Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,141

for my furs.

“He would not want you without the horde’s protection,” he growled. “He would have my head for it.”

I met his gaze. Guilt and regret swarmed my veins because I knew that I would need to break my promise to Kiran.

“I need a pyroki,” I told him. “Will you allow me one?”

His jaw shifted and clenched. Whatever he saw in my eyes—my determination, my fear, my resolve—made his hand tighten.

“Kalles…” he rasped, shaking his head. “Vok. He will never forgive me for this.”

“He knows me,” I argued, feeling the tight pinch of time pricking my skin. I needed to leave soon. And I would do it with or without the pujerak’s help. “He knows that once I make up my mind I will not be swayed from it.”

His nostrils flared. Finally, he released my shoulder and stepped away.

“You will have your pyroki,” the pujerak said, filling me with relief. “But I will also send you with a pack of darukkars for protection on the journey. No less than eight.”

Surprise went through me but I knew it was the pujerak’s own loyalty to Kiran that had him helping me. That and possibly the fact that, had Kiran been here, he would have sent darukkars regardless to help protect his father’s saruk. Our home. Though Laru had said they were safe, what had attacked them? More creatures?

I would find out.

“Kakkira vor. I am in your debt, pujerak,” I murmured, tying my furs tight. With one last look over my shoulder, I nodded at Gabe and then finally Essir. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Closest to Drukkar’s Sea, the frost was still mild, though the ground was covered in soft ice.

It didn’t settle in deep until the middle of the season and it reared its head with a vengeance then. The sea frosted over, the waves solidifying into peaks, with ice so thick you could walk over it, though no one from the saruk dared. Because if the ice cracked, it would mean a certain death. Even Dakkari couldn’t withstand temperatures that cold.

The pyroki’s breath billowed silver in front of her. I was in the middle of a pack of darukkars. Two in front of me, two at my sides, and four trailing behind us. As we raced closer and closer to the saruk, there was a peculiar stench in the air. Of raw meat but not of rot. The stench grew more and more potent as we traveled onwards.

And finally, when the saruk came into view, my breath left me. Because in the field outside, between the forest of Isida and the newly fortified gates of where I’d grown up, there was a pitted battlefield. Large, ice-covered mounds lay between us and the saruk, surrounded by deep, deep holes in the earth.

Ice-covered mounds that—as we drew closer—I saw were slain ungira, their innards spilling out, which accounted for the smell. The chilled air kept most of the stench tolerable.

The darukkar next to me breathed, “What in Kakkari’s name happened here?”

A battle, I thought grimly.

And my father had been fighting in it, defending his home.

I’d known the ungira were moving south. As were the polkunu. But judging by the deep holes in the field before the saruk, it looked like the beasts had chosen to nest here. And ungira were territorial creatures. That was what Kiran had told me. They would have defended their land, their homes in the ground, even if they’d chosen to reside next to an outpost.

But why had the ungira been drawn to the saruk? Our saruk? When there was so much land to nest in?

I froze, realization going through me.

Could it be…could it be that they’d been attracted to the heartstone? I wondered.

Kiran’s father was one of two Sorakkars that possessed one. A portion of Kakkari’s own power was rumored to be contained within each one. It had been a heartstone that the white-haired human sorceress had used under the Dead Mountain, after all. The Sorakkar of Rath Okkili had been tasked with a heartstone’s protection when he’d retired from the wild lands and settled in the south.

Was that why the eastern creatures were journeying here? Because they were drawn to Kakkari’s power and influence, as if they needed protection?

“Draki,” I murmured to the pyroki underneath me, my eyes set on the gates. All the pyrokis began to run faster, as if sensing that their reprieve was close. We’d been riding straight through since we left the horde. I hadn’t wanted to stop and rest