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“So you will take the heartstones away,” I answered, his hands falling away from my face. “Now that you know where they are. You hoped they were here. But maybe there was a reason Zaridan marked me, a descendent of Rath Drokka. To lead you to the thalara tree, where my ancestor had once found a heartstone.”
“Perhaps,” Sarkin said, and I didn’t know why I felt such a stu
A little pinprick of hope had me raising my eyes to his.
“And what is that?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He shook his head, a slight smile lifting the left side of his mouth. He wouldn’t tell me. Instead, he sighed and leaned forward, brushing his lips against mine. I met his kiss hesitantly, but I met it nonetheless.
“The Karag have more honor than swooping into another territory and stealing something infinitely valuable, like common thieves,” he told me when he pulled back. I felt the words across my lips as his eyes dipped to them. “I will need to take this information to Elysom. There will be negotiations. To destroy a thalara tree is a dire choice, but Dakkar will get their share. And yes, after my showing of the ethrall, your father might think twice about trying for more.”
“And if he doesn’t?” I couldn’t help but ask. “If he argues that the tree grew in Dakkari soil, then it wouldn’t belong to you and you would have no claim to it. You ca
“There is the possibility, yes,” Sarkin said. “Technically we have no claim to the heartstones. But we do need them. To create more. And we won’t be denied them.”
My belly dipped with realization. “Then it is very beneficial to you that you have a Dakkari wife, who is a daughter of the Dothikkar. Elysom will realize the gift you’ve given them even if they believe you’d first married me out of spite.”
Sarkin scowled. “That’s not what this is about, Klara.”
“Isn’t it? Will you use me in your negotiations to get what you want?”
“If I must, but no harm would ever come to you.”
“But you would make my family believe that it might. My father might not care. But my brother would,” I told him. “If you use me as leverage in your negotiations, then where is your loyalty to me, Sarkin? Or does it only matter when my allegiance is to you and only you?”
His expression was thunderous, the muscle in his jaw ticking.
“I’m not going to get into an argument with you about hypotheticals, Klara,” he finally said. “It’s pointless.”
He didn’t understand what I was trying to say, did he?
I shook him off. Suddenly I felt sad, a deep despair blooming in my belly. I still felt the heat of his touch on my skin, but I’d never felt colder.
We lapsed into silence. The night that had once seemed so magical and lovely now felt suffocating.
“Can we go back to the horde now?” I asked. “I don’t want to stay here tonight.”
I could feel Sarkin’s frustration. “Klara.”
“Ha
Earlier I’d used that word to beg him to touch me. Now I used it to get away from him.
Sarkin’s lips pressed together, but I saw his hand move. It went to the black cuff on his wrist, pressing a button on the side, one that he’d told me let out a sound we couldn’t hear but Elthika could.
A moment later, I heard Zaridan’s response, a muted roar, somewhere nearby, followed by the rushing sound of her great wings.
“Whatever you wish,” Sarkin told me.
When he turned to pack up our supplies and put out the fire, I caught movement along the opposite cliff. My heart jolted when I saw the silvery scales flash in the light of the moon. An Elthika had been watching us.
It was him.
The one from my dreams.
I recognized him instantly, like a bolt of lightning had speared through me, sparking in my veins, making me straighten.
His great body moved gracefully as it flew in the pass, sticking close to the side of the cliffs. He was silent, I realized. Like a ghost. Like he had never been there at all.
With my heartbeat in my throat, I watched him disappear from view, diving deeper down in the rocky ravine until the darkness swallowed him up.
Gone. As quickly as I’d realized he was there.
When Sarkin turned, already dressed and hitching the pack up his shoulder, I thought about telling him what I’d seen.
“You should get dressed,” he told me softly, handing me the clothes I’d fallen in over a dozen times. How long ago that seemed now.
With one last look down the darkened pass, I decided to hold my tongue.
Maybe I had seen a ghost.