She must’ve heard the words I’d bellowed to my horde, announcing her as my queen. I thought she’d been sleeping. She must’ve come awake without my knowing, albeit briefly.
Reaching out, I cradled her face in my palm, tilting her chin up so she was forced to meet my gaze.
“I meant every word.”
She shook her head, fear swimming in her eyes, mingled with the lingerings of her pain. “I won’t,” she vowed softly.
“You will,” I told her. “You will be myMorakkari, Mina. In two nights, under the black moon, we will perform thetassimaraand it will be done.”
Her lips parted.
“Thetassimara?”
“The joining ceremony.”
Her nostrils flared.
“And if I-I refuse?” she asked, licking her bottom lip.
Didn’t she understand? There was no refusingthis.
My jaw tightened. Valavik did not think it wise to threaten my future queen.
I disregarded his warning when I said, “Then I will lay siege to the Dead Mountain and all those that reside underneath it.”
The words drummed between us, loud and harsh.
She stared at me in shock, all comfort between us gone, however brief. I wondered if she feared menow. I swore I spied a tendril of it dancing in her eyes when she heard my unyielding tone.
“You’re threatening me?” she whispered.
Why did her voice sound so solemn? So sad?
I growled, ignoring the warning in my mind. She needed to understand the severity of this. “If that is what it takes,lysi.”
“You can’t reach them,” she said. “The fog would—”
“You think we do not know about the tunnels the Ghertun made?” I asked. “All under Dakkar?”
I knew my bluff hit home when she paled further.
“If I don’t join myself to you, you would kill them all?” she asked, her voice hardening. “Just because you can?”
I kept her gaze. “Like I said, the horde comes first. I will do anything necessary to keep you for them.”
“To use me,” she amended. “To use me when the time is right, you mean. There are innocent people under that mountain! Children too. Mothers. But you don’t care about them, do you?”
“Andyoucare about them?” I growled. “After the way they treated you? I saw more than you think, Mina. They treated you like you were dirt underneath their feet. Here, at my side, you would be avokkingqueen. No one would hurt you ever again.”
“Only you! And that doesn’t make it okay,” she hissed. A moment later, she closed her eyes, a flash of pain crossing her expression.
Concern made my retort die on my lips. “Mina.”
She pushed my hand away, turning. She was quiet as she took deep, steadying breaths.
After a long while, she said, “Say you don’t mean it. And I can still forgive you for it.”
Forgive me? That wasn’t what I had expected her to say.
