Chapter Forty-Three
Pushing away the list of names of those that would leave after the thaw, I rolled my stiff neck and groaned at the ache that throbbed in my back. I’d been hunched over the table for most of the day and my body was finally rebelling against me.
Twelve was the official number my horde would lose. Not as many as had previously threatened to leave, but I was relieved to see two of the council elders’ names among that list. The head warrior, the third elder, and Vodan chose to remain.
Before, seeing such a loss to the horde would’ve been devastating news. Now, I saw it as an opportunity. I would lead the horde through theHitrimountains and settle us in the southlands. If thehebrikkiherds were as plentiful as I suspected they’d be and if we chose to base beside a river, I could journey toDothikor the outposts and open my horde to twice as many as we would lose. Growth was the key—growth was the goal. The most successful hordes on our planet had grown into permanent outposts settled around Dakkar like markers of history and prosperity.Thatwas the mark I wanted to leave. An outpost of Rath Tuviri. It was where I wanted to rest, once my time asVorakkarwas over.
Behind me, the entrance to the council’svoliki—though there was no more council, so I supposed it was simply mine now—pushed open.
As I turned, I stilled when I saw it was Nelle who’d ducked inside.
“Yourpujeraksaid you’d be in here,” she said, her eyes flickering between me and my surroundings. Thevolikiitself was nothing exceptional, so there wasn’t much to see.
“You have been speaking with mypujerak?” I asked, still surprised that she’d come to seek me out. We hadn’t spoken for two days.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s actually quite pleasant once you get past the scowl.”
The sound I made wasn’t quite a laugh, but rather an acknowledgement of the truth of her words. And those words were so inherentlyNellethat I felt my heartbeat triple in speed, wondering if she was finally loosening her guard around me.
Then she bit her lip, her eyes dropping to the floor for a brief moment, to the thin rugs that were maroon and gold in color.
“Is there something you need,kalles?” I asked, keeping my voice soft in the quiet of thevoliki. It was late and dark outside. I’d been inside longer than I’d anticipated, but I found the work kept my mind off the female standing in front of me.
“Yes,” she said. “I was wondering if you have time to come to the training grounds with me. I…I have a proposition for you.”
My heart thudded until I thought it would beat from my chest. Swallowing thickly, not wanting to raise my hopes, I rasped, “A proposition?”
“A bargain,” she amended. “We like bargains, you and me. Isn’t that right?”
My breath left my lungs in a rush and I said, “Lysi, we do.”
When she turned to leave, I could only follow helplessly. All she had to do was look at me and I’d do anything she wanted. The power she held over me was humbling and frightening.
The training grounds were a short distance away. We didn’t speak as we entered. In the far corner of the enclosure, the target that themitrihad made her was still standing. Many warriors even used it now, not just her.
We stood only an arm’s length away. The setting was so familiar to me that it squeezed at my chest, yet everything had changed since the last time we’d been here together, making bargains.
Nelle looked up at me. We hadn’t spoken since two nights ago. The emotions from that night still felt raw inside me.
“You did hurt me, Seerin,” she said softly. “You hurt me and I was blindsided by it.”
I found myself holding my breath, not daring to breathe as I absorbed her words and the way they cut me all over again.
“You hurt me and a part of me wanted to hate you. Ineededto if I was ever going to survive it and even knowing that, I couldn’t,” she said.
“Nelle—”
“And I don’t think that you’re a monster,” she said. I realized what she was doing. She was finally responding to me, when I’d begged her two nights ago totell me something, anything about her state of mind. “And I think that if our paths had never crossed, I would have simply drifted away by now. I was on the verge of becoming completely numb to life before you came. It was a big fear I had. And I think your goddess sent you to me. I think you were always meant towakeme to this life, to the beauty of it. Though perhaps I needed to remember the pain of it first before I could rebuild myself.”
Stunned, I could only listen, her words wrapping around me like a vice.
“Yourpujeraktold me what the council threatened you with that night,” she said after a brief pause.
My jaw ticked in response.
“It wasn’t just a choice between your horde and me, Seerin, like I thought,” she said. “It was a choice of your oldest friend and the loyalties you had to him, of the dreams you’ve always had for this horde from the beginning, of the expectations placed upon you asVorakkar, of the pressures you faced because of that. It was a choice betweenallof that and me.”
I couldn’t deny her words.
