Page 72 of The Horde King of Shadow

“As such, everyone in my line has been scrutinized by the priestesses very carefully. We don’t know much aboutheartstone magic, but we do know it can pass down through bloodlines.”

“Does that mean your mother had a gift as well?” I wondered.

“Yes,” she said. “She did. She had visions, like me. Hers didn’t happen in sleep though. They could happen anytime, so she had to be careful. She had to be mindful about who was watching her.”

“And what did she see?”

“She called them the lost horde kings,” Klara told me, a sad smile on her lips, but her voice was strong and proud.

“The Dakkari who landed on our southern shores centuries ago,” I guessed.

“I can only assume,” Klara said. “She saw this place too. We are both connected to Karak, to your homeland. No one believed us, of course. Then again, I had to be careful with who I told because I didn’t want to attract the priestesses’ attention. It was difficult enough being in Dothik. I felt like they were always watching.”

“That’s why you wanted to know about them,” I said, inclining my head. “It proved you right. It proved that your mother knew a truth that no one else did.”

“People called her crazy,” she said. Though she tried to hide it, I saw how it still cut her. “They called her mad, just like they called Davik the Mad Horde King. They dismissed her. Part of why I dedicated my life to research and knowledge was to prove that she wasn’t.”

I could see the love she had for her mother.

“What happened to her?” I asked, straying even closer. She bobbed under the water when her legs faltered, and I reached out to grip her waist. Her lips parted, but she slowly relaxed into my touch, trusting that I wouldn’t let her slip beneath the surface.

“My mother grew up in a noble family in Dothik…because of her bloodline. She and my father, they’d known each other since they’d been children. They’d grown up together, loved each other. But he married another, one who helped secure him his throne. My mother might’ve been from a noble family, but they were poor. My father’s wife wasn’t,” she said. “Their affair continued foryears, until my mother found out she was pregnant with me. She knew the queen wouldn’t accept that. She feared retaliation, knowing I would have a legitimate claim to the throne, especially because of my other bloodline, and so she left. My great-uncle was a horde king. He extended her a home, and she took it. I was born on the wildlands. I grew up on the wildlands.”

“Did she ever tell you who your father was?”

She shook her head. “My mother kept a lot of secrets—that being one of them. There were rumors. Children could be cruel growing up, repeating things they’d heard their parents whisper about. I never believed them until my mother told me herself.”

“I’m confused,” I admitted. “Why did you both return to Dothik then? Especially if she was trying to keep you safe?”

“My great-uncle died,” she said. “The horde collapsed. We had nowhere else to go, but my mother had family in Dothik, who helped us get established. We got a small room above a tavern in the market district. My mother worked there. The dreams became more frequent, and when I woke that night with this scar…that’s when she got even more scared.”

“Your father found out you were in the city. He found out about your birth,” I guessed.

She inclined her head, and my fingers tightened on her hips.

“He actually wanted me back then,” she said, a sad smile crossing her face. “But I think he just wanted to feel attached to my mother in some way. And I was that link to her. He was furious that she’d hidden the pregnancy. When I was fourteen,he had me come live in the palace. Maybe to punish my mother—I don’t know. But she made a deal with him, or maybe even the queen. Something I could never truly figure out. But I went to live with them…and my mother was sent away. To theorala sa’kilan.”

“The priestesses,” I knew, understanding finally dawning.

“One year later, I received news that she was dead.”

My jaw tightened, a knot forming in my belly.

“She was always so scared of the priestesses. Ever since our heartstones were wiped out, they’d been trying to create new ones. With the power that some Dakkari manifested, that’s what they would use—using people like power sources,” Klara said. “But more times than not, it would kill them. That’s what happened to my mother. She was used for her power, and it killed her. And the worst thing is that I think that was the deal. She willingly went to theorala sa’kilanso that I would be protected from that fate.”

It was a tragedy. Pure and simple. What the Dakkari were doing to their own people…it was pointless. Heartstones couldn’t becreated.

“She gave her life to keep me safe in Dothik. I don’t know the extent to which my father knew. I do know he loved her—he wasn’t seen for weeks when we heard of her death—but he became cold to me after that. Like he could barely stand to look at me,” she said. Her eyes were glassy with a film of tears. “I just wish we’d stayed on the wildlands. We were happy there. Safe. Maybe she’d still be alive.”

“I’m sorry,aralye,” I said gruffly, my chest tight from the tale. “I didn’t know.”

She wiped under her eyes and then splashed her face with water. She gave me a half-smile, trying to dispel some of the tension between us.

“It wasn’t all bad,” she told me. “Dannik protected me. I met my friend Sora. I was content in the archives. I was content in my research, though more times than not, it was frustrating. But it gave me purpose. It made me feel connected to my mother.”

I remembered her brother, Dannik. By our reports, he would overstep the eldest daughter and his father would instead pass the throne to him. Would he make a good king? That would remain to be seen, but it had been in my report to Elysom.

Did it soften me toward the Dakkari male? Knowing he’d watched over his sister?

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