Madness of the Horde King - Zoey Draven Page 0,133

thin and bleary-eyed, and Viola, whose tear-streaked face hit me like a punch.

The woman running towards me was older than I remembered, with lines across her forehead that hadn’t been there before, streaks of white in her hair that hadn’t been there before.

Relief pierced me, bright and perfect.

“Maman.”

The last of Kakkari’s power left me like a whisper, leaving me empty and ravaged, scraped clean from the inside with nothing left to give.

“Vienne, nik,” Davik growled.

I felt my mother’s hand touch my face just before the world went dark.

Chapter Fifty

“You need to wake now, Vienne,” Devina told me, her voice soft. “You have been asleep for a very long time. They are waiting for you.”

I felt her touch in my hair though I could not see her.

“He is waiting for you.”

“What about you?” I struggled to ask her.

“Once you wake, my brother will be whole. You are tied to him now. Always,” Devina told me. “He will always see me. You will always feel me. But I am no longer trapped in this place. I feel untethered. Unchained. I feel the veil closing. Soon, it will be harder to return to this place. And I long to see what happens next.”

I felt a stirring. Something beginning to awaken in my mind.

“Go, Vienne,” came Devina’s whisper, her hand in my hair. “They are waiting for you.”

Chapter Fifty-One

When I opened my eyes, I saw Maman.

“Mon coeur,” she whispered when she saw me awake. I had only seen my mother cry after my father died, but now, her eyes filled with tears. “I—I feared that…oh, Vienne.”

She was sitting on the plush floor of Davik’s voliki, her legs curled underneath her, her hand stroking through my hair. We were alone in the voliki, the fire crackling.

“Maman,” I said, my voice cracking. My throat was dry, my body aching.

She simply stared at me, crying, her hands stroking through my hair. I studied her face, memorizing the changes in her features. Her nose was crooked now—as if it had been broken. Her forehead was creased with worry lines, lines she had always fretted over as she’d aged, though my father had always kissed her fears away. Her hair was long, trailing to her lower back, streaked with grey and white.

It looked as if she’d aged ten years under the Dead Mountain. I wondered if I looked much older to her too.

“Viola?” I whispered. “Maxen, Eli? Are they all right?”

“Yes,” she told me, pressing kisses to my cheeks, her voice soft. Her tears dripped onto my face. “They are here. In…in the horde.”

There was hesitation in her voice. An unspoken question.

“Where is he?” I asked, trying to push up from the bed, though Maman pushed me back down.

“He will be here soon, I am sure. He has scarcely left your side,” she murmured.

I blew out a long breath.

“You have been asleep for a week, Vienne,” Maman whispered. “Your…your horde king has brought in every healer that he could find across Dakkar. But none knew why you did not wake.”

But I knew why.

I felt it.

The loss of something that was not there anymore, like a deep, cratered ache.

Looking at Maman, I tried to gather the energy in my mind, imagining it filling the space between us, like it had hundreds of times before. I was a voyeur of emotions…I always had been.

Only, I felt nothing. There was nothing there. No sizzling energy or the familiar feel of my power.

My gift had left me.

It had been Kakkari’s price, the price I’d needed to pay to access the heartstone’s power.

And I would pay it a thousand times over if I had the choice. I was grateful the goddess hadn’t asked for my life instead.

Even still, the loss of my gift felt like the loss of a limb. I didn’t know how to live without it because it had always been there before…but I would learn.

I reached out my hand, to touch Maman’s cheek.

“I’m so happy to see you again,” I whispered.

“You saved us, mon coeur,” she told me, giving me a wavering smile. “You saved us all.”

The entrance to the voliki pushed open and I saw Maxen duck his head inside. My brother’s gaze widened when he saw me awake and my smile wobbled as I grinned at him. He called something over his shoulder, shouting towards the encampment, before he rushed inside.

He caught my hand in his, pressing a kiss to my palm. Strong, handsome Maxen with his light blue eyes and wide smile…he looked changed too. I was certain