Chapter 37
AMAIA
When the rain started, it came pouring down over us in sheets. Icy and prickling, it was nothing like the gentle storms in Dothik during the warmer months, when the drizzle felt more like a enveloping fog.
This was a punishing rain, and in no time, it soaked me through to the bone, even beneath the protection of the trees in the thick forest.
I was sandwiched between Ryak and Nevin, in a single-file line as Ryak led the path through the dark woods. The only thing that didn’t make my teeth chatter was the hot satchel against my back, keeping the core of my body warm.
My eyes were on Ryak’s back, glued to the satchel.
They were frustrated that I moved so slowly, but the starstone and the eggs were nearly as heavy as a newborn pyroki.
Carrying one on your back for hours, with very little sleep and trembling limbs?
I was surprised I hadn’t collapsed before dawn had broken over the Arsadia.
My head was pounding still from when Ryak had hit me.
Every drag of my legs made me want to curl into a ball.
I wanted to huddle all the eggs to me, to try to shield them, to protect them.
I wanted to return to Grymia. I wanted to wake up beside Alaryk and pretend that he hadn’t betrayed me, that I hadn’t betrayed him, that we hadn’t fought.
I wanted to pretend that I’d never done such an awful, awful thing.
But this was my own punishment, wasn’t it?
It was an act—a decision and a treachery against people I had come to love—that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Every day, I would remember this.
I went to grip my pendant, a habit when I was feeling lost, only to feel the bare flesh of my neck. A reminder. Another loss.
“Hurry up,” Ryak growled when I fell behind, again.
“I can’t go any faster,” I panted, nearly doubled over on the trail that wasn’t really a trail.
Only a temporary one made with Ryak’s heavy footsteps, the brush already springing back into shape.
Something slimy was crawling along my leg, and I was too tired to shake it off.
The rain was making the forest floor as thick as mud.
Every step felt like wading into sludge.
My only small victory was that the journey also seemed to tire the guardsmen. I didn’t think either had the strength to even take the satchel from me. They needed me to transport it…to wherever we were going.
Ryak looked up at the sky as I caught my breath. “We have to keep moving. They’ll know they’re gone by now.”
I wondered who’d discovered my theft this morning. Was it Tarkosh? Or Syris?
“How much farther did they say?” Nevin asked.
They?
“The edge of the forest cuts away down to a valley,” Ryak answered. “I checked it. That’s where they’ll be.”
“Move,” Nevin ordered me, finally ending my brief reprieve. The tip of his mud-covered boot prodded the back of my thigh. “Hurry up.”
I didn’t know how I found the strength to pull my leg from the muck where I’d begun to sink, but I continued.
I wondered about Brune, hoping that he wasn’t dead.
Hoping that someone would find him quickly.
Before we’d left, I’d tried to funnel as much of my magic into him as I could, to try to keep him alive until he was discovered.
At least until Ryak had noticed the glow of my eyes.
What would Alaryk think when they found the eggs gone? When they knew it was me who’d done it?
Would he believe that I was truly the treacherous, lying bitch he’d made me out to be last night?
He would be proven right. I wished I could’ve explained.
Now…I would never see him again. Maybe it was best for both of us that he hated me.
Overhead, I heard the familiar swooping of wings. My heart jolted, my head snapping back. There was an Elthika.
My heart only sank when I realized it wasn’t Samryn or an Elthika I recognized. From this vantage I couldn’t even tell if it had a rider or if it was wild.
Though I was tempted, and though I thought about it, I knew that if I screamed up for help, it would certainly mean my own death. And I knew that Ryak was a hateful bastard, that he would make good on his promises of ruining my family when he returned to Dothik.
So I bit my tongue, watching the Elthika fly out of view, something shriveling in me at its retreat.
“That’s him,” Ryak murmured.
Good thing I didn’t call out, I thought, my heart swimming in dread.
“We must be close.”
They did have help from the Karag. The stunning realization made my gut feel like it was coiled tight. There was more happening here than I’d even known.
And that was the first moment when an inkling of doubt began to spread. Was I in danger?
Questions raced in my mind on a loop. Until long moments later, I heard the familiar sounds of an Elthika or two and the low murmuring of voices just through the tree line.
The forest finally gave way to a wide, flat, rocky ledge that dropped straight off into a deep valley, just as Ryak had said.
I wondered if this was what they’d done since Nevin had broken him out of his prison back in Grymia.
Biding their time, looking for an opportunity to get to me.
Had they been watching the village? Watching me? How had they not been caught?
There, standing along the sheet of the ledge, big enough for two Elthika to land, were two Karag riders. One I didn’t recognize, with long brown hair, partially braided away from his face and steel-gray eyes, but one I did.
Dresnar.
One of Alaryk’s own trusted riders. Just yesterday morning, he’d led me to the meeting with Sarkin and Vaedrin. I would’ve only been more shocked if I’d seen Myzalla herself standing there.
“You?” I breathed.
His lips were pressed tight, the flint of his eyes unreadable.
I wasn’t thinking when I asked, “But why? He trusts you.”
And maybe it wasn’t my right, but I felt sinking dread for Alaryk. That one of his own riders, his own friend, would do this to Grymia.
Dresnar stepped forward toward me. He’d been the one riding on Elthika-back, coming from the direction of the village. He took the satchel from me, though his movements were careful, as if he didn’t want to disturb the egg.
“Let’s not pass judgments on trustworthiness, Dakkari,” he replied. I flinched, the words like a dagger.
“We can still stop this. We can leave and return the eggs,” I said softly, looking at Dresnar.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this. But surely you know that this will start a war.
” I cut a look over to Ryak and then to Nevin.
“Is that what the Dothikkar really wants? He won’t win a war with the Karag.
It’ll be a slaughter. Of our own people. We can still stop this!”
“That’s not your concern,” Ryak answered, his voice a dismissal. “We have our orders.”
Dresnar’s voice was impatient as he cut a look to Ryak, the satchel securely in his grip. “We need to leave now. They have patrols all over this forest. They found Brune, and he told Alaryk which direction you’d gone.”
“Vok,” Ryak cursed, glaring over at Nevin. “I knew we should’ve killed him.”
The words twisted my belly. Brune’s father was a guardsman. They would really kill their own brethren’s son? His flesh and blood?
And if they were willing to do that, what were they willing to do to me?
Already Ryak hadn’t seemed to have much respect for Kiron. Maybe…maybe I was never meant to come back from the Arsadia.
The thought hit me like I’d run into a pillar of stone.
Maybe I was a liability. A loose end.
I shook myself, thinking I was being silly.
Still, my feet stayed rooted along the forest’s edge, watching as Ryak and Nevin kept their satchels on their backs, as Dresnar took my egg and looped the straps over his own shoulders. Nevin cut me the smallest glance. I noticed the brown-haired Karag was watching me carefully.
This was wrong. Everything told me that there was something wrong about this.
“What now?” I forced myself to ask, even as the hair on my arms stood on end, even in the steady rain, which skimmed off my skin in thick droplets.
“Now we go home,” Nevin said.
But no one moved.
And that was when I knew I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.
My magic was wiggling in my chest, spurred on by the sudden threat, the icy fear. When my eyes began to glow, Dresnar took a step toward me.
“We can still use her,” Nevin said, looking to Ryak. “Her power is rare. The Dothikkar—”
“No,” the other Karag said. “She’s seen our faces.”
My heart was pounding, and I took a step back.
“You need me,” I told Ryak, but I hated that it sounded like a plea.
Trying to bide time. “I’m the only one who’s worked in a hatchery here.
What are you going to do with Elthikan eggs when you get them back home?
You don’t know what they need, but I do. ”
“So do they,” Ryak said, tilting his head to the Karag.
My gaze flitted to Dresnar. There were four of them. I was already so tired. I wouldn’t be able to outrun any of them for very long.
They would kill me, I knew.
But why?
“What did they promise you?”
Dresnar’s jaw ticked. He was the only one who looked like he was hesitating, like it disgusted him that he was even here. He didn’t want to betray Alaryk. So why was he? What was in it for him?
“Your people have mature heartstones. We’ve only been given the seeds,” he replied.
“Do you how long it will take for those seeds to grow? Do you know how long it will take until our Elthika are sated again? Decades. And as you witnessed yourself from the attack, the wild Elthika will only get more violent. I won’t see my people plunged into conflict with them again. ”
Again?
Understanding went through me.
Ryak had made a deal with these Karag. Maybe it was a deal that the Dothikkar had given him license to make. In helping to steal the eggs and transporting them back to Dakkar…they’d be rewarded with mature heartstones.