Arokan stood and helped me up, placing his hand on the small of my lower back. His heat felt nice.
“Kivale,” he murmured, inclining his head. “Kakkira vor. Thank you for your time.”
Then he urged me to the entrance of the tent.
“Let me speak with yourMorakkaria moment,” Hukan said before I stepped outside.
Arokan hesitated, watching her with narrowed, suspicious eyes. He looked at me, then jerked his head and ducked outside, leaving me alone with the older female. I would rather be alone with a hundredpyroki, I thought.
“You are not good enough for him,” Hukan said, simply, her voice quiet and hushed. “He made a mistake in choosing you.”
I froze, my back straightening, her words stunningly…hurtful.
“Do you dislike me because I’m not Dakkari?” I asked, keeping my voice level and even. “Because I’m human?”
“Nik,” she said. “I dislike you because I think you are weak. I think you do not have the spine or the stomach to be aMorakkari. Not like his mother.”
His mother?
My brow furrowed and I lowered my voice so Arokan would not hear. “You knownothingabout me.”
I sucked in a breath when Hukan reached out to grip my raw wrist, right over the markings she’d just made across my flesh. She squeezed and pain sizzled through me, making me dizzy. “These are the same markings that his mother had. It is a disgrace that they mark you now. He might not see that now. In time, he will. He will realize how wrong you are for him, for thehorde.”
I tugged my wrist from her grip with a strong pull, making her stumble. Her gaze flashed up to me in surprise.
“Don’tevertouch me again,” I hissed.
Her jaw clenched, her eyes narrowing, but she wisely held her tongue. Fury rose, hot and quick. I’d never liked bullies and there was no doubt that she was one, despite her age.
“My mother had been mauled by one of your wildpyroki, outside the protection of our village,” I told her, holding her gaze, straightening. I stepped forward, so that I was close, so that she would hear me when I whispered, “I killed her myself with a blade to ease her suffering. I was fifteen-years-old. So don’t tell me what I have the spine or the stomach for. You knownothingabout me.”
A sharp breath whistled out from her flat nostrils when I pulled away.
I turned my back without a second glance and stepped out of the tent, away from that cloying incense.
Once outside, I felt like I could breathe again.
Chapter Fourteen
“Are you well,Missiki?” Mirari asked as we walked together though the thick forest spread behind the Dakkari camp. Lavi flanked my other side and Arokan had given me a guard, who trailed behind all three of us. When I’d protested that I didn’t need to be watched like a child, he’d only looked at me, grunted, and then turned away to go about his duties for the day. And the guardstillfollowed.
My wrists still throbbed from Hukan’s markings, the skin surrounding the gold slightly reddened. Mirari told me to keep the salve on it and to wrap it in cloth, which I did.
“Do your markings ache? We should return to camp. I can fetch you the healer,” she asked.
No, I didn’t want to go back. Not yet. Arokan had told me not to venture far when I told him that I needed fresh air, that I couldn’t stand another long afternoon trapped in the tent. Surprisingly, he’d relented with little argument. After what Hukan said, I needed to clear my mind.
With a look over my shoulder at the guard, I said softly to Mirari, “A female named Hukan did my markings.” I was unsure if I was supposed to say her name out loud, but I was beyond caring. “Who is she?”
Mirari blinked, looking down at the forest path. The forest was overgrown and thick in places, but the path that Mirari led us down seemed maintained, as if Dakkari trekked through it often.
“She did not take to you, I assume,” Mirari ventured, her voice hesitant and light.
I was slowly becoming to trust Mirari. She’d never given me a reason not to, despite telling Arokan that I refused to eat when I first arrived to the camp. Though she often told me her purpose was to obey me, she was always honest and didn’t shy away from the questions I asked.
I relied on her for information and I was thankful for the things she’d told me, especially since I understood the Dakkari very little.
“No,” I answered her. “She did not.”
