Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,145

swallow. Because I didn’t want Laru to think that I had been unhappy. How could I ever be unhappy with my family, whom I loved dearly, with me?

“But I was happy, Laru,” I argued. “I was happy here. As happy as I could be without Lomma.”

And without Kiran, I thought but I kept that to myself.

“Nik,” she said, shaking her head once. “You were content here, Maeva. But I always saw it in your eyes. Your loneliness.”

I stilled.

“You tried not to think about him but I could always tell when you were wondering about him. About where he was. If he was safe. If he had found another. If he would ever come home. If he ever thought about you.”

Now, I knew that he had. He’d thought about me all the time, missing me, just as I’d longed for him, even when I’d tried not to.

“Lomma knew,” she finished. “She knew that you were meant for one another. That Kakkari had always meant for it. She believed that you would find your way back to one another. She believed that, even at the end. And she was right. Everything she believed came to pass.”

The fire sparked loudly, as if our lomma was in the room with us now and announcing her agreement.

We both fell quiet and my gaze dropped to Rasik, watching him sleep in my sister’s lap, under her gentle touch. Why hadn’t Lomma ever told me this herself?

“I hate him,” Laru whispered, though it was entirely without malice. “But only because he is taking you away from us. For good this time. I think I knew that though. When you left. I think I knew that you wouldn’t be coming home.”

Later that night, I was changing my father’s bandages. Laru and Nevir were talking quietly in the common room. I’d left them cuddled up, warming by the fire, with Rasik sleeping between them.

Ever since the attack, Nevir was away almost all waking hours of the day—helping bring in fresh water from the wells, watching over the gates, and today, he’d begun helping with the disposal of the ungira.

Though it was the frost, most of the ungira had already dug their nests deep into the earth outside the gates. Nevir and the rest of the saruk’s warriors who were able and unwounded were heaving the dead beasts back into them, where their bodies would rest and nourish the earth once the frost passed.

However, it was difficult and grueling work, especially with so few darukkars. And I’d counted at least fifteen ungira outside the gates. It would take the better part of the week to erase all evidence of the battle.

But everyone who was able to was pitching in around the saruk. Whenever my father was resting, I returned to the mokkira’s voliki, offering him my help, which I could tell he was thankful for. Even Nebrik, the mokkira’s nephew and the male who would be taking over his position eventually, seemed thankful for the extra hands.

Though Nebrik and I had never gotten along, he’d still inclined his head in respect. I was, after all, a mokkira. A mokkira of a horde. I was not simply Maeva anymore, a healer. A kerisa.

But as the days blended, as the sun rose and then set, I felt an anxiousness rise. Because I was a mokkira of a horde…and I had left. I couldn’t stay at the saruk forever. Once my father was healed, once I was certain that he would be all right, I had to leave. I knew that. I worried for Addie, for the baby. The nightmares of watching her die had returned. I worried for Essir, for placing so much responsibility on his shoulders when I knew he wasn’t ready.

The guilt was overwhelming. The shame. But I could do nothing else. Not until my father was well…because I wouldn’t abandon him. Not for my duty, not for anything.

Tonight, once I had a fresh bandage on my father’s wound, once his furs were clean and I’d wiped him down with a soft cloth and brushed out his hair, I kneeled on the floor next to his bed and memorized features I knew like the back of my hand.

His spirits had returned—his color too—and today was the best he’d been feeling since the attack, which I thought boded well. When he was awake and not in pain, we talked of the horde, what life was like there…but of course, he knew. He’d been a darukkar for Kiran’s father, after all, before