“I meant what I said. When I first saw you in Dothik…I never imagined that it would be like this,” he admitted.

Together? Was that what he meant? Us, naked, on the edge of a cliff?

“You knew who I was,” I murmured, “when you saw me in the market.”

“I had scouts on you, yes,” he told me. “But I only knew you were part of the royal family, one of the Dothikkar’s daughters.”

“Was it always your intention to marry one of us?”

My gut churned, thinking that he could have easily demanded Alanis. Or Lakkis, the beauty of the family. I would have never known him like this.

If not for the scar that Zaridan had marked me with.

A sharp breath left him. His eyes darted back and forth between mine before dropping to my lips briefly.

“No,” he answered. “I never had any intention of taking a Dakkari wife. You were a surprise. One I didn’t foresee.”

I turned more fully in his arms so we faced one another, placing my legs underneath his drawn-up knees.

“You mentioned that…Elysom gave you something called mysar commands. That marrying was part of them.”

Sarkin’s gaze flickered. “Are you asking me something specific? Or making a general observation?”

I thought he well knew what my question was, but I could actually feel a barrier being placed between us. I was desperate to stop it. I didn’t think I could stand his retreat after today of all days.

“You are very rarely open with me,” I said quietly, uncertain how he would take the words. His brows lowered, and I felt the way his muscles tensed, like he was on the verge of retreating. I gripped his wrist before he could move away, feeling his heat. “Is it so bad that I want to know you? That I want to learn about you? But this wall you keep up…it makes it nearly impossible.”

Sarkin’s shoulders lowered. He looked away from me, his jaw pulsing, his eyes scanning the darkness of the Tharken Pass below us.

“It’s self-preservation, aralye,” he told me. “And it is habit and has very little to do with you.”

“But I’m your wife, Sarkin,” I argued. “This, between us, is still so new…but I bonded myself to you. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“And who is your loyalty to?” he asked.

“This again,” I breathed, shaking my head. “We talked about this.”

“If given the choice, would you not return to Dakkar? At this very moment? Leave all this behind?”

“Of course not!” I cried out, staring straight into his eyes. “And if you don’t believe me, that’s more of a testament to your loyalty than mine.”

His expression shifted darkly with the words.

“How can we ever build anything if you believe I’m always looking for a way back home?” I asked. “I don’t know what else I can do or say to make you believe me.”

But I am keeping something from him, I couldn’t help but remember. And if I told him, would it only create more of a divide?

“Maybe I’ll stop thinking that when you stop thinking of Dakkar as ‘home,’” he said.

A sharp breath escaped me.

I didn’t see a choice. If I kept it to myself, he would only have more reason to mistrust me.

I bit my lip. But then I gathered my courage.

“I had a dream last night. I lied to you. I didn’t dream of my mother,” I said.

His eyes sharpened on me. “What, then?”

I dragged in a sharp breath. But I figured this was the perfect place to tell him, away from the horde, trapped on a ledge, so we could actually talk about this without disruption.

“The heartstones,” I said, meeting his eyes. “I know where they are.”

His body went still. I didn’t even think he breathed.

“Where?” he asked sharply.

“Back…in Dakkar,” I said. I’d almost said home.

He dragged in a full breath, his shoulders rising. “What?”

“If my dream was true…but I believe it was,” I added. “They are in Dakkar.”

“Tell me,” he said. “Everything.”

The bitter thought in my head was, But you never tell me anything.

Still, I relented. I told him about the dream, about what I’d seen, the thalara tree in the middle of a forest near the Dead Lands.

“These heartstones were different,” I finished. “They seemed dulled. Like the one in King Arik’s sword. They’re losing power.”

“The tree is dying,” Sarkin said, raking his gaze over my face. “The heartstones will die with it if we don’t reach them in time.”

“I figured as much.”

“Why are you so certain that your vision is true? Have they ever been wrong?” Sarkin asked.

“Yes,” I said, eyeing him. “Sometimes they’re just dreams. The difficulty is dissecting which parts are true because sometimes my dreams and my visions can meld together. I know this one is true because…there have been stories circulating in my family’s line for centuries. Ever since Vienne. Stories about a bleeding, whispering tree that gifted her a heartstone when she needed it most.”

I took in a deep breath, wondering if he would be angry.

“Its location had been long forgotten, or perhaps purposefully kept secret, but the stories have always persisted. My own mother told me them, who heard them from her mother. She said it was an ancient family secret, that only those in the Rath Drokka line would know the truth of how Vienne found the heartstone that night.”

“Why did you lie to me?” he asked next, after a brief lapse in silence.

“I don’t know,” I said quickly.

“That’s not true. Tell me, Klara.”

I took his hand in mine. His expression was intense, but he was willing to listen to me. “I feared what it might mean.”

“And what is that? War?”

I inhaled deeply. “My own mother died—was murdered—trying to create these rocks. Seeds. Whatever you want to call them. I’ve watched my father give free rein to the priestesses in our North Lands. For greed. For power. The heartstones have done great things—twice that we know of, they’ve saved my people. But they’ve also created terrible things…and I know the Karag want them desperately. With the Elthika at your side, with the ethrall, I wasn’t…I wasn’t certain.”

“And you think the Karag would fly to Dothik and slaughter your entire people for the heartstones? Without a second thought?” Sarkin asked, narrowing his eyes on me.

“No! But you did unleash ethrall on my family to get me to do what you wanted,” I argued, frowning. “Was it so inconceivable for me to have the passing thought that you might do it again, especially when the heartstones are involved? What you want most?”

Sarkin reared back, turning his head to the side, a scoff escaping him. I kept a solid grip on his hand, but I didn’t need to fear him leaving. Instead, when he turned back to me, he pressed closer, cupping my face in his palms. He lowered his head until we were eye level.

“There is an enemy nation in the northeast of Karag. They called themselves the Hartans. A decade ago, only a year after I took over rule of my territory, Elysom called us to war. It took six months of battle until they bent a knee to us,” he said. “Many died. On all three sides, since it was also a war against the Elthika. But war had been the last resort with the Hartans. We tried negotiations. Treaties. Trade pacts. We gave them a supply of heartstones for their own use, to progress their technologies.

“But they wanted Elthika. They wanted eggs, to raise them as battle-bred beasts, to control them, to use them. It’s nonnegotiable for the Karag. The Elthika are not to be owned. The Hartans never understood that. Only after they attacked one of the outer villages in Grym, destroying a hatchery and attempting to steal the Elthika eggs there, did we declare our war against them.”

I processed this information carefully and then asked, “Why not use the ethrall on them?”

“Because they used the heartstones we gave them to develop a new technology. It acted like a shield against the ethrall. We couldn’t pierce it—and not all Elthika have the ability to use ethrall, only some of the Vyrin. Elysom’s offering toward peace ended up prolonging a war that lasted months, one that could have been won in moments and saved countless lives.”