Page 71 of The Horde King of Shadow

I swore the edge of his lips quirked up. “Because I like it down here. It helps me focus. The wildness.”

“The wildnesshelpsyou focus?”

“For someone like me, yes.”

“You strike me as a very structured kind of person, one who doesn’t welcome surprises.”

“Then you have me all wrong. Or maybe you’re correct. Maybe this is who I am now, who I’ve needed to become,” he informed me, those eyes reflecting the silver light of the moon. I went a little dizzy looking into them, my legs treading water faster, despite my aching muscles. “Once, most would have called me reckless. Actually, everyone would have.”

A familiar feeling of intrigue pulsed through me like my own heartbeat. It was like the feeling of a brand-new book, one I’d never seen or touched before, but one that held so much promise. That giddy excitement as you peeled back the cover, as you thumbed through those first few pages of delicate parchment.

“But we’re not talking about that tonight,” he added, leveling me a raised brow that had my hope deflating once more in my chest.

“Then what are we talking about?”

I held my breath as his eyes dripped down the column of my throat and to the rippling water lapping just above my breasts. He wouldn’t be able to see them underneath the dark water, but merely knowing that hewantedto sent a dangerous thrill through me. My legs momentarily stopped treading water, and the lake came up to my lips, wetting them.

“I want to talk aboutyou,” he said.

Chapter 25

SARKIN

“Me?” Klara asked.

“Tell me how you got your scar. About your dreams.”

Her hand reached out from underneath the surface of the water to press her fingertips to the mark.

“You recognized Zaridan because you’ve seen her before,” I said. “You told me that.”

“Yes,” she told me. “I started having dreams when I was young. They started slowly, easy enough to write off, easy enough to disregard as a child’s imagination.”

“But you saw the same things, over and over again,” I guessed, knowing that that was the case for Karag who exhibited power like Klara’s.

“An Elthika came to Dothik when I was twelve. We’d just returned from the wildlands, two days before. After that day, the dreams started happening almost nightly. In one of them, I remember Zaridan slashing out at me, and I woke up with my face bloodied, screaming.”

Discomfort curled in my chest. “You were just a child. You must’ve been afraid.”

“Yes,” she admitted, her eyes darting back and forth between my own. We were close enough that every so often, I felt her knees brush my legs as she kept herself afloat. How easy it would be to reach out and hold her against me. “But it was my mother who was most afraid after that.”

“Tell me why.”

I had my suspicions, but it was different than hearing her perspective. During our scouting missions and from the reports of our spies, we’d learned the Dakkari priestesses of the North Lands were snapping up anyone who showcased just a hint of magical ability. They were feared. They had the authority, under theDothikkar, to take whomever they pleased.

“It’s complicated,” she said, her lips quirking in a sad smile.

“Help me understand, then.”

She blew out a rough breath, looking over the darkened, rippling water of the lake. I watched as her eyes tracked beyond the edge of the shore, going into the forest.

“I am descended from not one but two powerful females who exhibited Kakkari’s gift. The ability to wield heartstones, to feel their power and channel it. A human woman named Vienne, queen to the Mad Horde King, Davik of Rath Drokka, was my ancestor. She was the sorceress who used heartstone magic that unleashed the red fog over the Dead Lands, trying to save her husband.”

“And the other?” I asked, though I knew.

“Kara of Rath Serok. Who I’m named after. The first hybrid of our history, who wielded not one but two heartstones during the battle that defeated the red fog,” she said. Her eyes lifted to mine. “Theethrall.”

My lips pressed together.

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