My magic had been swift and sharp. I’d ordered Nevin to jump off the cliff, a steep drop into the valley below. He couldn’t even scream on the way down, and Sarkin’s rider had started to piss himself when I’d turned my glowing gaze to him.
Myzalla, however, had stopped me before I’d dealt with the Karag myself. She’d told me to get Amaia back to Grymia, to get her to Raran.
Even now, after my mind had cooled, I still wished shehadn’tstopped me. It would have taken mesecondsto kill both of them. Hesitation had gotten me here. I should’ve executed Ryak the night I’d returned from Elysom. Maybe then this wouldn’t have happened.
We’d retrieved his body from the forest. And since Nevin’s body was at the base of the eastern valley…I would send Ryak’s back to theDothikkarwith a letter of my own.
Across my magic, I tested Amaia’s again, only to feel a cold wall.
After I bathed and dressed in clean clothes, I returned to Myzalla. She was still in the same spot, and she met my eyes when I appeared.
“You care for her,” she said. “Truly.”
I didn’t think I needed to respond to that.
She sighed. “This will mark her, Alaryk. Always.”
“I know,” I replied.
Myzalla meant in Grym. Among my people. Amaia’s actions would always be whispered about, no matter what good she did here. The theft would follow her, no matter what the circumstances had been. With time, it would lessen. I knew that firsthand. Shortly after I’d becomeKarath, shortly after what I’d done in Harta had spread throughout my own people, no one would meet my eyes anymore. It had taken years, but eventually they had.
It would pass.
My people would learn to accept her again. Because I didn’t intend to let her go.
Myzalla knew that. She could see that clearly. Her words were meant as a small warning, nothing more. But she knew my mind was made up.
All of this was dependent on if Amaia woke again, I knew.
It didn’t matter if she hated me when she did. I’d said horrible things to her when I’d seen her last, betrayed her trust, done theonething I’d promised not to do. It had made me a villain in her mind. It had broken something in her. I’d seen it fracture. I felt that realization go through me, even now, like a cold wind.
Had I broken her completely, though?
All I knew was that we had two injured Dakkari and two dead Dakkari. We had a nation across the seas that might’ve just sparked a war, a swift punishment necessary on the heels of a foolish king’s greed and lust for power.
“Whatever comes, I’ll stand by you,” Myzalla told me.
The words made my throat tighten.
“I don’t ask you to,” I told her.
She scoffed, standing from the bed when I took my place back in the chair. “I don’t need you to,” she replied.
With that, she left. And I reached forward to take Amaia’s cold hand. I pressed my warmth into her, spreading my magic like a blanket, in hopes it might root itself.
Maybe it was a fruitless effort, but I’d keep trying nevertheless.
We were bonded now.
I had bonded my magic to hers in the forest.
To save her life, I’d made that unthinkable choice for both of us as lightning had flashed and rain had battered down on our bodies.
She might hate me for that, too, when she woke.
And if she died…I would feel the loss of her forever.
Chapter 39
