Страница 30 из 93
“This time last week, I was…” I took in a deep breath. “I was walking home in Dothik after a day in the archives trying to understand this. This place. Your people. What it all meant. I’ve given over a decade of my life trying to make sense of this. And I’m begi
I’m wholly unprepared for this, and that frightens me, I thought, but I left that thought unspoken.
“But you will,” Sarkin said. An easy answer to a complicated worry.
Tears ushered into my eyes, but I tried to blink them away quickly, lowering my head as we passed a group of onlookers. Sarkin nodded at them when they called out a greeting. After we passed, I looked up, noticing that we were heading toward the back of the horde, toward a structure that I knew must’ve been Sarkin’s home here, given the intricate carvings on the facade. It was small, but it was overlooking the entirety of the horde, perched on a small hill, the pathway leading up a gentle incline.
My muscles screamed in protest as I walked up. But when we reached the top, I couldn’t help but turn. The sun was setting over the forest, and my lips parted in disbelief. I saw what I hadn’t been able to see over the structures of the horde or the forest beyond.
We were high up. The Arsadia, it seemed, had dramatic changes in elevation. Now I saw the waterfall. I saw the thick white plume of water billow next to the east of the forest and not far from what Sarkin had called the hatchery. Water from the mountain was ru
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed. In the distance, I saw mountain ranges, wild Elthika making dark figures in the sky, miles and miles away. I knew we weren’t far from the coast, but I couldn’t see it from this vantage point.
And it would be my new home.
Footsteps clattered on the pathway, and when I turned my gaze forward, I saw an unfamiliar male waiting for Sarkin’s permission to approach. He was tall and broad, his arms crossed behind his back. Not a rider, though, because I saw the sway of his tail behind him. But a warrior perhaps? His build was certainly similar to one.
“Go inside and rest,” Sarkin ordered me. “There’s hot water for a bath. I’ll send someone with food and to look over your wounds. Then I want you to sleep afterward—no questions tonight. Do you understand?”
His tone set my back straightening. “I’m not a child.”
His lips curled slightly in a humorless smirk, one that made my belly flutter and dip, which was quite quizzical and maddening.
“Syndras will watch over this entrance, so don’t fear sleep tonight,” Sarkin replied, nodding at the Sarrothian, who inclined his head at me, though his eyes were narrowed, curious.
“Where will you be?”
“There is always much to be done when we return to the Arsadia,” Sarkin told me. “I likely won’t return tonight. I’ll collect you in the morning.”
And with that, he turned his back, passing Syndras briefly, his head bending low to say something I couldn’t hear.
He didn’t turn back once.