“Nik,” Wrune said. “Just you and me,lysi?”
Relief and gratitude flowed through me. “Thank you.Kakkira vor.”
“Valavik knows that I am taking you there tomorrow. We’ll ride out on Okan once the sun rises. The horde will rest here another day and then we will move on.”
I nodded, swallowing.
“Will you be all right with this?” Wrune asked gently. “We will likely pass your village as we navigate towards the bog. At least, where it used to be. You might see the ruins of it.”
“I’m all right,sailon,” I told him, though his worry and concern made soft affection bloom in my chest.
Just when I thought I couldn’t love this male any more, he always found new ways to wiggle into my heart.
“I’m not afraid,” I told him. “And I want to see my father’s grave again. I want to be near him. I want to remember him.”
Tomorrow would be difficult but it would be worth it. So incredibly worth it. And something I’d only dreamed of for a long, long time.
Wrune pressed a kiss to my forehead, sliding his hand up and down my back in comfort.
“Tess’ mother is buried somewhere nearby too. And my aunt,” I told him. “I need to find their graves too. To pay my respects to them.”
Though my aunt and I had always had a difficult relationship, blood was blood. She was my father’s sister. And I knew she’d loved me, in her own way. And I had loved her in my own way as well.
As for Tess…she would be happy to know that I’d visited her mother. I’d had the weapons master craft gravestones for all of them. Onto them, Hukri had helped me paint patterns in gold, each one unique and beautiful. There had been many graves dug after our village burned though. With all the gravestones themitrihad given me, I thought I could mark all of them. In memory.
Tess had decorated her mother’s gravestone, carving her given name into it meticulously, though it had taken her nearly a week. And before Tess and the majority of the villagers left our horde, she’d given it to me. She’d entrusted me to find her mother and I had promised her that I would.
“Of course, Mina,” Wrune replied. The soft pelt of his furs tickled my cheek when I pressed my face into them. “And when you visit her in the new settlement after the warm season, you can tell her all about it.”
I smiled into his chest, though I still felt a pinch of sorrow whenever I thought about Tess.
As promised, we’d had our long conversation after I woke. It had been a difficult one. Turned even more heart-wrenching when Tess told me she’d rejected Wrune’s offer to join the horde, as had many of the humans.
I’d been dumbstruck by the decision. But Tess told me that she was determined. She’d had a multitude of reasons but the biggest one was that she needed to stand on her own feet again. She’d lost who she was under the Dead Mountain, with Benn and the others and all the terrible things they’d witnessed ordone.
She’d lost herself. She didn’t recognize who she’d become.
But she’d been resolute in her decision to build herself backup. To build the others back up. Because sheneededto.
With Wrune and Valavik’s help—and with the otherVorakkars’support—Tess had come up with a plan.
She wanted to build a new human settlement.
The largest one that had ever existed on Dakkar, though it would take time, of course.
A settlement where any of the displaced humans could live. Any of the humans from under the Dead Mountain, or the ones that the Ghertun had stolen, or the ones who had no home left.
TheVorakkarshad all reached an agreement with her. That they would send two trusteddarukkarsfrom each horde to help build the settlement. Instead ofvolikis, since the settlement would be permanent, they would model the housing structures on that of asaruk. Homes and buildings made of stone and steel and insulated with thick hide. Themitrisof the hordes would help craft them fire basins and cooking pots and furniture and chests. The tanneries of the hordes would give furs and pelts. The seamstresses would give clothing. And the hunters would help with the game.
Most surprising of all was that many Dakkari volunteered to help with the building of the settlement, whether it was for a couple weeks or for an entire season. A fewbikkusoffered to teach the humans how to properly prepare a variety of food. Another few would teach them about crops and the season cycles and the nutrients of the soil.
It would become asaruk. Asarukof thevekkiri, though I wondered once it was all said and done if there wouldn’t be Dakkari living amongst them as well.
I was proud of Tess. In the week when she presented her plans to theVorakkarsthat had all met at our horde, she reminded me of the girl I used to know. Confident and determined, like nothing would stand in her way.
That was how I knew that she would succeed. The building of a new settlement was no easy feat. But if anyone could do it, it was Tess. With what the humans had learned living among the Dakkari, I thought that they would flourish. They’d witnessed the rhythm and flow of a horde, the rhythm and flow that Wrune had once spoken to me about. They now knew what it took to survive on the wild lands, when before the humans had been woefully unprepared, failed by the Uranian Federation and theDothikkar.
With the aid and support and knowledge from the hordes, I knew that they would thrive.
