Page 110 of The Horde King of Shadow

And I can never forgive them for it,I thought.

“I remember her,” she said quietly.

Where to begin?I wondered.

“This story begins long ago,” I warned her. “Tyzar was my father’s Elthika. And they bonded in a strange way because my father was not a rider. He never trained to be one—he was from afarming family on Sarroth’s outskirts, from a small rural village called Kaval. Where I grew up, in the same house he had.”

Klara blinked, processing the information. I’d never spoken of my childhood, of my family with her before, but I could see her hunger for it, herneedto understand. To understand pieces of me I’d kept hidden.

“He found an egg in a Sarrothian forest when he was young, rejected by the mother. He saw her drop it, and he went to look for it. It was still warm,” I told her, thinking of the awe on my father’s features when he used to tell me this story. “He took the egg, and he tended to it, waking in the middle of the night, every night, for new coals to keep it warm, until it hatched. My father and Tyzar never felt the bonding pull, but they were bonded forever nevertheless by choice. Tyzar chose to remain in Kaval with my father instead of seeking out his own horde, his own ancestors. And that’s where they lived.”

I could see her confusion.

“My mother, on the other hand,” I said, “was from a wealthy family in Elysom. Stories of Tyzar and my father reached the capital. Many traveled to see them. It was an amusement for them, a poor farmer on the outskirts of Sarroth and his found hatchling. That’s how he met her. Their love was a quick thing…like Muron’s lightning, my father told me. He finally felt the bonding pull, but it wasn’t for Tyzar—it was for her,” I said quietly.

It was hard to reconcile the girl he’d fallen in love with and match her with my mother, who’d kept her emotions leashed tight, even toward me. It was my father who had shown me affection. Perhaps he’d been what she’d needed. Perhaps I was more likeherthan I realized, needing someone warm and open and loving. Someone like Klara to thaw me, to keep the frost away.

“I was meant to be a farmer too. Can you believe that?” I asked her.

A sharp huff left her. “No. Not at all.”

“I was not a blood born. I was actually of the earth. Like you, like a Dakkari—born with cool, steady, unyielding earth beneath my feet. But I was always looking toward the sky. I loved Tyzar. I grew up on his back. And that’s why I wanted to be a rider. That feeling when you fly, when you feel the whole world is open to you—that’sfreedom.”

“It suits you,” she commented, her eyes glowing, a soft smile on her face. I was glad to see it. I would tell her this story over and over again if it distracted her from the horde beyond our dwelling. If it distracted her from Lygath’s rejection. If only for a brief reprieve. “You were meant for it, this life.”

This story grew bittersweet, though it needed to be said. So she would finally have a deeper understanding.

“My mother became deeply ill in Sarroth when I was a child,” I said. “The healers in Elysom called it thearasykin shy’rissa. The heartstone sleep. We don’t know why it happens. Some think it’s because Sarroth is the farthest away from the core of the Arsadia, the center of Karak. The Sarrothian claim that as a badge of pride almost, like outsiders can’t survive here, only the toughest of Karag can. But I don’t believe that.”

She frowned.

“One healer my father consulted believed she’d been born with it. A defect in her blood. Some are just unlucky, even in Elysom. The sickness began to shut down her body. It started slowly, her movements and strength becoming weaker,” I said, remembering finding her on the floor one day when my father had been out in the fields. “By the time I was ten, she couldn’t walk anymore. She stopped going into the village. She was so tired all the time. Then, a year later, she couldn’t move her arms. The year after that, it was her tongue.”

Klara bit her lip as tears sprung to her eyes, despair written there. “Sarkin…I’m so sorry.”

I breathed deep. “And then one day…Tyzar and my father left.”

“Left?”

“He told me to watch over my mother, that he had to go meet with a healer in Elysom. He was gone for nearly a week. And when he returned…” I sharply exhaled, remembering the shock and disbelief of that night. “He had two Elthika eggs with him. Stolen from a nest he’d found along the western cliffs.”

“Butwhy?” she breathed.

“Because one healer believed that Elthika eggs, the hatchlings in which possess heartstone energy, the purest form of it, could help her. Not heal her completely, but at least give her a life back, a life worth living. Because at that time, she was only a shell.”

Klara said nothing, only looked at me solemnly.

“My father stole the eggs, that is true, even knowing the consequences,” I told her. “But it wasn’t for nefarious purposes or to sell to our enemies, as Elysom tried to claim. The eggs didn’t work, needless to say. We kept them warm and he returned them to the nest, but his theft had been discovered. The Elthika he’d taken the eggs from had been bonded, not wild. Her rider was a council member in Elysom. And so Elysom let the Sarrothian decide my father’s fate. And ourKarathsentenced him and Tyzar to death, but he gave them six months of time until their execution.”

My lips twisted bitterly. “Because he was a farmer and they needed his next crop yield before he could die.”

“That’s awful,” she whispered, her lips pressed together as her eyes gleamed in the low light. “And Tyzar? I thought the Karag would never needlessly kill an Elthika. Isn’t that against your laws?”

“The Elthika have their own laws, and stealing hatchlings or eggs is among the highest of offenses. So yes, they were both sentenced to execution. And that’s why he sent Tyzar away. That’s why people say that Tyzar rejected their bond. Because he left, but not by his choice. So that he wouldn’t be killed, my father commanded him to leave, to fly north as far as he could, though it nearly broke him.”

Klara’s hand pressed to her mouth as tears from her wide, beautiful, sad eyes dripped down her face.

“And with only six months left, my father decided on mercy for my mother. She’d long asked him to help end her life. Before she’d lost her ability to speak. The thought had been unfathomable to him. But then? He didn’t want to go to his own death, knowing what she wanted, knowing he could give it to her. His last gift. The last sacrifice he would make for her,” I said. “He asked me to start rider instruction that year. I was fourteen by that time, older than some of my peers already. I refused at first. How could he ask that of me? To leave him? But what I didn’t understand…what I couldn’t understand then…”

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