fare. I imagine there’s little time for dagger throwing in the Dothikkar ’s gilded palace,” came a voice. A female, one of the novice riders, I knew. Her sly smirk was coupled with her narrowed eyes, watching, waiting for a reaction.

I didn’t let her subtle jab get to me. I expected to be poked at for a while. I was an outsider, even if I was their queen. But did they believe I’d lived a privileged life, wealthy and wanting for nothing? I’d been happy with my mother on the wildlands, true. But even after I’d been forced to live in the palace, it had never felt like my home.

Instead of responding, I took another sip of wine, the dagger loose in my hand at my side. I twirled the hilt, getting used to the balance in my palm, and I set the goblet down on a nearby stool.

“Hit the middle of the marks?” I asked Sammenth, eyeing the target. In the archives, on particularly dull days when my research was frustrating and I needed a distraction, we’d done something similar with the tips of ink quills, weighted with heavy coins. Half the challenge was figuring out the weights and balances of each quill, which had all been unique.

She nodded. “Stand there. Behind the tether.”

There was a long braided rope of black, worn leather lying perfectly straight at my feet.

I caught the stray, quiet voice from the novice riders. “Bets for if she makes it?”

No one said anything, and I felt my lip press. Again I ignored it. If this had been a Dakkari horde, they would’ve been silenced for daring to disrespect the Morakkari of their horde king. Perhaps they’d even be sent back to Dothik or given pyroki shit–shoveling duty for the rest of the season.

But I’m not in Dakkar, I thought, straightening my spine. And my husband doesn’t care what his riders say about me.

A difficult truth, but one I would need to swallow.

I brought the dagger up, pinching the silver, cool blade between my fingers.

“I’ll bet against,” came the voice.

“We all would,” came another grumble.

“Shut it,” came Sammenth’s hiss.

I let the dagger loose, swift and sure. I’d never felt more certain about anything, actually, and so when it hit the tree with a dull thud, the pointed blade stuck directly in the middle of the first target, I wasn’t surprised.

But everyone else was silent. Even behind me, it seemed like the noise of the celebration died down. Because they’d been watching too? Was Sarkin?

I was happy because it reminded me of living in the horde. Sneaking onto the training grounds with my two friends at midnight, when the horde had been quiet, the whistling of daggers in my ears as my friends had sparred with wood poles as swords.

A simpler time, I thought, a stab of longing and nostalgia going through me. If I’d returned to the voliki , our domed tent that I’d shared with my mother, with cuts from the daggers, she’d only shake her head, a smile playing over her lips. She’d known the importance of freedom. She’d longed for it her whole life. It was why she’d chosen to live on the wildlands. She’d always told me that Dothik had made her feel caged.

I couldn’t help but think that she would’ve loved riding on the back of an Elthika. Because what could feel more freeing than that?

“Do I go again, or is it your turn?” I asked Sammenth.

She was staring at me before a wide grin split across her face, a laugh following. She’d had a few goblets of wine, her cheeks dark in color.

“You go again, I insist,” she replied. She presented me with another dagger, pulled from her belt, the weight nearly identical to the first. When I looked down, I saw the Elthika carved into the hilt had blue gemstone eyes, and I wondered if the first dagger had been Ryena’s. Twin daggers for the sisters. A gift?

When I let her dagger fly, I was a hair off the very center but still within the boundaries.

“I changed my mind,” came one of the rider’s voices. “I’ll bet on the Sorrina .”

By the end of the competition, I’d run through all the opponents, even Feranos, who’d nearly beaten me at the very end. My arm was sore, however, the muscles still protesting from flying to reach the Arsadia. I was pleasantly buzzed, flushed with wine, since I had to take a drink with each new opponent.

Sammenth and Ryena were sitting together on the ground, the younger sister leaning her head on the healer’s shoulder. I was perched in a stool, which had been procured for me. The dress I was wearing—another that was a similar style to the one Sarkin had ripped off me earlier—was comfortable and loose. Perfect for the warmer evening, considering the wind was blowing the waterfall mist in the opposite direction of the horde.

A small portion of the group had trickled away—including Feranos, who was speaking with Sarkin—though a large portion of the novice riders remained. A few older Karag were lingering on the outskirts of the group under the pretense of offering us food, though they hovered close, listening to our conversation with barely concealed interest.

I was being interrogated. A stream of rapid-fire questions from the Karag riders.

Where did you learn to throw like that?

When I’d lived on the wildlands in the horde of Rath Drokka…my great-uncle’s horde.

What was it like living in a horde?

Perfectly simple, though many times I’d wished to stay rooted in one place.

Is it true that Dothik is made of gold?

No. Only the statues.

What happened with the red fog ? Is it true that the heartstones defeated it ?

It was then I realized that the Karag knew much, much more about the Dakkari and our history then we’d ever thought possible. They knew our currency, our language, even the Vorakkar of our history.

How long had they’d been watching us? Studying us? Because I was beginning to realize it had been for much longer than when the first Elthika had been spotted along the coast of the West Lands. Perhaps that had been the first time the Karag had wanted us to know that they watched us.

With that thought, I looked over my shoulder at Sarkin. He was still speaking with Feranos and another older Karag male that I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t help but think he looked more relaxed than he had earlier. Perhaps it had just been me that set him on edge. He even smiled at something the older male said, inclining his head, as he sipped from his silver goblet of wine.

Slowly, the interrogation tapered off, the novice riders starting up a new game of daggers, leaving just Sammenth, Ryena, and myself.

And I finally found the time I needed to ask the questions that had been burning in me for days.

“How is it that the Dakkari came to be here?” I asked both of them. “When? All this time, we never knew about the Karag. But you knew about us all along, didn’t you?”

I had my own theory. Well-formed from things my mother had said over the years, pieced together shortly after I’d received news of her death. No one had ever believed me. Worse yet, no one had ever believed her …except me. My research in the archives had proven fruitless except for one bundle of old journal entries I’d uncovered one day. A Dakkari talking about sea travel, of navigating beyond the Teru Gulch. He’d gone on about the importance of littering the land with “seeds” to strengthen us.

No one knew how the entries had come to be placed within the archives because there was no record of them. Even Sora had rolled her eyes when she’d read them, tossing them back to me, telling me I’d have to be a fool to believe any of it. Sora had believed the author to be “half-mad.”

Then again, many had considered my ancestor, Davik of Rath Drokka, to be half-mad, when in reality, he’d had a gift of Kakkari. So I hadn’t placed much value in Sora’s dismissal.

“Hundreds of years ago,” Sammenth said, shrugging her shoulder as she raised her head. “Three hordes of them landed on the south coast during the age of Krovag.”

“Krovag?” I asked. My heart leapt. Three hordes? My theories were true.

“Oh, one of the ancients,” Sammenth added, seeing my confusion. “We keep track of our centuries by which Elthika is in power. Krovag was a great leader, though he passed the title on when his rider died of old age. He thought it time to give his rule to a new bloodline.”

Endless questions sprouted. The Karag spoke of the Elthika like they were a kingdom themselves, with laws, a governing body, and a society of their own.

Focus, I thought. I might not get another chance to ask these questions for a while.

“And these three hordes, they were actual hordes? With Vorakkar ? Horde kings?”

“I suppose,” Ryena replied. “But by the time that the Karag discovered them on their shores, it had been many years. They had multiplied, become one. They called themselves Rath Darok.”

“Then how do you know it was three hordes that landed on the shores?”

“Our grandmother told us before she died. Some of the Elders still pass down the old stories,” Ryena said. “There are still many who live in the old Dakkari territory in the South. That’s where we were born,” she said, bumping shoulders with her sister. “Many Karag live there too. Many of mixed blood, just like you.”

“But you don’t know the names of the original horde kings?” I asked, my shoulders lowering in dismay.

Sammenth frowned, as if trying to think back, but shook her head, “No. Those names would have been lost long ago, especially since the Dakkari are so strange about names. We only know the name of the horde that they became.”

Names should be feared .

That was what Sarkin had told me outside the East Gate of Dothik.

Perhaps he was right. Because then names might’ve been remembered instead of forgotten.

The lost hordes.

That was how I’d always thought of them, in the quiet of my mind. And now they truly were. Lost in history and memory.

“Why are you so interested in these hordes?” Ryena asked, her voice sleepy and relaxed from the wine. “I mean, despite the obvious. I know it must come as a shock to learn, as it likely was a shock to learn about the Karag or to see an Elthika for the first time.”

I took a deep breath, taking another sip from my goblet.

“During the third Dothikkar ’s reign, he decreed a law that all Vorakkar , the horde kings, would need to bend to Dothik’s rule. Those who rebelled against him were said to have been banished…but where ? Some tomes say banished . Others say executed . A few scrolls say left . That’s the thing about words. They can mean so many things,” I said quietly, my tone wistful. “The original account is lost, and the original meaning of the words have been twisted until it’s difficult to determine what really happened. But there were three hordes that refused to bend their will to the Dothikkar . Three. And it was like they just disappeared from history.”

Sammenth was peering at me carefully.

“I believe they left the shores of Dakkar,” I said quietly. “I believe they sailed across Drukkar’s Sea until they found land. A new home, to begin again. Free. All of this is unproven, of course, and I’m no stranger to the scholars in Dothik laughing at me. But my mother believed what I believe. And I believe they came here. Knowing that there is Dakkari blood here proves that. Now I know how . But there’s still so many questions.”

“And many of them might always be unanswered,” came a familiar voice. “Especially tonight.”

Sarkin.

When I turned my head, I saw he was standing just at the edge of the clearing. There was a mark on his neck, from my own nails, I remembered, the skin just beginning to heal. I felt my body grow even warmer from the sight, coupled with the wine.

Sammenth and Ryena straightened in the presence of their Karath .

“You have an early morning tomorrow,” Sarkin told me. “You need to be well rested. Let’s return home.”

Home.

I hadn’t forgotten about my training beginning, though I had hoped for another day of reprieve. It seemed I wouldn’t get that.

I stood, swaying lightly, and Sarkin stepped forward to take my wrist, pulling me so that his hand was at my back and I was tucked close at his side.

I waved goodbye to Sammenth and Ryena, realizing that Sarkin was right. I’d waited over a decade for answers. Would I be satisfied if I never answered all of them?

I might not have a choice, I knew.

“Are we friends again?” I asked quietly, peering up at Sarkin as he led us away from the dwindling celebration. We passed an older male, snoozing at the table, still laden with food.

In the quiet of the horde, Sarkin said, “You are not my friend, Klara. You are my wife.”

“I can be both,” I said, a little drunkenly. “We can build this to last, you and me, and I think being friends would certainly help. Don’t you think?”

Sarkin stopped in the middle of the pathway. We were alone, everyone either in their beds or still at the feast. “Is that truly what you want?”

I thought about Lishara’s temple. The magic I’d felt there. The raw passion, the ache, the frenzy of it. Of Sarkin’s lips at my throat, his cock deep inside me, my nails digging into him as I’d needed more, more, more .

“Yes,” I said, a little breathless, feeling a flush come on, and I hoped that Sarkin just thought it was from the wine. “That’s what I want.”

Sarkin said nothing.

And we walked back to his— our —stone dwelling at the top of the village in silence.

It didn’t feel like a truce at all.

Yet…right at the doorway, as I turned to look back over the celebration one last time, I heard the quiet words: “I can be your friend, Klara.”

I looked up at him, hope springing in my chest. A stray breeze pushed a wavy lock across his forehead as his dark eyes burned into mine.

“At least, I can try,” he amended, brow furrowed.

I figured that was as good as I’d get tonight.

“Friends,” I agreed.