Page 7 of The Horde King of Shadow

“You are of royal blood,” Dannik argued. “Even more so than any of us. She…resents that. Alanis too. They fear you.”

I laughed, but it sounded hollow. My eyes were stinging from the tears that had already dried in my lap. “Because I’m so frightening. With all my books and half-mad theories.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which one?” I returned.

His eyes cut back to the sword, a muscle in his jaw ticking. He was on edge, his tail skittering across the stone.

“What is it?” I asked, turning on the bench to face him more fully. Something was wrong. Had the celebration feast already ended? “Dannik?”

“The riders landed at the East Gate.”

His words weren’t unexpected, however. Yet there was something I couldn’t place in his tone that made nerves curl in my chest, skittering my heartbeat.

“How many?” I asked, repeating my earlier question.

“Too many this time.”

I straightened. “What does that mean?”

Dannik said quietly, his voice hushed, “If you know anything of them that might be of use, it’s your duty as a descendant of the royal line and to yourpeopleto speak it. You must trust me, Klara.”

“They’re just dreams! They aren’t real,” I told him, unable to withstand him feeling betrayed. Like Ididn’ttrust him. Because I did. I trusted him with my life. And if the priestesses caught wind ofthis, my life would be given to them.Thatwas what at stake. “They are unclear. No words are spoken. I’ve never seen another person in them. Only…”

Only the dragons.

Two in particular.

A terrifying black creature with eyes as gold as the sun and teeth as sharp as swords.

The other…

I blew out a sharp breath, standing to pace to Bekkar’s sword. I stared down at the white heartstone shimmering in its hilt. The last heartstone in existence on Dakkar…as far as we knew. It had been the heartstones that helped the Five banish the red fog in the Dead Lands. It had nearly cost them their lives.

“If,” I started quietly, my words barely a whisper, “I possess fragments of our ancestors’ magic, it is a useless thing.”

Dannik’s hand came to my arm, right over where the male in the market had gripped me, where he’d left that strange black residue on my skin.

“You might believe that,” he whispered, as if we could be overheard. “But I don’t.”

My lips parted?—

“Through our father, you are a descendent of Queen Kara, the Banisher and the Wielder of the Heartstones, and King Arik of Rath Serok. And your mother’s line of Rath Drokka? You descend from the Mad Horde King and of Vienne the White Sorceress. There is power, electric in your blood, and it choseyou. Not Alanis. Not Lakkis. Not even your mother.You, Klara.”

My throat went tight.

“Can you feel it?” he asked, voice suddenly guttural. My lips parted when I heard the trepidation in his voice. “The powerleeching from the land? Our home? This heartstone is growing dimmer with every passing day. Have you noticed?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My gaze cut to the heartstone. It hummed in answer. I could feel it. For the first time, I wondered if Dannik could too.

“These dragon riders?” my brother continued, shaking his head, and I heard the gold beads in his hair clicking together. “I think they want what we cannot give them. And I fear what they will demand in its stead. They are much too at ease. They have no fear. The only reason they would have none is if they knew there was no need for it. Because they know they could snap this city in two within the jaws of their beasts. I only wonder why they haven’t yet.”

“Dannik, what?—”

“It was foolish of us to believe that there was nothing beyond Drukkar’s Sea,” he continued, his lip curling in a mocking, sad smile. “I have a feeling that we know nothing at all and that we will pay for it in due time.”

My brother took my hand again. “You need to have strength, Klara,” he said, trepidation in his eyes. “More so now than ever before.”

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