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“And you can throw a mean dagger if all else fails.”
The small chuckle that emerged from her felt like a win in itself, though it was short-lived.
“Maybe I will ‘dagger’ the Sarrothian,” she said, pulling away to look up at me. “Not in a literal sense, obviously. I mean that…I learned how to throw daggers so well because people said I couldn’t. You know I hated that most of all.”
My lips quirked, and I ran my hand over her face, thinking her so lovely. I trailed my fingers through her hair, observing how the ends curled around my fingers. “I can so easily imagine you sneaking out at night to practice throwing daggers on the wildlands.”
She guided me back until we were lying down, her head on my chest. It felt so natural with her. So easy. And I felt like a weight had been lifted from me, now that I’d told her about my father. It had been like a scar that had never healed properly, one that always pulled and itched.
“Do you feel shame for what your father did? You said you felt it follow you…but what your father did was out of love. There’s nothing shameful about that.”
“I wish he hadn’t stolen the eggs,” I confessed. “He should’ve known better, but I also know how much he hated watching her suffer. We both did. He was desperate. Desperate to help the person he loved.”
She nodded against me, though I couldn’t see her expression. “Whatever happened to Tyzar? Did you ever find him?”
I smiled as I dragged my fingers down her arm. “That is a happy story, at the very least. He fled north, as my father commanded him. After I claimed Zaridan, I made it my mission to find him. He lives close to Muron’s Spine. A peninsula in the North, a sacred place. He has a mate. Two hatchlings that are growing strong by now. Soon we might see them at Tharken, and I hope one or both will choose a Sarrothian rider.”
Maybe even our child, came the sudden thought. How fitting that would be.
I dragged in a deep breath, feeling how much the knowledge pleased Klara.
“I still visit on occasion, if I’m ever in the North to meet with the Kylothian,” I informed her. “One day I will bring you to meet him too.”
“I would like that,” she whispered. “I would like that very much.”
Silence stretched between us, and I heard the distant, dulled sounds of the celebrations of our horde. Klara sighed, reality flooding back in.
“Can I write your story?” she asked quietly. “Your father’s story?”
Something tightened in my chest. Longing? Grief?
“I believe very strongly in recording stories. Putting them to parchment. They are our history, after all,” she said. “How many stories would have been lost if not for scribes who took the time to record them…and I think it would be a shame if yours was lost too. People should remember your father, your mother, and Tyzar.”
I clutched her to me tighter, my heart speeding in my chest. I’d done everything I could to build a careful, impenetrable wall around me after the losses of my life.
How had she wiggled between the cracks?
I repeated her words. “I would like that very much, aralye.”