“And that frightens me,” I told him, the words falling from my lips before I could stop them. “I feel…I feel like an imposter sometimes. Like I don’t belong. Sometimes I don’t think I belong anywhere except…”
Except in the northlands, I thought. With my father. My aunt.
But I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t want to sway his decision, after all.
I blew out a breath but then stilled when I felt Wrune’s fingers tighten around my hand.
“I felt that way too,” he murmured to me. “My first season in the wild lands.”
I licked my lips and quietly asked, “Truly?”
“Lysi,” he murmured. “All hordes typically have a rough first season. It’s to be expected. I doubted myself every day. I agonized over decisions until they almost paralyzed me into inaction. But then I realized that I waschosenfor a reason, that I hadenduredthe Trials for a reason. I realized I needed to trust my instincts or else my horde would suffer for it. Hordes fail, you know. All the time.”
“They do?” I asked, surprise threading up my throat. I hadn’t known that.
He inclined his head, dragging his goblet over and taking a long sip of his wine.
“There was aVorakkarwho passed the Trials only two years ago, whose horde crumbled after a few moon cycles. It happens. I was determined not to be one of them. And Ilearned. You will do the same.”
“You say that so easily,” I said. I was reminded how easy I found talking to him, at least when we were fighting. Under the Dead Mountain, I’d found talking to him as easy as breathing. Only, I suppose he’d had a single-minded interest in capturing my attention then. To make me like him, to make me free him.
“Because I know it’s true,” he said, his voice so low and without hesitation that I wanted to blindly believe him. But that had gotten me into trouble before and I didn’t plan on making that mistake again. “You like to learn. You soak up our language frighteningly fast. You watch the horde and study its movements…and I know because I’ve watched you too. Today, you went to the tannery because you wanted to see it and explore it for yourself, though even seasoned horde members avoid that area like a plague. And you memorized the map of Dakkar, didn’t you? You know all the territories, all the rivers and lakes and seas, all the mountain ranges. Hukri told me you even memorized the Dakkari words written across it.”
I stared at him in surprise. He’d…been watching me this whole time? Keeping an eye out for me, even when I wasn’t aware of it?
“Maybe I’m trying to learn as much as I can to make it easier to leave this place. Maybe I study the maps so I know which direction to run. Maybe I try to learn Dakkari so I can communicate with any hordes that come across my path.”
I didn’t know why I said those things to him. Things that I knew were lost to me now. No, not lost exactly. Just…willingly forgotten.
I’d made an agreement with Wrune, regardless of how that agreement had come to pass. I would honor my word, just as I expected him to honor his. And if last night was anything to go by, he would not only keep his word, but he would give me exactly what I wanted. Tess, free and safe.
To give him credit, my husband didn’t even blink at the words that tumbled from my lips. Instead, a gruff sound emerged from his throat and he brought me closer to him. The kiss he gave me this timewasthe spine-tingling kind. Passionate and deep and before I knew it, I was clutching onto his forearm because I was afraid I’d topple over.
Against my lips, he murmured, “If that is all true,rei sarkia, then you only make me more determined to give you a reason tochooseme.” My heart gave a pitiful little thud. “To stay willingly because you want to.”
“And how would you do that?” I asked, curious.
“I have yet to present you yourdeviri,” he told me. I remembered that word. The bride gift. The wedding gift. “Shall we do that this night to help sway you? Or should I take you right to bed and exhaust you so much you won’t be able to run away?”
“Both are tempting,” I managed to choke out, leaning away from him, trying to calm the thundering of my heart. “But for now, I think I simply wish to finish my meal.”
His low chuckle spread goosebumps over my arms.That sound. I had the strangest urge to see if I could bottle it, to keep it with me forever, to pull the stopper off the vial whenever I wanted just so I could hear it at my leisure.
“I like your laugh,” I found myself telling him. Though the next moment, I ducked my head in embarrassment, quickly picking up the dish of spiced, boiled nuts.
His hand slid from my neck, back down my spine. If I didn’t know any better, I would thinkI’ddumbfoundedhimby the way I caught him staring at me. At a loss for words, for once in his life?
If all nights were like this one, Wrune wouldn’t have to tempt me to stay, I mused. He wouldn’t need to entice me with silks or jewels or golden trinkets. He wouldn’t need to keep me limp and dazed and satisfied on his furs until I couldn’t move a muscle.
“Maybe it’s your laugh that will make me want to stay,” I confessed quietly, darting a quick look over at him.
“Then you will hear it more often,rei Morakkari,” he promised.
Chapter Forty-Four
“Ask it,” Hukri ordered me.
For mypiki, I was discovering that she was actually quite bossy. Not that I minded.
