“How do you know?” she asked.

I gazed into my wife’s beautiful gray eyes, tipping up her chin. The color of them reminded of the fog that flowed over Sarroth on misty mornings, calming and peaceful. Slowly, I said, “Because you said they were. And I believe you. It’s as simple as that.”

She blew out a small breath and tried to hide her pleased smile and the flush that colored the tops of her cheekbones. She was so lovely sometimes, it hurt.

I pressed a small kiss to the scar that curved over the side of her face and then turned my attention back to the tree. She went quiet, but I could tell that her mind was racing.

“The past intertwines here,” she whispered. A shiver traced gently down my back. “It’s all around us. We just have to listen for it. I hear it.”

“You’re thinking of your ancestor, Vienne?”

She nodded. “It saddens me to watch this, even though I know it’s for the best. Because this tree once saved her life and the life of her husband, her horde king. It gifted her the heartstone that gave her the power to save her people. There is history here. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the last people to lay eyes on this tree had been Vienne and Davik of Rath Drokka,” she said. “There’s something…awe inspiring about that. Magnificent and humbling. Like our past is closer than we ever imagined. Not separated by centuries, but rather like a bridge. A bridge to that past…and it’s right here.”

I was in love with the way her mind worked because she thought so differently from me. She saw beauty in places where I’d never even thought to look. She found art in the folds of this life, where I had only ever seen duty and necessity.

“Sometimes you have to destroy in order to create, aralye,” I told her, squeezing her hip, pulling her closer to me. “Don’t be saddened by this. Your ancestors gave us this gift. You knew where this place was, you knew the stories passed down your bloodlines of this specific tree. That was not an accident. That was fate. All of this information is just pieces of torn parchment. Pieced back together and rearranged so you can see the entire story. Because of your bloodlines, both of our people have another chance. This might be the last thalara tree in existence, and you knew exactly where to find it. That’s magic and history. Perhaps they are the same thing.”

Klara looked up at me with parted lips as she absorbed the words. “I love that thought,” she said.

Just then, Feranos, next to one of the Dakkari guards, called out, “Attached. We’re ready, Karath.”

My eyes met Dannik’s from across the way. He inclined his head.

“Zaridan,” I called out.

I couldn’t see her because the Ancient Groves was a thick, overgrown forest, but I could sense her presence. I felt the ground shake when she stomped.

“Thryn’ar!” I commanded. The flying command.

A roar shook the trees as my Elthika jolted into flight. She knew to go slowly…but it only took her mere moments to uproot an ancient tree.

“Faryn,” I ordered. Stop.

The trees shook when she landed back to the ground, the black Dakkari-steel chain rattling.

Klara had gasped, her eyes on the thalara tree, lying on its side, black earth spilling from the underside of its roots like dripping ink.

The sudden blue glow of the heartstones was almost blinding as it filled the clearing.

“There,” I said finally, wanting to see her reaction more. “You were right, Klara. They were here. All this time.”

She turned her watery gaze onto mine. I knew her emotions were out of relief, of happiness…but also of grief. Her mother had been killed trying to create the very thing that had been under Dakkari earth for centuries. That would cut her, deeply, for a long time. It might never stop, and I wished desperately that I could shield her from that ache.

But…there was also hope in her gaze. Hope for a new future. One in which our people would work together, creating tighter bonds, pushing us toward greater things together. She’d told me that Dannik might be struggling with the call for his own destiny, the weight of it…but I knew that he was part of that future. That we wouldn’t be able to succeed without him.

“Sarkin.”

“Hmm?”

Klara turned into my arms as life burst in the clearing. There was excited chatter from the guards and my kya’rassa, the scholars here to write about this day—her friend Sora among them, the Dothikkar even, Dannik, Gevanth and Harnek. It was a celebration. A day to remember.

“I know we still have work to do here,” she said to me. “But after it’s done…I want to go home.”

I couldn’t help the small smile that edged its way onto my features. “And where’s home?”

She grinned. “Sarroth, though truthfully…it’s wherever you are.”

Briefly, I rubbed at my heart when it fluttered in my chest.

“Lysi?” I asked, my tone teasing, before winding my arms around her back.

“Lysi. I’m eager to get back home. To start a life with you, by your side. To train Lygath. To begin chronicling the first Dakkari hordes. To learn everything I can about being a Sorrina to the Sarrothian. That’s what I want. So…”

Behind her, I saw Dannik crouch down at the roots of the thalara tree, his face glowing blue from the magic as he reached out his hand. My eyes returned to Klara.

“So?” I asked quietly, leaning down briefly to brush my lips with hers, unable to resist stealing a kiss.

“Will you take me home?” she asked.

“Yes, aralye,” I replied.

Dannik’s fist curled around the heartstone, the first of many, plucking it from the roots of the dying thalara tree.

A new age had begun.

“Let’s go home,” I said.

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EpilogueKLARA

Lygath was snapping his sharp teeth at a wild shearling that was getting too close.

The shearling was no larger than an Elthika egg and was covered in soft brown fur, its tufted paws peeking out from beneath it. It hopped closer and closer to Lygath, the small mammal seemingly not intimidated by the Vyrin, though its long ears straightened and twitched as it approached.

Lygath and I were in a forest clearing. Private, quiet, and peaceful. It had become our afternoon routine after I was done with my interviews in Lakir. I’d review my notes, and Lygath would snooze happily.

I tried to bite back my grin, watching the exchange with the shearling under my lashes. Every time Lygath raised his head to glare at me—as if telling me to deal with the small nuisance—I darted my gaze down to the notebook spread open in my lap, my quill scratching hurriedly across the parchment.

Lygath huffed. Then he growled, a guttural sound in the depths of his throat. And yet, though my bonded Elthika was considered a somewhat unpredictable danger—or at least, he used to be—I’d never seen him hurt even an insect. So I didn’t fear for the shearling’s life.

It was a dizzying yet harsh juxtaposition. That he’d let riders fall to their deaths—my husband’s friend being one of them—yet he was infinitely careful with the creatures I’d seen him interact with.

What I was still learning was that we would never fully understand the Elthika. Scholars in Elysom could write endless books on them, hefty tomes that rivaled the length of the ones on Dakkar’s entire history even. They could give their symposiums and lectures on one facet of their existence—their mating habits and customs, the circumstances of whether they chose a wild birth or whether they entrusted their eggs to a hatchery, their courtships, the dances of their flights—and still it was a widely accepted truth that they would always be a mystery.