Page 66 of The Horde King of Shadow

“How long did it take you?”

My second attempt,I thought. But I didn’t tell her that, not wanting her to get discouraged. I’d studied Elthika riders closely when I’d been young. I used to watch them for hours in our village outside Sarroth, long after the sunlight had faded, more as an excuse not to return home than anything.

Most importantly, I’d grown up with an Elthika, even though I was not a blood born.

“Long enough.”

“Gods,” she groaned. “You’re lying to me. That’s exactly what someone would say when it took them no time at all.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” I grunted, tapping on Zaridan’s joint, feeling the vibration as she extended her wing for our descent. “I never pegged you as a pouter.”

“I’m not pouting,” she argued.

“You just don’t like failing,” I finished for her. “I hate to tell you this,aralye, but you will fail more than you will succeed when it comes to the Elthika. The sooner you accept that, the easier time you’ll have. Do not focus on perfection. Focus on consistency. Think like this instead: There is no right way to ride an Elthika. All that matters is that youcan.”

Klara was looking up at me, her lips parted, as we both stepped off Zaridan’s wing, onto the earth.

“All that matters is that I can,” she repeated softly, and I saw her consume those words. “I can work with that.”

“Good.”

Then she sighed, bending down to stroke her fingers over the moss-covered dirt.

“If I fail during the first flight,” she began, “will you or Zari let me fall?”

I flinched, the reaction her words brought forth. A flash of Haden’s face flickered to life in my mind, the fear and realization I’d seen, and I squeezed my eyes shut, momentarily trying to dispel that harrowing image.

“What?” I said carefully.

“Never mind,” she breathed, her fist clenching into the earth in finality, as if squeezing that worry away. “The soil is so rich here. So full of life.”

I was still frowning when she stood. Between us, she held out a clump of dirt. I could smell it, the damp musk.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

I’d always been too busy looking at the horizon. Not the land.

“My people believe that the same power that created the red fog in the Dead Lands, the fog that almost wiped out our entire race, had happened before. Nearly four hundred years ago when themrok illastar was shining in the sky,” she said, her eyes rapt on the dirt, pressing her thumb into it.

I hadn’t heard that, nor had our spies or scouts ever mentioned anything like it.

“It was a disease in the soil, leeching the life out of the land, sickening everyone. Or perhaps it was a heartstone curse,” she said. “Maybe once, the earth of Dakkar was likethis. But we don’t have beautiful soil like this back home.”

I remembered Dakkar. While it held a wondrous, raw beauty, the wildlands could be desolate and punishing. It was a particular way of life, and I marveled that Klara had grown up living it.

After last night, there were stories milling around the horde about her, mostly positive, which boded well. After her daggerdisplay and the questions the acolytes had peppered her with afterward, it was becoming apparent to the Sarrothian that they had perhaps misjudged her.

As had I.

She wasn’t a spoiled princess who’d had an easy life. She’d grown up like many of my own people and not without her own challenges. But questions of her lineage would undoubtedly rise. She was the child of an affair, one of the highest dishonors among the Sarrothian, and I knew that many would not look kindly upon that, even if Klara herself had had no part in it. She was marked by it and would be forever.

The Sarrothian could be a judgmental people, one of the things I’d hoped to change when I’d taken over command of the territory. But one could not erase centuries of preconceived notions.

The rest of the Karag viewed the Sarrothian as a rigid, unyielding people. But it made trade more difficult, negotiations more tense. It would benefit us to be more open to outsiders. Perhaps a large part of that change could come with Klara.

If she can bond with an Elthika,I knew. That one sacred oath that the Sarrothian expected above all else.

It wasn’t enough that Zaridan had given Klara hersy’asha. It wasn’t enough that I’d chosen her as my wife. It wasn’t enough that Lishara had given us a blessing at her temple—the memory of which was still a constant reply in my mind, a constant erotic reminder.

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