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

Chapter 25

SARKIN

“Me?” Klara asked.

“Tell me how you got your scar. About your dreams.”

Her hand reached out from underneath the surface of the water to press her fingertips to the mark.

“You recognized Zaridan because you’ve seen her before,” I said. “You told me that.”

“Yes,” she told me. “I started having dreams when I was young. They started slowly, easy enough to write off, easy enough to disregard as a child’s imagination.”

“But you saw the same things, over and over again,” I guessed, knowing that that was the case for Karag who exhibited power like Klara’s.

“An Elthika came to Dothik when I was twelve. We’d just returned from the wildlands, two days before. After that day, the dreams started happening almost nightly. In one of them, I remember Zaridan slashing out at me, and I woke up with my face bloodied, screaming.”

Discomfort curled in my chest. “You were just a child. You must’ve been afraid.”

“Yes,” she admitted, her eyes darting back and forth between my own. We were close enough that every so often, I felt her knees brush my legs as she kept herself afloat. How easy it would be to reach out and hold her against me. “But it was my mother who was most afraid after that.”

“Tell me why.”

I had my suspicions, but it was different than hearing her perspective. During our scouting missions and from the reports of our spies, we’d learned the Dakkari priestesses of the North Lands were snapping up anyone who showcased just a hint of magical ability. They were feared. They had the authority, under the Dothikkar , to take whomever they pleased.

“It’s complicated,” she said, her lips quirking in a sad smile.

“Help me understand, then.”

She blew out a rough breath, looking over the darkened, rippling water of the lake. I watched as her eyes tracked beyond the edge of the shore, going into the forest.

“I am descended from not one but two powerful females who exhibited Kakkari’s gift. The ability to wield heartstones, to feel their power and channel it. A human woman named Vienne, queen to the Mad Horde King, Davik of Rath Drokka, was my ancestor. She was the sorceress who used heartstone magic that unleashed the red fog over the Dead Lands, trying to save her husband.”

“And the other?” I asked, though I knew.

“Kara of Rath Serok. Who I’m named after. The first hybrid of our history, who wielded not one but two heartstones during the battle that defeated the red fog,” she said. Her eyes lifted to mine. “The ethrall .”

My lips pressed together.

“As such, everyone in my line has been scrutinized by the priestesses very carefully. We don’t know much about heartstone magic, but we do know it can pass down through bloodlines.”

“Does that mean your mother had a gift as well?” I wondered.

“Yes,” she said. “She did. She had visions, like me. Hers didn’t happen in sleep though. They could happen anytime, so she had to be careful. She had to be mindful about who was watching her.”

“And what did she see?”

“She called them the lost horde kings,” Klara told me, a sad smile on her lips, but her voice was strong and proud.

“The Dakkari who landed on our southern shores centuries ago,” I guessed.

“I can only assume,” Klara said. “She saw this place too. We are both connected to Karak, to your homeland. No one believed us, of course. Then again, I had to be careful with who I told because I didn’t want to attract the priestesses’ attention. It was difficult enough being in Dothik. I felt like they were always watching.”

“That’s why you wanted to know about them,” I said, inclining my head. “It proved you right. It proved that your mother knew a truth that no one else did.”

“People called her crazy,” she said. Though she tried to hide it, I saw how it still cut her. “They called her mad, just like they called Davik the Mad Horde King. They dismissed her. Part of why I dedicated my life to research and knowledge was to prove that she wasn’t.”

I could see the love she had for her mother.

“What happened to her?” I asked, straying even closer. She bobbed under the water when her legs faltered, and I reached out to grip her waist. Her lips parted, but she slowly relaxed into my touch, trusting that I wouldn’t let her slip beneath the surface.

“My mother grew up in a noble family in Dothik…because of her bloodline. She and my father, they’d known each other since they’d been children. They’d grown up together, loved each other. But he married another, one who helped secure him his throne. My mother might’ve been from a noble family, but they were poor. My father’s wife wasn’t,” she said. “Their affair continued for years , until my mother found out she was pregnant with me. She knew the queen wouldn’t accept that. She feared retaliation, knowing I would have a legitimate claim to the throne, especially because of my other bloodline, and so she left. My great-uncle was a horde king. He extended her a home, and she took it. I was born on the wildlands. I grew up on the wildlands.”

“Did she ever tell you who your father was?”

She shook her head. “My mother kept a lot of secrets—that being one of them. There were rumors. Children could be cruel growing up, repeating things they’d heard their parents whisper about. I never believed them until my mother told me herself.”

“I’m confused,” I admitted. “Why did you both return to Dothik then? Especially if she was trying to keep you safe?”

“My great-uncle died,” she said. “The horde collapsed. We had nowhere else to go, but my mother had family in Dothik, who helped us get established. We got a small room above a tavern in the market district. My mother worked there. The dreams became more frequent, and when I woke that night with this scar…that’s when she got even more scared.”

“Your father found out you were in the city. He found out about your birth,” I guessed.

She inclined her head, and my fingers tightened on her hips.

“He actually wanted me back then,” she said, a sad smile crossing her face. “But I think he just wanted to feel attached to my mother in some way. And I was that link to her. He was furious that she’d hidden the pregnancy. When I was fourteen, he had me come live in the palace. Maybe to punish my mother—I don’t know. But she made a deal with him, or maybe even the queen. Something I could never truly figure out. But I went to live with them…and my mother was sent away. To the orala sa’kilan .”

“The priestesses,” I knew, understanding finally dawning.

“One year later, I received news that she was dead.”

My jaw tightened, a knot forming in my belly.

“She was always so scared of the priestesses. Ever since our heartstones were wiped out, they’d been trying to create new ones. With the power that some Dakkari manifested, that’s what they would use—using people like power sources,” Klara said. “But more times than not, it would kill them. That’s what happened to my mother. She was used for her power, and it killed her. And the worst thing is that I think that was the deal. She willingly went to the orala sa’kilan so that I would be protected from that fate.”

It was a tragedy. Pure and simple. What the Dakkari were doing to their own people…it was pointless. Heartstones couldn’t be created .

“She gave her life to keep me safe in Dothik. I don’t know the extent to which my father knew. I do know he loved her—he wasn’t seen for weeks when we heard of her death—but he became cold to me after that. Like he could barely stand to look at me,” she said. Her eyes were glassy with a film of tears. “I just wish we’d stayed on the wildlands. We were happy there. Safe. Maybe she’d still be alive.”

“I’m sorry, aralye ,” I said gruffly, my chest tight from the tale. “I didn’t know.”

She wiped under her eyes and then splashed her face with water. She gave me a half-smile, trying to dispel some of the tension between us.

“It wasn’t all bad,” she told me. “Dannik protected me. I met my friend Sora. I was content in the archives. I was content in my research, though more times than not, it was frustrating. But it gave me purpose. It made me feel connected to my mother.”

I remembered her brother, Dannik. By our reports, he would overstep the eldest daughter and his father would instead pass the throne to him. Would he make a good king? That would remain to be seen, but it had been in my report to Elysom.

Did it soften me toward the Dakkari male? Knowing he’d watched over his sister?

Perhaps.

I’d seen how protective he’d been over her outside the East Gate. Knowing what I knew now, my estimation of him increased. Because he hadn’t needed to love Klara. It would have suited him better to have ignored her, like some of her own family had, no doubt.

“Heartstones cannot be created,” I informed her. She stilled under my grip. “They are not made . They are grown.”

“With the roots of the thalara tree,” she guessed. Her own visions had proved that.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s terrible what your priestesses are doing. Pointless and terrible. Then again, most things are when it comes to power and fear. Together? That’s a deadly combination, especially in a group of people with unchecked authority.”

She inclined her head. “Do I get to ask a question now?”

It depends on what it is, I thought immediately. Then I felt shame. She’d been honest with me. More open than I’d thought she might be. But I was used to the Sarrothian, who kept their emotions close and their tongues behind their teeth more times than not.

She wasn’t anything like a Sarrothian. She couldn’t be more opposite.

“Yes,” I said instead.

“Is Dakkar in danger from an attack by the Karag?”

That wasn’t the question I’d expected. But she’d perhaps wondered why I’d been poking about her history. Did she think I’d asked about her family, her mother, her father because I was trying to glean information?

“Make no mistake, Klara,” I began, “the Karag have been monitoring the Dakkari for decades.”

“Spying, you mean.”

“Call it what you want. But the Karag do not make it a habit of entering a war with neighboring nations without reason. And certainly not unprovoked.”

“But you want the heartstones.”

I blew out a breath, adjusting her slightly so that she was more in the crook of my arm, her naked side brushing mine.

“We were spying , as you call it, because we were trying to establish if there were heartstones worthwhile to try to take.”

“To steal, you mean,” she corrected again, quirking a brow, and I huffed out a sharp laugh.

“I prefer negotiate for .”

Klara laughed, the sound carefree and beautiful. For once. It was the first time I’d heard her laugh like this.

“We believe that an ancient Elthika took the heartstones and dropped them over different nations. There are reports of other heartstones all over this planet. Dakkar isn’t the only race that has possession of them.”

She straightened in my grip at that. “Why would an Elthika do that?”

“To share power,” I answered. “To give it freely. To start wars. To hide them. To grow them in different soils to see if they had different effects. Who knows. I’ve heard all theories. But the one thing that is never in disagreement among Elysom’s scholars is that it was an Elthika’s doing. Long ago.”

“We believe that they are gifts from our goddess, Kakkari,” she informed me, gazing up at me with those warm, seeking eyes. “I like our explanation better.”

I felt my lips curl slightly, and I hid it by looking away.

“The Karag don’t believe in gods or goddesses, do you?”

“We believe in our Elthika,” I answered her. “And our bonds with them. That’s all we need to know.”

She didn’t argue with me. In fact, she accepted my simple answer, inclining her head.

“How long will we be in the Arsadia?” she asked.

“Until after the illa’rosh , after the riding season is complete,” I told her. “Why?”

“I would like to do my own research on the lost horde kings. Sammenth and Ryena told me about the villages where they grew up. I was hoping to talk to some of the Elders, to see if I can record their knowledge, their stories before they’re truly lost forever.”

“If you make your bond with an Elthika, you can do whatever you want as queen,” I answered her.

“Truly?” she asked.

“Did you expect a fight from me about it?”

“Well… yes .”

“Fulfill your oath to the Sarrothian, Klara,” I started, dipping my head down so our eyes met, “and you can do whatever you please.”

A determined spark lit up her eyes. “I’ll do it, then.”

I didn’t hide my smile this time. “If that was all I needed to say, I wish I’d done it long before now.”

“That’s why we should learn more about each other,” she pointed out, though she kept her smug satisfaction at bay. “Don’t you agree?”

I grunted.

“Though I haven’t truly learned much about you tonight,” she added with an assessing look.

I grunted again.

“And you won’t tonight,” I said. “Now stop talking, wife. Let me enjoy my wildness in peace.”

“You won’t tell me just one tiny thing?” she pressed.

I bit out a sigh. She had been open with me tonight, had answered my own questions without complaint.

I swallowed down my discomfort when I said, “Do you know how a Sarrothian Karath is chosen?”

“No,” she said, a little breathless, like she couldn’t believe her pressing me had actually worked.

“They are taken from a pool of the best acolytes and riders for the territory when the position becomes open, either when the previous Karath dies or relinquishes his position or is removed.”

“Removed?” she asked.

“By the Elthika,” I answered, knowing that was how my predecessor had gone. “These choosings only happen once in a lifetime, maybe twice, if that. And it happened to fall during my rider season. Perhaps luck, or perhaps fate. One rider from each of Sarroth’s villages is chosen and sent to the cliffs. Whoever claims a Vyrin more often than not comes out a Karath , though other riders can challenge them. In the weeks following, those challenges can seem endless, but not many are foolish enough to stand against a Vyrin and their chosen rider. Except other Vyrins.”

I saw Klara process the information. And when her brow furrowed, I knew she was filling in gaps, what went unspoken.

“Haden was like a brother to me,” I told her, swallowed deeply. “Going into the illa’rosh that year, he was favored to be the next Karath . We both tried to claim a Vyrin that year. Lygath rejected him. Zaridan chose me. Nearly all the acolytes died that year. I tried to save Haden…but in the end I watched him fall. And I was challenged relentlessly in the aftermath. Elysom allowed a law where I could be challenged for a full year afterward. There were many who believed I had murdered my own friend to claim the throne of Sarroth. So that’s why I don’t like to speak of it.”

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, and I barely heard her over the rush of the falls. What struck me was how sad she looked by my confession. As if she hurt for me. “Sarkin, I had no idea…”

“What’s done is done,” I said, steeling my voice. “That year taught me a lot. It was a trial, and I came out with the respect of my people. I had to go through it.”

I’m glad I did, I thought. It made me a better Karath in the end because it taught me to trust very few and to build an Arsadian stone wall around me, allowing no one close.

“Enough for tonight,” I told her, releasing her only when she began to tread water. “It’s late. And you need sleep.”

“Will you return with me tonight?” she asked softly. The question struck me as vulnerable.

I blew out a rough breath. There was a reason why I’d stayed away…but I realized I couldn’t run forever.

“Yes,” I answered. “I will.”