Thanred smiled at her. “It pleases me to hear you call me that,” he said. “But you are claimed. We are mated. You can call me by my name. Orblazeer. Husband, in Dranark.”
She smiled, the idea that he was asking to be called husband warming her insides. “Yes, husband,” she said.Saying it made her insides tickle. “Will you tell me now? Where we are going?”
Thanred took a few more steps, then came to a halt next to a fallen tree. He pointed to it. “Sit,” he said. “You should rest.”
She sat down as he’d asked, grateful at being able to rest. Each day it had become harder to get moving and march until the sunset. She looked at him, hoping he would reveal what the secret about their destination.
“We are going home. Tomyhome. To the caves,” he explained.
Royla furrowed her brow. It was not the response she’d been expecting. “I thought that...”
Thanred waved her question away. “I am unwanted, yes,” he said. His expression hardened. “But I will not have my bride living in the wild. Nor will I stand raising our child in this loneliness.”
She shook her head. From what he’d said before it seemed like, for him, there was no going back to his home. “But what about what you told me? Dodlin and the others?”
He clenched his jaw at hearing the name. “Dodlin is a coward. He deserves to be killed.”
Her eyes shot open at what he’d said. “Killed?” she whispered.
Thanred turned to stare at some point far off in the distance. “We were a proud people once, we Dranark. We did not turn on each other or squabble for power. There was order to our tribe. Rules.” He seemed lost in the memory.
“What happened?” Royla asked.
Thanred paused before replying. “The weak became hungry. Our leaders, my father was one, did not do enough to shield them from the world. The order used to be that those who had plenty would give to those who had less. Fear gripped us all when the humans began their attacks. When the First War began there was even less to go around. Everyone was too busy fighting. It was Dodlin’s father whofirst harnessed that fear for his own ends.”
Royla sat staring at him and listening to his explanation.
“They divided us. They preyed on the weak, telling them lies. Saying that if they swore fealty to them, they would return the Dranark to prosperity. There were some who believed them. The banishments began. Anyone who dared to stand up to Dodlin or his father was outcast, forced to wander the wilds until...”
“Until?” Royla said, breathless.
Thanred’s expression darkened. “Dranark males do not last long without release,” he growled. “Most took their own lives, falling from Mother Mountain rather than being driven to insanity by their need.”
She gasped in shock at his description, covering her mouth with a hand. It took some time for the reality of what he’d said to settle into her mind. “Then why... how can we go back there?” she asked.
Thanred let out a heavy breath. He shook his head. “There is no choice for us but to try. There will be others who feel the same way but are too scared to speak up. We must... find them, somehow. Just how...I do not yet know.”
“But Dodlin,” she said, her mind already drawing a line to the danger this plan held. “Surely he won’t allow you to return?”
“He will not,” Thanred said simply.
“Then what is the sense of going back?” Royla asked, her heart already beating faster at what she feared Thanred might say.
“There is honor in facing him,” Thanred said quietly. “He must be challenged.”
“Challenged?” she asked.
Thanred knelt in front of her. He took her hands in his. His palms were warm and a little damp. “There is honor in this,” he said softly. “Even if I fail, I have no doubt they would take you in. The Dranark might be broken but they are not yet animals. They won’t send a female out into thewilds. Not when she is with child. Even if that child is mine.”
Royla had barely heard anything he’d said past the wordfail. She stared deeply into his eyes, hoping the truth wasn’t what she feared. “Fail?” she whispered.
Thanred’s shoulders slumped forward. “If I challenge Dodlin, others might come to his aid. There is a chance that...” He trailed off, then swallowed, as if his throat had tightened.
There could be no doubt any longer about what he meant. Royla began shaking her head, unable even to imagine a life without him. “No,” she said quietly.
“Royla, you must listen to me, I’ve...”
“No!” she screamed, squeezing her eyes shut tight to try to keep the thought of Thanred being no longer out of her imagination.
