“Just outside for some fresh air. I want to spend time with my sister,” Kiron answered, a charming grin spreading across his face, which appeased our mother.
“Don’t go far,” she said, waving a wooden spoon around. “Yourpattarwill be home soon, and you know how hungry he is after a day in the forge.”
“We’ll be back quicker than Naruk’s horde,” Kiron assured her, already shuffling me through the door with a palm on the small of my back, just over the bump of my would-be tail, which had never grown. Too much human ancestry in me, I supposed.
Naruk had been a horde king about fifty years prior. After having been selected to lead a new horde from Dothik to the wildlands of our planet, his horde had caught a disease its first week, which had spread through the members like a fire. They’d had to limp back home to Dothik, and Naruk had never led another horde, a permanent mark of disgrace on his name for eternity, only used in snickering jokes now.
Outside, the night air was warm, residuals of the heat of the day. A slight breeze made me shiver, however, as it wound and curved along the back of my neck, where my hair was still damp from my bath.
We lived on the top floor of a leaning, three-story building. From the balcony of our front porch, we could see Drukkar’s Sea, though we were facing the wrong direction to spy theDothikkar’s gleaming palace. I liked that better anyway.
Leaning against the banister, listening to Kiron as he firmly tugged the door closed behind us, I waited for him to join me.
“I’ve missed you, Amaia,” he said, sliding into the spacebeside me. “I probably should’ve started with that this afternoon but…made a mess of everything. Like usual.”
I felt myself soften. Kiron had often been direct and awkward with his words, something he’d likely had to unlearn working within the palace.
“It’s all right,” I murmured.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. Those eyes turned on me, scrutinizing me in a way a stranger could not.
“A bit tired. It’ll pass.”
He sighed, a deep, heavy thing that burst from him.
“Your life is not worth apyroki’s,” he told me simply.
I felt a spark burn in my chest, but I held it there. He would never understand. He could never understand the helplessness or the guilt if Icoulddo something and chose not to. And why? Because of fear?
“You’re meant for much bigger things, sister,” Kiron said. And I heard the subtle shift in his tone.
“Just say it,” I said, sighing. “Then I can give you my answer. And let’s be done with it beforePattarreturns home. I don’t want to ruin supper forLomma’s sake.”
“Amaia—”
“I’m serious, Kiron,” I said, steeling my voice. Turning to face him, I leaned my hip into the steel banister. I threaded a hand through my damp hair, feeling the wavy, tangled strands catch in my fingers. “I don’t know what possessed you to think that I would agree to this and?—”
“I need your help.”
My words died after the quick, hushed interruption. Dread built in my belly, and I took a fraction of a step closer. “Are you in trouble?”
His nostrils flared, his pupils shifted. “In a way,lysi.”
“Tell me,” I said, inching closer. Down below, a loud group of workers were heading to the nearby tavern for their nightly brews. A bellow of a laugh momentarily cut through the tensionbetween us, and Kiron waited until they’d passed, even though they wouldn’t have been able to hear us way up here.
“What do you know of the Heartstone Accords?” Kiron asked.
“What everyone knows, I suppose,” I answered. “What they’ve told us.”
Over half a year ago now, the Karag from across the sea had come to Dothik, demanding one of its princesses—Klara of Rath Serok and Rath Drokka. Their shadowed king, who flew on the back of a mighty dragon, had claimed her as his bride, and he’d taken her from the city, to her almost certain death…or so we’d thought.
From that arranged marriage had come love instead, and so the Heartstone Accords had been struck: a tentative and shaky alliance between the Karag and the Dakkari, wherein they would both share the wealth of the heartstones that had been unearthed from below athalaratree on the wildlands. And in exchange, the Karag would teach us, the Dakkari, how to repopulate our heartstones, to grow them for future centuries.
Heartstones were life. Heartstones were power. Heartstones were…magic, infused in the soil that grew our food, sewn like thread into the trees, breathed in from a gentle wind dancing across your cheeks.
The Karag had thought the heartstones alone would be enough to appease the Dakkari.
But theDothikkarand his advisors had demanded one more thing of the Karag, given the immense power imbalance between the two nations. The Karag had a special bond with the Elthika, their dragons, who could breathe out a weapon calledethrall. It was a deadly fog that sickened anything it touched…and it would eventually turn lethal, if the Elthika itself didn’t snap you in two between its mighty jaws first.
