Looking atMaman, I tried to gather the energy in my mind, imagining it filling the space between us, like it had hundreds of times before. I was a voyeur of emotions…I always had been.
Only, I felt nothing. There was nothing there. No sizzling energy or the familiar feel of my power.
My gift had left me.
It had been Kakkari’s price, the price I’d needed to pay to access the heartstone’s power.
And I would pay it a thousand times over if I had the choice. I was grateful the goddess hadn’t asked for my life instead.
Even still, the loss of my gift felt like the loss of a limb. I didn’t know how to live without it because it had always been there before…but I would learn.
I reached out my hand, to touchMaman’scheek.
“I’m so happy to see you again,” I whispered.
“You saved us,mon coeur,” she told me, giving me a wavering smile. “You saved us all.”
The entrance to thevolikipushed open and I saw Maxen duck his head inside. My brother’s gaze widened when he saw me awake and my smile wobbled as I grinned at him. He called something over his shoulder, shouting towards the encampment, before he rushed inside.
He caught my hand in his, pressing a kiss to my palm. Strong, handsome Maxen with his light blue eyes and wide smile…he looked changed too. I was certain that we all were.
“Maybe now it isyouwho is the bravest of us all,” he told me, his voice thick with relief. Ever since we were younger, he always saidhewas the bravest of us all, that he could face down an entire horde of Dakkari warriors and live to tell the tale.
My laugh was husky and dry.
“Hi, Maxen,” I said, uncaring that I was crying, since he’d always teased me for it anyways.
Eli appeared, his mop of dark hair glittering from the firelight, followed closely by Viola. My breath left me, seeing them both. Eli was thinner than he’d been before, his face pale. And Viola…my beautiful sister, who I had spent most of my youth envious of. She was still beautiful, of course, but some of the light in her eyes, which had always glittered with warmth, had been extinguished. I wondered if it would ever return.
But she burst into tears when she saw me awake, deep shoulder-shaking sobs, and my last two siblings joined us, huddled close, and I embraced all of them in turn, squeezing tight, never wanting to let go again, until we werealla mess of tears and relief. I breathed in their familiar scents and heard the rhythm and cadence of their voices, which I had drifted off to sleep to for so many years. And I felt so much love fill me that it was difficult to breathe.
How many times had I envisioned just this? How many times had I envisioned us together again and safe?
My breath hitched, my eyes going toMaman. “Thevovic?”
“There was a cure. Lozza hadn’t lied about that,” she told me, wiping her cheeks. “All of us have taken it. You still need to take yours.”
I didn’t think I did. I thought that Kakkari’s power had seared whatever had remained within me.
“And the others? Are they all right?”
“Yes,” Eli said. “Most of the Killup and Nrunteng returned to their homes earlier in the week, led by Dakkari guards.”
“And the humans?”
Maxen hesitated. “A couple died fromvovicafter you left. But the ones that lived…they have no villages to return to. Most came from a single village that the Ghertun destroyed three years ago. The horde king...yourhorde king offered them a home here, as did the otherVorakkar. Rath Kitala, I think. Some went with him. Some remain here.”
Relief threaded through me, so powerful that it left me drained.
And Davik…just like I’d known, he was a good male. The best of them, as Lokkaru had once said. Giving lost souls a home, a place to belong. Like Lokkaru herself, like Bissa, like Nillima…like me.
Just then, as if my thoughts had summoned him, Davik entered thevoliki, trailed by Hedna.
With my family around me, with my heart full to bursting, I locked my gaze with theVorakkarwho had captured me utterly and completely.
His chest was heaving as he regarded me. There was a strain and a darkness in his gaze that lifted and brightened when he saw me awake. He looked as if he hadn’t slept and I justknewthat whenI’dbeen asleep, he’d watched over me and held me close at night, worrying all the while.
My love for him was a quiet thing, deep within me, etched into my bones and infused through my veins.
