“But truthfully, their temple has been here for as long as I can remember,” he told me. “For hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”
“And do you think they’ll help us?” I asked, swallowing.
Wrune’s arms tightened around me.
After the Dead Mountain, ever since I’d woken, my gift was weakened. I could still a create a shield and yet, it was small. I couldn’t hold it for long.
TheMorakkariof Rath Drokka—Vienne was her name—told me that her powers had eventually returned to her, though they had never been the same. After she used Kakkari’s heartstone, she’d never been the same.
And I understood what she meant. Sometimes, at night, I heard those millions of voices in my dreams. Kakkari’s voice. And when I woke, I swore that I could feel my powers surge, but when I tried to make a barrier, I couldn’t.
My gift had become unpredictable. In the tumultuous times we were living in, that frightened me. Because what if Wrune or the horde needed my protection again and I wasn’t able to save them? Just the mere thought gave me nightmares.
“We will not know until the warm season,” Wrune said. “The ice is thawing, you see?”
I looked to where he pointed.Oralain Dakkari meantfrozen. The frozen pass. And it lived up to its name, though Wrune told me that the ice should’ve thawed last month, as it always had before.
“With Okkili taking our place in the eastlands,” Wrune murmured, “it will be theVorakkarof Rath Serok’s responsibility to find the priestesses.”
The newestVorakkar. The one I heard whispers about through our horde.
“You think he will?” I asked quietly.
“I think hemust,” was what Wrune said. Then, quietly, he confessed, “When we met, he was not what I expected.”
“Because he’s the king’s son, you thought he’d be pompous and arrogant?” I teased.
His chuckle warmed me from the inside out. My cheeks stung with the bitter cold but I nestled myself more deeply into my husband’s arms. This felt nice. We’d been traveling for over a week now. And traveling with a horde was more intense and stressful than I thought it’d be. There was so much that Wrune had to account for, so much that he had to oversee.
I helped him whenever I could and I liked to think I was doing a good job of it. Wrune seemed proud of me, at the very least, but anything that would take a load off his shoulders, I would do gladly.
But with the stress and travel, we barely had time tobewith one another. We barely had time to talk. Just like this. And so I savored the moment, knowing that I could be patient. Soon, we would settle near his grandfather’ssaruk, thesarukof Rath Rowin, and we would have all the time in the world together once Wrune returned from his summons inDothik.
“I think Rath Serok was made to be a horde king,” Wrune said. I considered that a high compliment, coming from him.
“Like you,” I murmured, finally taking my eyes off the glittering north and turning in my husband’s arms.
Going to my tiptoes, I pressed my lips to his, weaving my hands into his cold black hair. A rough sound came from his throat and he responded to my kiss eagerly. Traveling had also not given us much time forthis.
When his hands began to roam, I broke the kiss and laughed. “Your horde is just down the mountain,Vorakkar,” I reminded him. Whispering, I said, “And I’m pretty sure Hukri and Revia can hear us.”
“It wouldn’t be anything they haven’t heard before,” he grumbled, his hands sliding over my thick, fur-lined trews to squeeze my backside.
Knowing I needed to distract him before he had me bent over the ice-covered boulder next to us, I asked, “Are we camping here for the night?”
“Lysi,” he said. “So we can take our time up here.”
“Insatiable male,” I teased, pushing at his chest a little when he dragged me towards him. He stole another kiss as I grinned.
Then he sighed, dropping his forehead to my own as his tail trailed up my leg. I felt it wrap around my ankle, holding me to him.
“We near your old village,rei kassiri,” he told me.
Slowly, my grin died. I looked at him and said, “Yes, I know.”
“The bog you lived near is likely still frozen over but tomorrow, I’ll take you there. You think you can navigate from there to where you buried your father?”
“I know I can,” I whispered, feeling confident. “Will the rest of the horde be…”
