Broken by the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar #4) - Zoey Draven Page 0,41

soft voice came to me after a long stretch of silence.

“You didn’t want to kill the ungira,” she commented. “Why?”

My arms squeezed tighter where they were wrapped around my drawn-up knees.

“We were not hunting. My horde has plenty of food stores for the frost already,” I told her.

“You killed the polkunu,” she pointed out.

Blowing out a sharp breath, I raked a hand through my hair, my tail twitching. It felt stiff with my drying blood and it brushed her leg.

“The polkunu was close to the saruk,” I said. “If I let it live, it would have been a danger.”

“The saruk’s protection isn’t your concern,” she said, though there was no bite in her words. Merely an observation. “Any other Vorakkar would’ve let it go.”

“Perhaps,” I replied. “But many that live in the saruk…I care about them and their protection.”

Maeva didn’t reply to that.

“It was us that surprised the ungira this evening,” I said. “And ungira are territorial beasts. They build their dens in the ground before the frost to lay their eggs. That was likely a mother protecting her young from potential threats.”

I heard Maeva swallow as I felt the coolness of the uudun slide down the inside of my wound. I wondered what she thought of the wreckage of my back. I wondered if the scars frightened or disgusted her.

I’d told her the truth. Ever since I’d received them during the Vorakkar Trials, I never wanted her to see them.

It was a little late for that now.

“Another beast has left its natural territory of the east lands,” she commented softly.

My lips pressed together.

Lysi, another instance. One of many. And these were only the creatures we’d spotted in the south. There was no telling where other creatures had scattered, as they fled from the Dead Lands and the east.

I would need to report these to the other Vorakkars. Likely, we would all need to convene in Dothik once more. The Dothikkar, perhaps, didn’t know of these new disturbing changes yet. But he would. And we would need to decide what could be done, especially concerning this red mist that had begun to spread.

“What has happened in the east to drive them away?” she asked, though I sensed it was a question more to herself. “Have the stories been true? About the human sorceress who wielded Kakkari’s power under the Dead Mountain?”

“Lysi,” I rasped. “The stories have been true. The Vorakkar of Rath Kitala witnessed it, as did the Vorakkar of Rath Drokka, who later made the vekkiri his queen.”

She went quiet, though I could almost hear the thousands of questions bubbling in her mind.

“She almost died, didn’t she?” Maeva asked after another silence.

“Lysi,” I said, my voice gruff. “The Vorakkar of Rath Drokka almost went mad when she would not wake. He tried to use the heartstone to save her life, though it would have been at the cost of his own.”

“He loves her?”

Something about her question made my throat tighten with regret. Her innocent question made me remember just how much of a romantic optimist Maeva had been.

Now?

There was a hardened indifference to her, one that cut me to witness it, especially when it was directed towards me.

“Lysi, very much,” I said, my tone rough from the sudden tightness of my throat. “Why else would he make her his Morakkari?”

A charged silence followed. A silence that made me aware of her, of every movement she made, of every brush of her fingers against my ravaged flesh.

“There are many reasons,” she said, clearing her throat. “Power and the future of the horde, for one. Among the hordes’ histories, there have been many Vorakkars who chose queens not based on love, but on position and connections. In fact, choosing a Morakkari on the basis of love might be the worst decision a Vorakkar can make.”

My jaw clenched.

Frustration threaded through my veins.

I hated her speaking like this. Before, she’d always sighed with adoration and giggled with delight when she heard the great love stories of our history. She’d always declared that she wanted a love like what her parents shared.

I’d always loved that about her…that her heart had been so open that it was practically bursting.

“And what of my parents?” I couldn’t help but ask, my voice gruff.

“It proves my point,” she said, stoppering her jars once she finished packing the wound. “Your father chose his Morakkari because she was the daughter of his pujerak. Because her line extends for generations across the wild lands, because she was suited to be his