“I’m not any good at this,” Sarkin’s soft voice came, sounding almost amused, though I also heard a thread of frustration. “I’ve never needed to be. But I am trying, Klara.”

“We can figure it out together,” I said softly. “We have to.”

“Ask me whatever you want tonight,” he told me. “I’ll answer your questions.”

I tried to hide my surprise by curling my fingers into his wrist. “Really?”

“Yes. But I want to ask you something first.”

“All right,” I said, not denying I was a little nervous by the seriousness in his expression.

“Did you really believe that I would have unleashed the ethrall on Dothik?”

I blinked.

“You did,” I reminded him softly, the question coming as a surprise though I answered swiftly. “Not for long, but you still did.”

He grunted. “Did you think I would have let anyone die?”

“In that moment?” I said, meeting his eyes, squeezing his wrist. “Yes. I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know your intentions or how far you would go to claim what you wanted.”

“And now?”

“No,” I breathed, my brow furrowing at the restlessness I heard in his tone. “Now I know you meant the ethrall as a bluff. You knew exactly how long to let it linger. But even if I didn’t give you what you wanted, you would have stopped it. You’re a good leader to your people, Sarkin. You’re honorable. You’re fair. You wanted to frighten us, and you succeeded. But I know you wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”

He inclined his head, processing my words, and I spied relief on his features. Was this what he had been worrying about? That I thought him a murderous monster?

“I…I keep thinking about what we fought about at the Tharken cliffs,” I admitted.

“Me too,” he grunted.

“It was wrong of me to suggest that you would seek war with my people,” I told him. “I’m sorry for that. But…they will always be my people, Sarkin. I will always think of Dakkar as home. It’s where I was happy once, it’s where I lived with my mother, it’s where Dannik is. It doesn’t mean I won’t eventually think of Karak as my home too.”

His tone was low when he admitted, “It was wrong of me to suggest that you choose.”

“I’ve already chosen,” I said, wanting him to understand that. “I won’t ever choose to return to Dakkar. I’m here now. With you.”

His swirled eyes—all the shades of bright golds, endless greens, and warm browns—flickered, his pupils widening. He was so beautiful that it hurt to look at him sometimes.

I pressed a kiss to his cheek to soften my next words, but they needed to be said. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t say them. “But that doesn’t mean I want to see my own people suffer. And at first, it hurt me to realize that you would use our marriage for your gain.”

His sharp breath whistled, and he reared back to meet my eyes.

“Did you mean that?” I asked, swallowing the fluttering of my heart.

“You’re not just a tool for me to use, Klara. You’re my wife. And I am as bonded to you as I am to Zaridan.”

“But I understand that this began as a kind of…political marriage,” I said. “I’m highly aware that there is a benefit for you, taking me as your wife. Just as I’m aware that I can be an advocate for my own people, to soften your sharp edges toward them.”

Sarkin tilted his head as the words bloomed between us. My hand slid down his wrist, following the ridges of his arm and up his shoulder. I stopped my exploration on his chest, feeling his breath rise and fall beneath my palm.

“Wives have swayed the minds of their husbands for centuries,” I whispered. “It’s an ancient understanding. I’ve been thinking about why I felt so hurt by our fight, and I think it’s not so much the knowledge that you might use our union for political benefit but that I’d be kept out of that decision. There’s nothing I hate more than being in the dark. Than being ignored or overlooked or cast aside. And I…I think…”

My cheeks went a little warm. Sarkin’s voice was rumbly when he commanded, “Tell me.”

“I think part of the reason why I chose to go with you was because you were the first person in a long time to actually see me,” I confessed, my vision going a little blurry. “To look at me and see someone of value. To look at me like I was a puzzle you needed desperately to solve. I’d been numb for so long. I’d felt alone. Then you appeared out of nowhere with your dusty Elthika-scale hands and your unrelenting ethrall. And it was like the flip of a page. A new chapter had begun. And suddenly I was forced to live again.”

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Chapter 33SARKIN

“That’s why I chose this,” Klara said.

Again she was being vulnerable with me. Again I felt this resistance in me to give in.

“I gave you cruelty,” I argued.

And you gave me beauty.

What had I really offered her?

“No,” she said. “True cruelty hinges on your enjoyment of seeing someone suffer. I’ve witnessed that in Dothik, felt it within my own family. You would never want me to suffer, Sarkin. I know that.”

I blew out a harsh breath, leaning my forehead against hers. “I’ve given you no kindness though.”

“That’s not true either,” she said, her words brushing against my skin. “How could you think that?”

It’s not enough, I thought to myself, feeling my heart thunder in my chest. I closed my eyes. This couldn’t continue.

I made the decision, right then and there, to be better for her. Better for us.

She was soft and understanding. Forgiving.

I was cold and controlled. Unyielding.

I might not ever be the type of male she’d envisioned herself with. But I needed to try to meet her in the middle. Or else we would both be miserable. She might retreat back into herself, just like what she’d done in Dothik. I understood self-preservation better than most. I understood the toll it took.

All I knew was that it would be hell to see her like that. To see her a shell of the female before me now, with tears shimmering in her eyes and a soft, hopeful smile on her features.

Her mother raised her beautifully, came the sudden thought. But why keep that to myself?

And so I repeated the thought out loud, my voice gruff but certain, and I was rewarded with a radiant smile. I felt deep affection swell in my chest, a feeling that was becoming more and more difficult to ignore when it came to Klara. I rubbed at it, not sure I’d ever felt it so keenly, so heavily before.

“I wish I was more like her,” she told me, pulling away to trail her fingers through the starlight grass at the edge of the spread blanket. We were whispering in the meadow like two young lovers who’d snuck away from a village to be together. “Growing up, my mother longed for freedom more than anything else. I’ve been having this overwhelming thought that she would have loved to fly with the Elthika. It would have suited her perfectly. She was brave and fearless. She savored moments, like she was memorizing every last detail. She was this warm, perfect beacon of wildness and joy. She had the loudest laugh in the entire horde. I remember her laugh so distinctly, even though I’ve begun to forget her face.”

There was solemn grief mixed in with her soft smile as she spoke about her mother. I remembered my own. My mother’s quietness, her distant love, her mental retreat from me. She had become a shell because her body had betrayed her. Perhaps she’d kept me at arm’s length so that it would hurt less…when the inevitable happened.

I couldn’t help but think that our mothers were opposites of one another…and they had both loved us in different ways.

“I hate most of all that she grew fearful,” Klara told me. “She changed in Dothik, especially after my dreams became more and more frequent. Anything to protect me, to hide me from the priestesses’ watchful eye. Their ever-watchful eye. I think I became afraid too.”