Underneath the water, my hands curled until my fingernails made little half-moons in my palm.

“I understand,” I said, my tone coming out a little breathless, almost sinking beneath the water.

“What do you want to ask of me?” he began, when the silence stretched and it was apparent I wasn’t leaving.

“Where have you been sleeping?”

“I told you,” he said, fire sparking in his eyes, “that I take my vows seriously. Despite…”

He was angry at what I was implying.

“Despite?”

He huffed out a breath. “Despite that we do not love each other. Despite that we barely know each other.”

“I’m trying to change that.”

He stilled. “The former or the latter?”

I flushed, but I hoped the darkness of the night hid the worst of it. Quickly, I said, “The latter, of course.”

He relaxed in obvious relief, and I didn’t know why I felt a thread of disappointment tighten within me.

“There are empty dwellings in the horde,” he told me. “Sarroth is vast. The majority of our people don’t travel with the horde. Only potential riders and those who choose to split their time between the Arsadia and our homeland. As such, there are always places to sleep here in Rysar.”

I nodded, believing him.

“Don’t ask me again,” he continued, walking closer to me, making my heart pick up pace. “I keep my promises, Klara, even to you. It’s an insult for you to continue to question my honor to our union.”

“I won’t,” I whispered. He couldn’t possibly hear me over the falls, but he inclined his head in acceptance nonetheless. Raising my voice, I asked, “Why bathe down here, then?”

I swore the edge of his lips quirked up. “Because I like it down here. It helps me focus. The wildness.”

“The wildness helps you focus?”

“For someone like me, yes.”

“You strike me as a very structured kind of person, one who doesn’t welcome surprises.”

“Then you have me all wrong. Or maybe you’re correct. Maybe this is who I am now, who I’ve needed to become,” he informed me, those eyes reflecting the silver light of the moon. I went a little dizzy looking into them, my legs treading water faster, despite my aching muscles. “Once, most would have called me reckless. Actually, everyone would have.”

A familiar feeling of intrigue pulsed through me like my own heartbeat. It was like the feeling of a brand-new book, one I’d never seen or touched before, but one that held so much promise. That giddy excitement as you peeled back the cover, as you thumbed through those first few pages of delicate parchment.

“But we’re not talking about that tonight,” he added, leveling me a raised brow that had my hope deflating once more in my chest.

“Then what are we talking about?”

I held my breath as his eyes dripped down the column of my throat and to the rippling water lapping just above my breasts. He wouldn’t be able to see them underneath the dark water, but merely knowing that he wanted to sent a dangerous thrill through me. My legs momentarily stopped treading water, and the lake came up to my lips, wetting them.

“I want to talk about you,” he said.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 25SARKIN

“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.”