Madness of the Horde King - Zoey Draven Page 0,107

awful lot like…betrayal.

“Davik knew?” I whispered, hurt spearing me. “This whole time, he’s known where the heartstone is?”

“He told me he did not want to seek it out. That it was better lost,” Lokkaru said. “I agree with him. The heartstone’s power is not well understood. It can be dangerous.”

“I need to know where it is,” I told her, deafened to what she was saying. Something shifted in my breast, possibly similar to the determination I’d felt within Davik last night, when he’d told me I would be his Morakkari. “My family will never be free without it.”

I will never be free, I amended silently…only I heard the words echo in the space between Lokkaru and I.

The heartstone was the only thing I had left to bargain with.

Her features softened. “Oh, cossa.”

“Please,” I begged, swallowing.

“It is dangerous,” Lokkaru warned.

“I would do anything for my family,” I told her, stepping towards her, though the distance between us didn’t shorten. The dream seemed to expand, shifting in its dimensions. “Please, Lokkaru. I need your help. I’m—I’m already dying. I don’t have much time left and I need to reach my family before it’s too late.”

“You plan to give the heartstone to the Ghertun?” Lokkaru asked softly.

My stomach sank when I heard the hesitation in her voice. “I need to,” I told her, unable to lie. “But the Ghertun cannot use Kakkari’s power. It means nothing.”

“Like I said, the heartstone’s power is unknown. Cossa, I cannot—”

“Please,” I whispered again. “I—I don’t even know if I’ll make it, if I have enough time to find it. But I have to try. I have to.”

Lokkaru peered at me closely. The veil over her face seemed to ripple with an unseen wind.

“I have to try.”

I tried not to think about Davik. That he’d known this entire time and said nothing.

The dimensions of the dreams shifted, narrowing and then widening. In my mind, I felt Lokkaru’s presence, both disturbing and comforting. I had never felt another in my mind but I knew this was what Davik must have felt.

“I will show you, cossa.”

Relief pricked me like a knife.

In my mind, she guided me east, the landscape passing before me, though parts of it seemed washed out and blurry, as if this was from her own memory and it was hazy. It went faster and faster but I remembered it all, as if it were a map stamped into my own mind.

The memory centered on one area. The ancient groves, I knew. The place Davik had told me about in his story about the heartstone.

Then Lokkaru showed me what I’d been seeking.

There was a beautiful, old tree. Weathered but strong. At the end of a stream, deep in the ancient groves, its black trunk stood proudly, its branches glimmering in sunlight. Its leaves seemed like they were painted in gold.

“My father,” Lokkaru said in my mind, unseen.

Tears pricked my eyes at the love I heard in Lokkaru’s voice.

“My mother buried him with the heartstone and this tree grew from him. It was nourished from him and his love. The heartstone is within. Somewhere, with him.”

My breath hitched. When I’d first met her, Lokkaru had told me, “She told me love grows and it grows true, as long as it is nourished. Like my father.”

She’d been speaking of her mother.

This tree was beautiful. The tree was Lokkaru’s father’s grave. His final place of rest. A shrine. A testament of his sacrifice for his family, of his love for them. He’d died so that his unborn daughter and wife could live.

And in order to save my family, I would have to desecrate it. I would have to destroy it, this place of love and beauty, in order to find the heartstone, in order to fulfill my agreement with the Ghertun king.

Lokkaru, still in my mind, said softly, “You will have the strength, cossa. You will do what needs to be done.”

I woke from the dream. A sense of calm had settled over me, though it was brittle.

Just as Lokkaru said in the dream, we were still riding towards the horde. It was late, the moon high overhead. The darkness of the plains settled over Dakkar like a heavy blanket.

I was on Nillima’s back and I felt Davik’s arms around me. The back of my head rested against his chest and the gentle sway of his pyroki beneath us threatened to lull me back to sleep. Because I was so tired. I felt so damned tired. Another symptom of the vovic,