“Lysi,” he rasped. “He stole the heartstone, spirited his wife and unborn child away from the horde and to a place of Kakkari. There, he asked for her help in healing them both.”
“Did it work?”
We were nearing the end of theDothikkar’sroad. When I cast a quick glance behind us, I could only see the glittering turrets of the city, high and proud in the sky. TheVorakkarturned hispyrokieast. Towards the Dead Lands.
“Everything has a price,” he told me gruffly. “He paid it with his life.”
I sucked in a breath.
“Butlysi,leikavi,” he murmured into my ear, his lips brushing the shell of it, making shivers explode down my spine. “Lysi, Kakkari spared his wife, who has long passed into the next life, and his daughter.”
I gave a small smile he couldn’t see, though it was touched by sadness. I was glad. It was an act of love that had spared them, though how his wife must’ve suffered, knowing his sacrifice.
“How do you know all this if you said the heartstone has been lost since then?”
The reins in his hands loosened.
“Draki,” he commanded hispyroki, who began to pick up pace now that we’d reached the edges of the plains.
His lips returned to my ear.
“Because his daughter still lives,” he told me.
My breath hitched in hope.
“She is a member of my horde.”
Chapter Ten
When the sky grew dark, the horde king maneuvered hispyrokito a group of towering rocks and boulders. It looked like a miniature mountain range among the plains but would provide us with shelter and protection for the night.
I almost cried with relief once we stopped. Though I would have ridden straight to his horde—he’d told me the journey would take us several days—a selfish part of me wanted to rest. I was exhausted, physically and mentally. My lower half was numb and whenever I tried to move my feet, they tingled painfully. My arms and abdomen were sore as well, from holding myself up for the better part of the day.
Everything was sore, truthfully.
The horde king dismounted first, swinging his leg over easily. Then he reached up for me, grabbing me around my waist and pulling me down.
I hissed, grabbing onto his wrist to keep myself from toppling over. Pinpricks, like I was being jabbed with needles, exploded down my legs and it took them a moment to cease.
But when they did, I felt burning pain through my lower half. My thighs, my inner thighs, my backside. My bones felt like they were bruised, while my buttocks and thighs felt like they had been lit on fire.
The horde king frowned down at me but never released his grip. When I realized I’d grabbed onto him for support, I forced myself to step away, to stand on my own. But when I did, my legs shook and trembled and I damn near collapsed onto the ground.
He caught me, easily and swiftly, a testament to his speed.
“Let me see,” he rasped, his hand trailing to the tie around my waist.
“No,” I said, squeezing his wrist. “I—I’m fine. I just need to rest. Please.”
He ignored me. The silver light from the moon illuminated the clearing, bouncing off the golden markings across his chest, down his arms, and off hispyroki’sscales. The moon was a mere sliver now but would be full in two weeks…before disappearing once more. Then the black moon would blanket Dakkar.
I tucked my chin down when he loosened the tie and the pants fell from my bony hips, pooling around the boots, which he tugged off a moment later. He turned me, crouching in the earth, and my face would’ve burned right off had I not been in such pain.
I heard his curse when he lifted the hem of my tunic, baring my naked backside to his eyes. His hand came around my ankle, spreading my thighs. I almost cried out when the cool night air brushed across the chafed, bleeding, sore flesh.
He cursed again and then was silent. When I managed to crane my neck and peer down at him, his jaw was ticking. He looked furious.
At me? I didn’t know. Was he angry that I was so weak? That I couldn’t handle a single day on hispyrokibefore practically disintegrating before his very eyes?
