Chapter 19
AMAIA
“He’s gone?” I asked, frowning. “Where?”
I hadn’t seen Alaryk for three days, ever since that night in the mountain. Nor had I seen him around the village, though I would be embarrassed to admit that I’d been searching for him, taking longer walks during meal times and breaks.
“Summoned to Elysom, apparently,” Ethrisha told us all, plucking a small fruit from the bowl she’d brought to our picnic lunch. It was a rich purple in color, so dark it appeared black, but the flesh inside was pink. Tart but sweet.
I watched as she bit into it before leaning back against Brune, whose arms came around her. Ever since the night of the feast, the pair had been inseparable. She held another fruit up to his lips and giggled when he splattered juice with his sharp bite.
“But why?” I asked Ethrisha, because she seemed to know everything about everyone. Even me apparently.
“Sad you don’t get any more late-night rendezvous with the Karath?” she teased, waggling her brows, a smirk on her fruit-stained lips, which I was certain Brune would kiss away later.
Next to me on the spread blanket, Syris shot me an unreadable look. Only she and Tarkosh knew what Alaryk and I were really doing. Though I’d told her nothing of the night in Ny’am. Just thinking about it made me shiver and blush.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Syris sniffed, “and you should be shutting down those gossips if you ever hear them.”
I took a bite of my bread, stifling a smile. It was a lovely day, and Tarkosh had given us the afternoon off to enjoy the weather. No more hatchlings were expected for another couple days, and Kyr was currently resting in his nest, along with the other four newborns.
“I can’t do that,” Ethrisha argued. “How will I know what people are really saying about her if they think they can’t trust me?”
“You’d make an excellent spy, kalles,” Brune murmured. My gaze flicked up at him. He seemed to realize what he’d said because his smile faltered, his eyes darting to me.
I’d never told him what Ryak had threatened me with. But now I wondered if Ryak had made similar threats to him.
“Kalles,” Ethrisha said dreamily. “I just love that word. Say it again.”
“Kalles,” Brune rumbled into her ear, nipping at the lobe.
Syris gave me a look that nearly had me snorting. She was long over the affectionate couple. “What does that even mean?”
“It means female in Dakkari,” I told her. “But…it’s a soft name. One of our ancient horde kings would call his Morakkari, his queen, that name. It’s sweet. It stuck for centuries.”
“How romantic.” Ethrisha sighed.
“I wouldn’t want anyone going around calling me female,” Syris sniffed.
“You’re just jealous,” Ethrisha singsonged, no true malice in her tone as she leaned her head back against Brune’s chest.
We were sitting under the shade of a tree along the forest’s edge, with a great view of the village below and all of the comings and goings.
The sharp slant of the gray roofs, the riders training in the field—mounting practice, from the looks of it—and Elthika flying overhead on occasion. It was peaceful here, I realized.
And every day I settled deeper and deeper into place, my dread and nerves only multiplied.
“When do you think he’ll return?” I asked.
Ethrisha peered over at me. “Careful, Amaia. Villagers will really think you’re warming his bed if you go around pining for him.”
“I’m not pining,” I said.
My friend took pity on me. “Hard to say. It depends why Elysom requested his presence…but I imagine it’s about the Hartans. Yesterday I overheard Myzalla saying a formation of wild Elthika got close to the border. Maybe something’s drawing them there.”
“Does he still have family in Harta?” I questioned.
“Not sure,” Ethrisha said, her lips pursuing like she was trying to remember something. “I think it was only him and his mother who fled across the border when he was just a boy. His father was Hartan.”
Syris chimed in, “But I heard he never knew him.”
Ethrisha’s eyes twinkled at Syris actually participating in the gossip. “Well remembered.”
“And…the Karag don’t take issue with the fact that he’s from their enemy’s territory?” Brune asked.
“Our territory of Grym is different than the rest of Karak,” Ethrisha told us.
“There was a time when Hartans and Karag crossed the borders freely because of the short distance. It’s only been in the last century when peace has been fractured.
It was a lot worse before Alaryk claimed Samryn, before he became the Karath.
We were actually at war during that time. And Alaryk ended it swiftly.”
I frowned. “How?”
“All political, I’m sure,” she said, waving her hand.
“Elysom was heavily involved during those days too, from what my mother told me. But regardless, very few Grymians actually care that Alaryk was raised in Harta. There’s a vocal few, yes, but…
he claimed a Vyrin. And not just any Vyrin.
Samryn. Hard to fight against that. Now, if it were anywhere else and he was their Karath… ”
“Like in Sarroth,” Syris snicked, with an eye roll.
“Yes, now, Sarrothians hate outsiders,” Ethrisha said with a laugh.
“I visited my mother’s sister there once.
On Muron’s blood, the amount of looks I got…
I just thought they’d never seen anyone as pretty as me.
I jingled as I walked down the streets in my jewelry, and you would’ve thought I’d spat at their feet.
It’s so…militant there. I thought I’d end up in rider training before I could leave. ”
Just as our laughs peeled out, as we all tried to imagine Ethrisha in rider training of all things, there were raised, frantic shouts in the distance that quieted us all. Brune stood, squinting into the sunlight as we all tried to figure out what was happening.
That was when I saw it. A fight in the field, where the acolyte riders were.
And even from this distance, I could see the familiar form of Ryak, all broad brawn like a true Dothikkar’s guardsman, struggling with someone in the dirt.
He got the upper hand as a gasp sounded from Ethrisha, straddling whoever it was and pummeling them.
Over and over as the riding instructor and a few of the other acolytes tried to pull them away.
Even from a distance, the sound seemed to funnel straight toward us, and we could see the ferocity of the fight. The sickening sound of Ryak’s fist meeting flesh, the gurgle of blood, and desperate grunts.
It was brutal. And horrifying. And it made my gut churn with nausea to see what Ryak was capable of.
It took three riders—and Nevin, I saw—to pull Ryak off his fellow acolyte, who lay limp and unmoving on the ground.
Later that night, I was pacing the hatchery, unable to sleep.
I wound down the hallway outside the sleeping quarters, drifted into the kitchen, picking at little bits of bread in the basket, checked in on Kyr—sleeping in the nest, along with the other hatchlings—and then observed the remaining eggs in the incubation room before the heat grew too uncomfortable.
Outside the night air felt blissfully cool against my heated flesh.
I sat down on the stone bench, closing my eyes.
But all I saw was Ryak being dragged away, his expression thunderous but almost…
gloating. They’d locked him away in an empty dwelling, apparently, with guards posted outside the door and windows.
I couldn’t ignore the long looks that had been cast my way in the evening as I returned to the hatchery. The whispers and abrupt conversations that ended when I drew near. I knew what they were saying, but the only thing I could do was ignore it.
Before Syris had gone to bed, she’d told me that Alaryk had just returned to Grymia at the urging of Myzalla. Maybe that was why I couldn’t sleep. Well, one of many factors.
The acolyte still hadn’t woken up, apparently. And I’d begged Tarkosh to let me go to him, but she’d looked torn. She’d told me to wait for Alaryk’s decision, the worry of exposing my magic at the forefront of her mind.
So I was waiting. But as the moon rose and the hour grew later and later, I knew sleep would elude me if I didn’t do something about it.
I didn’t go back to my quarters. Instead I jumped over the half wall of the courtyard, my feet landing on the stone road that wound all throughout Grymia, and I went searching myself.
I didn’t know why I felt guilty. I wasn’t responsible for Ryak’s brutal actions.
I’d learned that he and the acolyte had been at each other’s throats for days, barbed comments and prickly smirks being exchanged, before it had apparently erupted this afternoon.
I wasn’t responsible for Ryak, no…but I felt guilty that I could’ve helped the acolyte on the field earlier.
I’d been frozen, my mind reeling with consequence and fear, an old habit.
And so I’d done nothing.
But that night, I scoured the village. I avoided the dwelling that I knew Ryak was being held in, knowing I wouldn’t get any help from the guards—most of them trained Grymian riders, apparently.
But most of the village was quiet. As was Alaryk’s dwelling, to the point that I wondered if Syris had heard wrongly that he’d returned.
At the base of the village, however, where the road looped around the landing field and cut through the land that led to the farms below, I saw a glow of torchlight and the familiar silken sheen of Alaryk’s silver hair as he spoke with a guard standing outside a small stone dwelling.
I recognized Myzalla and a handful of riders who had been present when we’d been transported from Dothik.
When he heard the crunch of my boots and one of the guard’s eyes flicked to me, Alaryk turned, his expression unreadable as his blue eyes met mine. I hadn’t seen him since that night in the mountain, since that strange, electric energy had been shared between us, sweet and aching on my tongue.
He turned back to the guard, said something I couldn’t hear, and then approached.
“Is he in there?” I asked, nodding my chin at the dwelling that looked like any other.
“Yes,” Alaryk told me.
I moved to step past him, but he snagged my wrist.
“Don’t.”
I heard something in his voice that made me still. I frowned. “I want to help him, Alaryk. I’ve waited long enough. I don’t care if anyone finds out anymore.”
And I hoped he heard the seriousness in my tone because I wouldn’t be sent away. I’d waited for his decision, but I didn’t want to wait anymore.
Alaryk’s soft curse met my ears, and he took my wrist in his grasp, pulling me away.
“What are you doing?” I asked, struggling against him. “I can help him.”
“No, you can’t, mariss,” he told me, bringing me to a stop a short distance away from the dwelling. He took my face in his palms so that I met his eyes steadily. His voice was almost gentle when he told me, “He’s dead.”
Everything went still. Even the wind.
At first I thought I hadn’t heard him correctly.
“What are you…” I trailed off. Frozen in place as I looked up at him with wide eyes. “What are you saying?”
Alaryk’s expression softened marginally. His thumb stroked over my cheeks, like he knew I’d pull away.
“He’s dead, Amaia,” he told me, keeping my eyes. “Where he’s gone, you can’t help him.”
“No,” I said. I didn’t even know the acolyte’s name, but I still felt a spiral of heartbreak. My own. A splintering in my chest. “No, you’re lying.”
I wrenched myself from his grip, the sharpened edge of one of his nails catching below my jaw, a sting taking its place.
“Amaia,” he warned.
But I was already running to the dwelling, a lone little light on inside. My heartstone magic was gathering wildly in my chest, spurred on by panic and desperation as I sprinted.
Myzalla saw me first, and she tried to hold me back, the guards coming closer in a formation around me as I tried to get through them.
“I can help, I can help—let me through,” I heard myself say, my voice watery and brittle, gasps escaping me. I saw blue light reflect off Myzalla’s face, making her frown. My eyes.
“Let her through,” came Alaryk’s roughened order. “Let her see.”
Myzalla backed away immediately, as did the guards, and I barreled through the door, only to be greeted by the sight of an older Karag woman, one I recognized, who worked on the farm with Brune.
She wasn’t crying, but there was a cold grief drenching her expression as she sat at the bedside of who I now realized was her son.
The acolyte’s face was an unrecognizable mess, bruised and swollen, though a lot of the dark blood had been washed away.
I spread out the tendrils of my magic, seeking, pressing, hoping.
“What are you doing to him?” came his mother’s alarmed bellow. “Get away!”
I felt the iciness wash over me. Familiar. So cold that it nearly stole the breath straight from my lungs, and I wrenched my magic away before it could be withered.
Dead.
Gone.
Lost.
There was nothing I could do. Not anymore.
I met the pained eyes of his mother, angry unushered tears in her vision.
“I’m sorry” was all I could breathe. “I’m so sorry.”
“You should never have come here. Any of you. Now my son is dead! Because of you. All of you!”
She pushed at my shoulders, shoving me back.
“Saran, that’s enough,” came Alaryk’s firm voice. He stepped into the dwelling, taking my wrist, and pulled me back. “The person who killed your son will pay the price. I promise you that.”
“And where were you?” Saran asked, turning on Alaryk. “Gone. You never should’ve allowed them to step foot here. This is sacred land. They only poison it.”
“Come,” Alaryk told me softly. I realized he’d tried to spare me this…but what did it matter?
The only person allowed to hurt here was his mother. The one left behind.
I glanced at the acolyte’s lifeless body on the bed one last time as Alaryk guided me from the dwelling, as I heard his mother break down in wrenching sobs that felt like blades across my skin.
I’d never known his name, but I would carry this moment with me for the rest of my life. A curse of my own. Until the day I died.
That would be my own punishment.