“Yes,” I whispered. Because I knew it was changing. I felt it.
I realized this might be my last chance to speak with Lokkaru, to see her. The faces of my family flashed in my mind. When I looked down at my arm, I swore I saw a shadow of black veins but then it was gone.
“I have to ask you something,” I said, urgency infusing my tone.
Lokkaru inclined her head. “Is this what you have needed to know? I realize now you were trying to ask me something, but my mind came and went.”
“It’s about the heartstone,” I said.
Her face was smooth and unblemished. The longer I looked at her, I swore I saw her features flicker to a younger version of herself.
“You want to know where it is,” she guessed.
“Yes,” I whispered. “You asked me yesterday…you asked me where my family was and I said far from here. You assumed they were dead.”
She inclined her head.
“But they are slaves under the Dead Mountain,” I told her, a lump in my throat, my breath coming fast. “I need the heartstone, any heartstone, in order to free them. That’s why I’m here. Davik…he said you might know where it is.”
Lokkaru’s expression did change then. Sightly. A small downturning of her lips. It was puzzlement.
“Davik knows where it is,cossa,” she told me.
Even in this dream, my stomach dropped.
“What?” I whispered. I shook my head. “No, he—he said you might remember. But that your mind was—”
“I told him where the heartstone was when he accepted me into his horde, Vienne,” Lokkaru said. “The exact location, the one my mother told me herself. Because she thought that one day, I would go seek it out, that it would give me Kakkari’s protection. I did seek it out but I did not take it when I found it.”
Disbelief spread through me, in addition to something that felt an awful lot like…betrayal.
“Davik knew?” I whispered, hurt spearing me. “This whole time, he’s known where the heartstone is?”
“He told me he did not want to seek it out. That it was better lost,” Lokkaru said. “I agree with him. The heartstone’s power is not well understood. It can be dangerous.”
“I need to know where it is,” I told her, deafened to what she was saying. Something shifted in my breast, possibly similar to the determination I’d felt within Davik last night, when he’d told me I would be hisMorakkari. “My family will never be free without it.”
Iwill never be free, I amended silently…only I heard the words echo in the space between Lokkaru and I.
The heartstone was the only thing I had left to bargain with.
Her features softened. “Oh,cossa.”
“Please,” I begged, swallowing.
“It is dangerous,” Lokkaru warned.
“I would do anything for my family,” I told her, stepping towards her, though the distance between us didn’t shorten. The dream seemed to expand, shifting in its dimensions. “Please, Lokkaru. I need your help. I’m—I’m already dying. I don’t have much time left and I need to reach my family before it’s too late.”
“You plan to give the heartstone to the Ghertun?” Lokkaru asked softly.
My stomach sank when I heard the hesitation in her voice. “I need to,” I told her, unable to lie. “But the Ghertun cannot use Kakkari’s power. It means nothing.”
“Like I said, the heartstone’s power is unknown.Cossa, I cannot—”
“Please,” I whispered again. “I—I don’t even know if I’ll make it, if I have enough time to find it. But I have to try. I have to.”
Lokkaru peered at me closely. The veil over her face seemed to ripple with an unseen wind.
