Chapter 38
ALARYK
A hand came to my shoulder, breaking my gaze away from Amaia.
I frowned, and when I turned my neck to regard the intruder, it felt stiff.
Myzalla was looking at me, concern etched deep into her expression. Not for Amaia, but for me.
“Tarkosh said the eggs look healthy,” she reported. “They’re back in the incubation room. Safe.”
I cleared my throat, my eyes returning to Amaia. To her chest, specifically. The way it rose and fell, the only thing that loosened the fist around my heart.
“Good” was all I said.
“Dresnar—”
“Don’t,” I murmured. “Not now.”
Myzalla sat on the edge of the bed where Amaia lay.
“We don’t have the luxury to wait,” Myzalla said. “We have both being guarded. But Sarkin should know that one of his own riders has betrayed us all. Let me send a missive to Elysom. He’s still there. Let him come and take away his rider, so we can deal with ours.”
“Fine,” I rasped. The tangle of politics, of hard decisions, weaved in my mind…and right then, I didn’t have the stomach for it as I usually did.
Not when Amaia had been so badly beaten that she was hardly recognizable.
Not when I could still see her, feel her, in my mind, battered and bloodied and full of sorrow.
Her death had been a certain thing in her mind…
and because she had been so certain, it had stamped itself into mine, and I couldn’t shake it.
The rain had been so cold, and though it had been hours since I’d discovered her lying in her own blood in the forest… I couldn’t get warm.
I’d done something I never thought I’d willingly do again. With Samryn, it had been inevitable.
But Amaia had been close to death. In that singular moment, clarity had struck. I knew I’d rather be part of her for the rest of my life than lose her forever. Otherwise she would’ve gone where I could not have followed.
“Why don’t you go bathe?” Myzalla’s voice came. My brow furrowed, and I wondered how long the silence between us had been. “I’ll watch over her.”
I looked down at myself. I was still in my riding vest. Caked in mud and forest sludge and blood, dried down so that it felt like plaster, splintering off me whenever I moved.
Syris had been here shortly after we’d returned to Grymia.
It had been Syris who’d cleaned Amaia’s face.
Her friend had sniffled, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she’d swiped the cloths across her skin, dirtying the basin with enough blood to need it refilled three times.
Raran had come, but she’d said there was nothing she could do except try to reset the bones that had been broken.
Amaia could heal herself if I fed her my magic…but she wouldn’t wake. Nothing would wake her.
“Alaryk,” Myzalla murmured, catching my attention. “Go clean yourself up. I’ll be here.”
I rose from the chair I didn’t remember dragging up to the bed.
My eyes flickered to the sersa pot, the dark smoke rising from the small ember burning the powder.
My mother had once believed it kept away death.
And while I didn’t believe that, sersa smoke had been proven to keep the lungs clear and to strengthen the body, to help fight off sickness and disease.
It had been used all throughout Harta for centuries.
I always kept a store of it, even now, so many years after my mother had died.
I always purchased more when I was back in my birthland.
In my bathing pool, I scrubbed off the mud, remembering the events that had come after I’d found Amaia, in brief flashes.
I remembered the cooled rage as I’d raced to the open clearing where Samryn could land, with a bloodied Amaia in my arms. Myzalla and two of my riders had already been there, having caught Nevin, Dresnar, and Sarkin’s rider from Sarroth.
When I’d appeared on the ledge, Dresnar had emptied the contents of his stomach, narrowly missing Myzalla’s boot, and Nevin’s face had paled, though he’d never taken his eyes off Amaia.
And that had made me even angrier.
My magic had been swift and sharp. I’d ordered Nevin to jump off the cliff, a steep drop into the valley below. He couldn’t even scream on the way down, and Sarkin’s rider had started to piss himself when I’d turned my glowing gaze to him.
Myzalla, however, had stopped me before I’d dealt with the Karag myself. She’d told me to get Amaia back to Grymia, to get her to Raran.
Even now, after my mind had cooled, I still wished she hadn’t stopped me. It would have taken me seconds to kill both of them. Hesitation had gotten me here. I should’ve executed Ryak the night I’d returned from Elysom. Maybe then this wouldn’t have happened.
We’d retrieved his body from the forest. And since Nevin’s body was at the base of the eastern valley…I would send Ryak’s back to the Dothikkar with a letter of my own.
Across my magic, I tested Amaia’s again, only to feel a cold wall.
After I bathed and dressed in clean clothes, I returned to Myzalla. She was still in the same spot, and she met my eyes when I appeared.
“You care for her,” she said. “Truly.”
I didn’t think I needed to respond to that.
She sighed. “This will mark her, Alaryk. Always.”
“I know,” I replied.
Myzalla meant in Grym. Among my people. Amaia’s actions would always be whispered about, no matter what good she did here.
The theft would follow her, no matter what the circumstances had been.
With time, it would lessen. I knew that firsthand.
Shortly after I’d become Karath, shortly after what I’d done in Harta had spread throughout my own people, no one would meet my eyes anymore.
It had taken years, but eventually they had.
It would pass.
My people would learn to accept her again. Because I didn’t intend to let her go.
Myzalla knew that. She could see that clearly. Her words were meant as a small warning, nothing more. But she knew my mind was made up.
All of this was dependent on if Amaia woke again, I knew.
It didn’t matter if she hated me when she did.
I’d said horrible things to her when I’d seen her last, betrayed her trust, done the one thing I’d promised not to do.
It had made me a villain in her mind. It had broken something in her.
I’d seen it fracture. I felt that realization go through me, even now, like a cold wind.
Had I broken her completely, though?
All I knew was that we had two injured Dakkari and two dead Dakkari. We had a nation across the seas that might’ve just sparked a war, a swift punishment necessary on the heels of a foolish king’s greed and lust for power.
“Whatever comes, I’ll stand by you,” Myzalla told me.
The words made my throat tighten.
“I don’t ask you to,” I told her.
She scoffed, standing from the bed when I took my place back in the chair. “I don’t need you to,” she replied.
With that, she left. And I reached forward to take Amaia’s cold hand. I pressed my warmth into her, spreading my magic like a blanket, in hopes it might root itself.
Maybe it was a fruitless effort, but I’d keep trying nevertheless.
We were bonded now.
I had bonded my magic to hers in the forest.
To save her life, I’d made that unthinkable choice for both of us as lightning had flashed and rain had battered down on our bodies.
She might hate me for that, too, when she woke.
And if she died…I would feel the loss of her forever.