Page 73 of The Horde King of Shadow

Perhaps.

I’d seen how protective he’d been over her outside the East Gate. Knowing what I knew now, my estimation of him increased. Because he hadn’tneededto love Klara. It would have suited him better to have ignored her, like some of her own family had, no doubt.

“Heartstones cannot be created,” I informed her. She stilled under my grip. “They are notmade. They are grown.”

“With the roots of thethalaratree,” she guessed. Her own visions had proved that.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s terrible what your priestesses are doing. Pointless and terrible. Then again, most things are when it comes to power and fear. Together? That’s a deadly combination, especially in a group of people with unchecked authority.”

She inclined her head. “Do I get to ask a question now?”

It depends on what it is,I thought immediately. Then I felt shame. She’d been honest with me. More open than I’d thought she might be. But I was used to the Sarrothian, who kept their emotions close and their tongues behind their teeth more times than not.

She wasn’t anything like a Sarrothian. She couldn’t be more opposite.

“Yes,” I said instead.

“Is Dakkar in danger from an attack by the Karag?”

Thatwasn’t the question I’d expected. But she’d perhaps wondered why I’d been poking about her history. Did she think I’d asked about her family, her mother, her father because I was trying to glean information?

“Make no mistake, Klara,” I began, “the Karag have been monitoring the Dakkari for decades.”

“Spying, you mean.”

“Call it what you want. But the Karag do not make it a habit of entering a war with neighboring nations without reason. And certainly not unprovoked.”

“But you want the heartstones.”

I blew out a breath, adjusting her slightly so that she was more in the crook of my arm, her naked side brushing mine.

“We werespying, as you call it, because we were trying to establish if there were heartstones worthwhile to try to take.”

“To steal, you mean,” she corrected again, quirking a brow, and I huffed out a sharp laugh.

“I prefernegotiate for.”

Klara laughed, the sound carefree and beautiful. For once. It was the first time I’d heard her laugh like this.

“We believe that an ancient Elthika took the heartstones and dropped them over different nations. There are reports of other heartstones all over this planet. Dakkar isn’t the only race that has possession of them.”

She straightened in my grip at that. “Why would an Elthika do that?”

“To share power,” I answered. “To give it freely. To start wars. To hide them. To grow them in different soils to see if they had different effects. Who knows. I’ve heard all theories. But the one thing that is never in disagreement among Elysom’s scholars is that it was an Elthika’s doing. Long ago.”

“We believe that they are gifts from our goddess, Kakkari,” she informed me, gazing up at me with those warm, seeking eyes. “I like our explanation better.”

I felt my lips curl slightly, and I hid it by looking away.

“The Karag don’t believe in gods or goddesses, do you?”

“We believe in our Elthika,” I answered her. “And our bonds with them. That’s all we need to know.”

She didn’t argue with me. In fact, she accepted my simple answer, inclining her head.

“How long will we be in the Arsadia?” she asked.

“Until after theilla’rosh, after the riding season is complete,” I told her. “Why?”

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