Or was he an orphan, like me?
“I never knew my father. My mother told me he left with a horde before I was born,” he said. “My mother still lives inDothik.”
“But you didn’t live with her when you were younger?”
“I saw her often,” he said, pressing his lips together, “but she lived in a brothel. She had to. The young were not allowed inside.”
I froze but held his eyes.
“I formed a small group, slowly, with otherduvnaI encountered. We watched out for one another, we stole for each other, we ate together or we did not eat at all. My mother gave us gold when she could.”
“Seerin,” I whispered.
I thought of the young Dakkari boy, mylirilla’sson, the one who’d made me laugh with his innocence, and I wondered if Seerin had been that young, living that way inDothik.
It made my chest ache.
“So, you see,rei thissie, I am the bastard son of aDothikiprostitute,” he rasped, his eyes straying to my lips when I swayed close, “who became aVorakkar.”
“How?” I whispered.
“My mother.”
There was a strain in his eyes, a tightening around his mouth, that made me want to stop him. Yet, selfishly, I needed to know everything about him.
“My mother is very beautiful,” he informed me.
“I believe that,” I said, looking into the eyes of the son she produced.
“TheDothikkarheard of her. A beautiful prostitute with golden hair. You know why gold is important to the Dakkari? Why we ink it into our skin and use it for our weapons?” I shook my head. “Because gold is from Kakkari herself. She pushes it from the earth like she is giving life. So, when theDothikkarheard of this female with golden hair, he had to have her. In his arrogance, he believed Kakkari had given her to him. A gift from our goddess, the highest of honors.”
I looked at his hair, soft and long and yellow. I’d just asked him how many Dakkari had hair his color and he’d told me two…himself and another. Now, I knew it was his mother he’d referred to.
“I was older when he took her from the brothel and made her one of his concubines. But my mother is intelligent,” he said. “She saw her opportunity, saw the lengths to which theDothikkarwould go to possess her, and so she struck a deal with him. She would forever bind herself to him if he overlooked her son’s ancestry and allowed him entry into the next Trials.”
Realization sparked in my mind.
“And so she became his madness, his obsession,” he murmured, tracing over my cheek before running his fingers down my throat. “He denied her at first.”
“But not for long,” I guessed, my heart thrumming at his touch, at his words.
“Nik, not for long,thissie.”
The fire in the small basin I’d built crackled and sparked loudly, making me jump.
“What happened next?”
“I entered the Trials with his permission. I am certain he believed I would fail in the beginning stages,” he said, his jaw clenching. “But I finished one challenge after another until theDothikkarhimself could find no reason to deny me.”
“I can almost picture that,” I told him.
“Lysi?” he murmured, one corner of his lip curling.
“I can imagine that you were very stubborn and determined.”
“I was,” he said. “And there are many who wish I hadn’t been so stubborn and determined.”
“TheDothikkarincluded?”
