“There’s no one here,Vorakkar,” came Besik’s voice, who I hadn’t even realized had been among thedarukkarsto join us. “They’ve left.”
He kept his gaze averted, however, his voice low.
“Nik, they are here,” I said. “There’s another place I think they might be.”
And I cursed myself for not checking there first. Precious moments. I pictured Mina with blood trailing from her nostrils, with her bloodshot eyes, and the excruciating pain that had flowed into me, however briefly. Andthatwas the pain she was feeling now. Right this moment!
“Let’s go,” I ordered, taking them to the next stairwell that led to the upper levels.
The witches had wanted to sacrifice me in the Ghertun’s throne room, hadn’t they? Because that was where this all began. While they didn’t havemeanymore, it was possible they believed that specific place still possessedpower. Remnants of Kakkari’s power that would help channel and strengthen their own.
We climbed up endless flights of stairs, taking them two or three at a time in our haste. When we reached the upper level, the one we’d started on, I roved down the long hallway to my right, orienting myself. I remembered the detailed sketches that a member of Drokka’s horde had made, when theVorakkarhad tasked her with it. The Mad Horde King had believed they would prove useful. They alreadywere.
As such, I knew the top floors of the Ghertun’s fallen stronghold well.
The Dead Mountain was like a maze. It was a series of hallways, of twisting, tight stairwells, and darkened tunnels. The scent of death and rot clung to the place like skin. I sensed the unease of mydarukkarsas they followed close behind me.
I tried to imagine Mina living in this place and I couldn’t. In my mind’s eye, all I saw was her walking in the sun, Hukri close to her side, enjoying the breeze as she walked through the horde. Her flesh was darkening from Kakkari’s sun. She was becoming stronger from Kakkari’s nourishment.
But here…
In this place full of darkness and death, she had lived for weeks, longer even than she’d been at the horde.
I wondered if she’d felt the unease I felt as we neared the throne room. I wondered if she’d avoided the top floors like a plague. Could she feel the sickness? Could she smell the decay?
The doors were closed. As we neared, I saw two human males slumped against them. And I knew we had the right place. We wereclose.
Striding up to them quietly, I saw that they still breathed. I recognized one of them. His arm was still broken from when I’d snapped it, when a group of humans had swarmed me to readjust my chains in my cell.
Rising, I kicked open the heavy doors, snapping whatever lock had been secured on the other side. Immediately, mydarukkarsflooded into the throne room, as the scent of death hit us like a wall.
The Ghertun were stillhere. There were piles of bodies that had fallen the day that Rath Drokka’sMorakkariused the heartstone here.
Up on the dais, next to a toppled throne, I saw who I could only assume was theSetava Terun. Dressed in white furs tipped in black blood, she was drawing a blood marking onto the floor.
“Bevir,” came adarukkar’sgrowl from next to me, shock in his voice.
With my jaw tight, with my chest aching, I saw the lifeless body of thedarukkarnext to the witch. She watched me, her wild red eyes outlined in black paint, as she dipped her claws in the wound in his chest, and dragged fresh lines of blood across the floor.
Natevik’s brother. A member of the horde.
Gone.
Slain.
My gaze flicked, assessing the rest of the room quickly. That wasn’t all the death within, I realized. A Dakkari female was lying close by, a similar wound in her own chest. As if her heart had been taken too.
One of their own, I thought, my throat tightening with the realization. They’d killed one of their own. Why?
But I thought I knew. Forsacrifice.
Had it beenherlife that caused the fog to surge? Or had it been mydarukkar’s?
A dozen Dakkari females were within the throne room, all dressed in thins furs and pelts and stained hides. Thesarkias. And it looked like time out in the wild lands had not been kind to them. They were almost as malnourished as thevekkiriwere.
And the humans…
They were here too. Mina had told me there were over thirty people that remained of her village. Though I only counted twenty-two present and most of them were slumped over, lying next to the sludge of Ghertun bodies that littered the throne room.
