I was all too aware that once I delivered the message, the Dakkari might decide to kill me and send me back to the Ghertun as a warning.
“A message?” the male scoffed, peering at me in the darkness. His red eyes glowed, reminding me of the Dakkari male’s eyes last night, twin orbs in the darkness. “What message could avekkiribring that theDothikkarwould listen to?”
I swallowed.
“How did you get into the capital?” he demanded, stepping forward. The guard behind me shifted.
“I have a message for theDothikkar,” I said, proud when my voice didn’t shake, though my limbs trembled. It didn’t matter how I’d breached the city. “A message from Lozza, the Ghertun king.”
The male froze.
“Neffar?” he growled. The guard behind me moved. The guard behind the older male did as well, his hand coming to the hilt of his sword.
“Hanniva,” I said quietly, meeting his eyes. “I must speak with him.”
I hoped that he saw the desperation in my gaze. I hoped that he saw my fear. Perhaps he would pity me. Or perhaps he would have the guards kill me where I stood.
At that thought, a strange sense of quietness draped over my shoulders, as if I’d used my gift on myself, taking away my fear and in its place pushing stillness. Or perhaps it was despair coupled with acceptance.
Because it was in that moment that I realized my destiny wasn’t my own. The guards could decide to kill me and I could do nothing. I could not fight back. Whatever would happen…would happen.
Instead of killing me, the older male said something in Dakkari and the guard grabbed my arm, leading me forward through the gate of my cell and to the door of the dungeon.
Once we stepped from it, we walked down a darkened hallway, passing various Dakkari dressed in black—theDothikkar’sguards, I guessed. They wore no armor, not like the patrol guards, but they all had swords at their sides. The Dakkari male last night had had a sword too. Had he been one of theDothikkar’sguards?
We attracted many stares and it was only when I happened to look down at my feet that I realized why. My cloak was gone. Somehow I’d managed to forget that. When they’d brought me to the dungeon, they’d stripped it off, searching for weapons.
I was only wearing my sheer shift dress, the one made of pressed and treated Ghertun moltings. I was walkingalmostnaked through the halls of theDothikkar’skeep. The eyes of the dozens of guards we passed made my belly clench with dread.
You should be used to it, I thought, clenching my teeth together until my jaw ached. It was what I’d been expected to wear under the Dead Mountain. Then again, I’d been assigned to a single household as a slave and I left only occasionally. Even when I’d been summoned to meet with Lozza, only a handful of Ghertun had been in attendance in his private rooms.
I’d never been looked at so freely as the guard led me through the keep and it made my skin feel tight and wrong.
The older male walking a few paces ahead of me never looked back. He was wearing a long cloak made of brown hide, the tip of his tail flicking out from beneath it. There was an elaborate golden pattern stitched into the material and it shimmered whenever we passed by the lanterns hanging on the walls.
From the darkened hallway, we climbed up a set of spiral stone steps until I was winded and limping. The dungeon had been deep underground, I realized when we emerged from the stairwell into a grand foyer, sparkling and gleaming in gold. It was so bright that I momentarily had to shield my eyes with my shackled hands.
“Hurry,” the older male snapped back at me and the guard pushed me forward. My bare footsteps rasped across the hard, cold floor. We came to a stop in front of two large doors, one with a depiction of Kakkari and the other with a depiction of who I assumed was Drukkar.
The Dakkari’s deities.
I didn’t study them for long before the doors were pushed open and we stepped into the throne room. A grand, cavernous hall that seemed endless. It took everything in me not to gape. I didn’t think I’d ever been in a room so large. White columns and archways soared overhead and I craned my neck to see where they ended.
The grand hall was sparsely furnished, except for a high dais with a single, golden throne atop it. Lozza had one similar. Before the dais was a wide space. Perhaps for dancing and the celebrations I’d heard the Dakkari were so fond of, or for public hearings.
Or private sentencings, I thought, my gaze zeroing in on the group of males that sat around a magnificent long table. It was set off to the left of the hall, nestled before large archways that opened to the outside, that allowed a cool breeze to whistle around the wide columns. And beyond that, there was a perfect view ofDothik, in all its glittering glory. With its tall turrets and high, safe walls.
The older male scurried forward, stooping down next to the male at the head of the table and speaking into his ear.
TheDothikkar.
He was everything I’d envisioned theDothikkarwould be. Advancing in his years, intimidating with his cool glare, and downright terrifying. Though his waist was larger than I thought it’d be—his belly was spilling over the waist of his trews—he still made an imposing figure, lounging back in his chair as if it were a throne.
He met my gaze, his expression darkening at whatever the older male whispered into his ear. When his eyes tracked down my body, I remembered again that I was practically nude and shifted my shackled wrists until they were shielding my breasts from his view.
It was then that I looked at the others seated around the table and all the breath in my lungs whistled out in what sounded like a terrified whimper. Instinctively, I stepped back, gathering energy, imagining it shielding me, but I still had not recovered it.
If I thought theDothikkarwas intimidating, it was nothing compared to the sheer terror of being in the presence of the seven other males seated around the table.
