Chapter 37

SARKIN

“The last rider finally decided to end his illa’rosh ,” Kyavor told me. “He’s being retrieved now.”

“Who?” I asked, though my mind was elsewhere.

“Nirin,” Kyavor said. “From the lake village. He wants to continue instruction through next year. To try again.”

I inclined my head. “Blood born?”

“No, his father is a fisherman.”

Then he would feel the rejection from an Elthika all the more sharply.

“Let him continue to train,” I decided. “He can stay in the Arsadia for the year if he wishes.”

Withstanding the illa’rosh for as long as he had, with a rejection, spoke for his mental strength. One day, he might make a good rider.

“I will. And all but two Sarrothian acolytes claimed an Elthika,” Kyavor reported. There was hesitation in his voice because we both knew that one of those acolytes was my wife. “We will add ten new riders, ten new Elthika to Sarroth’s horde.”

“Get a report on the new Elthika,” I said. “I’ll have Levanth deliver it to Elysom in the morning.”

Kyavor inclined his head, and I walked away, intent to find my wife.

It was two nights after Klara had taken the fall.

Finally the illa’rosh could come to an end, with only two deaths recorded. I considered that a success, though I knew the nightmares would come, as they always did. The two blood borns who had tried to claim Lygath…I had managed to save only one. The other had been too far away, just like Haden. I’d only narrowly been able to drop the surviving acolyte down to the pass floor before I’d needed to track Klara overhead.

The horde would pack up our encampment at dawn, and we’d leave for Rysar. The remaining wild Elthika had already begun their migration from the cliffs. Tomorrow this place would be as if the illa’rosh had never happened. Only…the territories of Grym and Kyloth had lost two of their acolytes, both blood borns, and their families would always remember this choosing. The first had taken a death fall before we’d even arrived to Tharken. Another Vyrin had apparently been scouting the area, and the acolyte had tried his hand.

My horde was celebrating the end of the illa’rosh . The fires were lit, the feasting had begun. It had been successful for Sarroth. But I felt this stone pit in my belly that I couldn’t shake, knowing how much Klara was hurting right now.

There was a break in the celebration noise, a sharp knife cutting through it. When I glanced up the pathway, I saw Klara, walking with Sammenth. Klara had her head held high, but my fists clenched at my sides when I heard the quiet that had descended. The whisperings that started up in the festivities’ wake.

I stepped forward, slicing a sharp look over to a group of younger riders, making them swallow their tongues. I approached my wife. The Sarrothian didn’t publicly show affection to partners or lovers, but I pressed my lips to the side of her temple when I reached her.

Slowly the celebration carried on, though I felt dozens and dozens of eyes on us. Sammenth squeezed Klara’s forearm, murmuring, “I’ll find you later.” And then with a careful look of greeting at me, the young rider fell away, into the fray.

Pulling back, I looked into Klara’s eyes, seeing the way they flickered around the celebration before lowering.

“I thought I could do this,” she whispered softly, “but I don’t think I can. Not yet.”

I nodded, taking her hand and striding away from the clearing. From other neighboring mountains, I heard the celebration of other hordes. I heard the telltale drums of the Grym territory and echoing laughter of the Kylothian fill the Tharken cliffs. The horde from Elarin had already departed.

Klara shivered, and I pulled her closer. I brought her to our domed dwelling, untying the laces at the entrance and holding open the flap for her to step through. I tied them tight, and the thick material helped blocked out all sound. Our tent was placed toward the back of the encampment, closest to the wide expanse on the mountain where the Elthika could land. It was separate, and I knew that Klara would feel safer here.

“What do you need?” I asked her, taking her into my arms.

“To not feel like this anymore,” she answered immediately, her shoulders slumping even though her hands pressed into my abdomen. I couldn’t stand the defeat I heard in her voice. “To not feel like everyone has turned on me. To not feel like an outsider again. To not feel like a failure.”

“You’re not a failure,” I growled.

“I am,” she answered simply. “You don’t have to lie to me. I know what happened. I know what everyone saw.”

I blew out a sharp breath. At least she was speaking with me tonight. She’d been withdrawn for the last two nights. Stoic and detached. She still showed her face, bravely, among the horde, though I knew she heard their biting remarks, their judgments. It was what I disliked most about my people. The Sarrothian frost, it was called. If they didn’t know you or if they didn’t respect you, they made you feel it like the prick of a dagger. Failure was a brand on your skin. And it took what felt like a lifetime to shake away shame in their eyes.

Klara was feeling it keenly. Just as I had once.

“Lygath was never going to accept a rider, Klara.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Her head snapped up, but the burn of the anger in her eyes felt better than her quiet resignation. At least there was life in her now.

My nostrils flared. I wanted to stoke that fire even more, to shake her from this.

“I told you not to choose him. So why did you disobey me?”

“ Disobey? ” she breathed. “More riders were going to die , Sarkin!”

“And you would’ve been one of them!” I growled.

She reared back, stepping from my arms as she began to pace our dwelling. It was decorated sparsely and had a bed of furs at my request. Her booted feet treaded over the soft carpets that created a barrier against the hard mountain stone.

“I felt it,” she cried out. “The bonding pull. I knew— know —that Lygath is meant to be mine. How do you explain that?”

I shook my head, feeling the tension build in my chest as I watched her pace. “Klara, there is always choice—I’ve told you. You might have felt the bond with Lygath; I won’t discredit that…but sometimes an Elthika doesn’t want a rider, no matter the pull. Lygath has always been one of them.”

“Then why was he there?” she asked. “Why was he at Tharken if he didn’t want a rider?”

“Zaridan,” I answered, thinking it obvious enough. “They sense each other. He knew she was there. There is a bond in blood that cannot be denied, and it is the only bond he cares about.”

Klara looked away from me. “I felt it so strongly , Sarkin. I thought…I thought that I could prevent the others from trying to claim him, from dying if only I claimed him first. I felt what they didn’t. They want him because he’s a Vyrin. I chose him because of what I felt. Because I’ve dreamed of him for years. I thought… I don’t know what I thought anymore. All I can see is those two riders falling into the darkness and the sound that Lygath made when they latched into his side. It was…awful, that sound.”

My heart twisted in my chest when I saw the drops of her tears roll down her face like translucent jewels.

“ Aralye, ” I breathed, going to her, sighing. I took her shoulders and then wiped away her tears with the pads of my thumbs. “It’s not your fault. Don’t ever think that. They made their choice.”

Coming from me, after what I’d experienced with Haden, I knew she understood what I was telling her. She knew it wasn’t her fault, that she couldn’t have prevented their falls. I’d been able to save one acolyte, but I knew she was thinking of the other.

“Don’t take on that guilt,” I ordered her. “ Ever. ”

“I’ll try not to,” she promised me. “But what do you recommend for the shame?”

I shoved down the urge to flinch at the words.

“I hear them talking about me. I feel their eyes,” she said, looking down at the ground. “You’re my husband, you’re their king. What does that make me?”

“My wife,” I growled. I cupped her face, lifting it so I could see her eyes. There was a lantern burning on the table, giving us a small glow of light. “The one I chose. The one I vowed myself to in Lishara’s temple.”

“And is that all I am to you?” she questioned softly, reaching up to place her hand over mine, though she didn’t remove it. “Is that my purpose here? To be your wife? To warm your bed and smile beside you? To support you, to agree with you?”

I scowled. “Of course not.”

“But that’s what they want, isn’t it?” she asked. “They won’t respect me now. Because even though I am your wife, I am not their equal.”

“You are their queen, and they will treat you as such,” I argued, hating the tone in her voice.

“Only if I give them reason to. And when I fell off Lygath, they cast their judgments on me,” she said. “This was my worst fear, Sarkin. This feeling.”

I softened again when I saw her tears. I pulled her into me, and her face pressed into my chest.

“ Aralye, ” I murmured, restlessness stirring in my chest because I didn’t know how to fix this. “I faced their fire too. Remember that.”

Her shoulders shuddered. There was something I needed to explain to her, something I’d been avoiding, something she’d likely heard about in passing but hadn’t asked me about. And it was something that would help her. That was all I wanted. To help her. To try to protect her heart and guard her against the horde.

“The Sarrothian’s fire is a trial in itself,” I continued. “But for me, it was doubly so.”

“Because of Haden?”

“No, because of my father.”

I felt her shoulders stiffen. She lifted her eyes until they met mine.

“Have you heard about him?”

“Briefly,” she admitted, her tone slightly sheepish. “Only that…his bonded Elthika rejected him after he stole Elthika eggs. That he was considered disgraced.”

My nostrils flared. “He was forever marked by that story. As was I.”

“Will you tell me about it?” she asked when my pause lingered too long, uncertain how , or even where, to begin.

“Come,” I said, leading her over to our bed of furs. She followed, our fingers intertwined, and only when we were comfortably situated did I continue with “There’s more to the story.”

“There usually is,” she said. “I didn’t want to hear about it from anyone else but you.”

I pressed my lips to the back of her hand, feeling the softness of her skin.

“I will say this first because it is the ugly, tragic truth. My father killed my mother,” I said, matter-of-factly, hearing Klara’s gasp, “and then he followed her in death. It is not an easy thing to understand, but believe me, it was a mercy. And he did it because he loved her.”

Her brow furrowed. I saw the edges of her horror but also the desire to understand.

“Everyone else believes a different story, however. One spread by Elysom. My aunt, my mother’s sister, who you met at our keep in Sarroth, was responsible for the lie. Her and the Karath who came before me.”

And I can never forgive them for it, I thought.

“I remember her,” she said quietly.

Where to begin? I wondered.

“This story begins long ago,” I warned her. “Tyzar was my father’s Elthika. And they bonded in a strange way because my father was not a rider. He never trained to be one—he was from a farming family on Sarroth’s outskirts, from a small rural village called Kaval. Where I grew up, in the same house he had.”

Klara blinked, processing the information. I’d never spoken of my childhood, of my family with her before, but I could see her hunger for it, her need to understand. To understand pieces of me I’d kept hidden.

“He found an egg in a Sarrothian forest when he was young, rejected by the mother. He saw her drop it, and he went to look for it. It was still warm,” I told her, thinking of the awe on my father’s features when he used to tell me this story. “He took the egg, and he tended to it, waking in the middle of the night, every night, for new coals to keep it warm, until it hatched. My father and Tyzar never felt the bonding pull, but they were bonded forever nevertheless by choice. Tyzar chose to remain in Kaval with my father instead of seeking out his own horde, his own ancestors. And that’s where they lived.”

I could see her confusion.

“My mother, on the other hand,” I said, “was from a wealthy family in Elysom. Stories of Tyzar and my father reached the capital. Many traveled to see them. It was an amusement for them, a poor farmer on the outskirts of Sarroth and his found hatchling. That’s how he met her. Their love was a quick thing…like Muron’s lightning, my father told me. He finally felt the bonding pull, but it wasn’t for Tyzar—it was for her,” I said quietly.

It was hard to reconcile the girl he’d fallen in love with and match her with my mother, who’d kept her emotions leashed tight, even toward me. It was my father who had shown me affection. Perhaps he’d been what she’d needed. Perhaps I was more like her than I realized, needing someone warm and open and loving. Someone like Klara to thaw me, to keep the frost away.

“I was meant to be a farmer too. Can you believe that?” I asked her.

A sharp huff left her. “No. Not at all.”

“I was not a blood born. I was actually of the earth. Like you, like a Dakkari—born with cool, steady, unyielding earth beneath my feet. But I was always looking toward the sky. I loved Tyzar. I grew up on his back. And that’s why I wanted to be a rider. That feeling when you fly, when you feel the whole world is open to you— that’s freedom.”

“It suits you,” she commented, her eyes glowing, a soft smile on her face. I was glad to see it. I would tell her this story over and over again if it distracted her from the horde beyond our dwelling. If it distracted her from Lygath’s rejection. If only for a brief reprieve. “You were meant for it, this life.”

This story grew bittersweet, though it needed to be said. So she would finally have a deeper understanding.

“My mother became deeply ill in Sarroth when I was a child,” I said. “The healers in Elysom called it the arasykin shy’rissa . The heartstone sleep. We don’t know why it happens. Some think it’s because Sarroth is the farthest away from the core of the Arsadia, the center of Karak. The Sarrothian claim that as a badge of pride almost, like outsiders can’t survive here, only the toughest of Karag can. But I don’t believe that.”

She frowned.

“One healer my father consulted believed she’d been born with it. A defect in her blood. Some are just unlucky, even in Elysom. The sickness began to shut down her body. It started slowly, her movements and strength becoming weaker,” I said, remembering finding her on the floor one day when my father had been out in the fields. “By the time I was ten, she couldn’t walk anymore. She stopped going into the village. She was so tired all the time. Then, a year later, she couldn’t move her arms. The year after that, it was her tongue.”

Klara bit her lip as tears sprung to her eyes, despair written there. “Sarkin…I’m so sorry.”

I breathed deep. “And then one day…Tyzar and my father left.”

“Left?”

“He told me to watch over my mother, that he had to go meet with a healer in Elysom. He was gone for nearly a week. And when he returned…” I sharply exhaled, remembering the shock and disbelief of that night. “He had two Elthika eggs with him. Stolen from a nest he’d found along the western cliffs.”

“But why ?” she breathed.

“Because one healer believed that Elthika eggs, the hatchlings in which possess heartstone energy, the purest form of it, could help her. Not heal her completely, but at least give her a life back, a life worth living. Because at that time, she was only a shell.”

Klara said nothing, only looked at me solemnly.

“My father stole the eggs, that is true, even knowing the consequences,” I told her. “But it wasn’t for nefarious purposes or to sell to our enemies, as Elysom tried to claim. The eggs didn’t work, needless to say. We kept them warm and he returned them to the nest, but his theft had been discovered. The Elthika he’d taken the eggs from had been bonded, not wild. Her rider was a council member in Elysom. And so Elysom let the Sarrothian decide my father’s fate. And our Karath sentenced him and Tyzar to death, but he gave them six months of time until their execution.”

My lips twisted bitterly. “Because he was a farmer and they needed his next crop yield before he could die.”

“That’s awful,” she whispered, her lips pressed together as her eyes gleamed in the low light. “And Tyzar? I thought the Karag would never needlessly kill an Elthika. Isn’t that against your laws?”

“The Elthika have their own laws, and stealing hatchlings or eggs is among the highest of offenses. So yes, they were both sentenced to execution. And that’s why he sent Tyzar away. That’s why people say that Tyzar rejected their bond. Because he left, but not by his choice. So that he wouldn’t be killed, my father commanded him to leave, to fly north as far as he could, though it nearly broke him.”

Klara’s hand pressed to her mouth as tears from her wide, beautiful, sad eyes dripped down her face.

“And with only six months left, my father decided on mercy for my mother. She’d long asked him to help end her life. Before she’d lost her ability to speak. The thought had been unfathomable to him. But then? He didn’t want to go to his own death, knowing what she wanted, knowing he could give it to her. His last gift. The last sacrifice he would make for her,” I said. “He asked me to start rider instruction that year. I was fourteen by that time, older than some of my peers already. I refused at first. How could he ask that of me? To leave him? But what I didn’t understand…what I couldn’t understand then…”

“He loved you so much that he didn’t want you to watch him die,” she said softly. “Oh, Sarkin, you were just a child yourself.”

“One who’d grown up too fast already,” I said quietly. “He didn’t want me to watch him fall apart. He didn’t want me to be around for what he would do, so my conscious would be clean. I was so angry when I left because I knew I was saying goodbye to him, to my mother, and it was not my choice. But he asked me to watch for Tyzar, and I promised him I would. And those first few months of training, the Arsadia was so different. I felt guilty for enjoying it. I felt guilty for the relief I felt at being away from home.”

She reached out to take my hand, leaning down to kiss my scarred, calloused palm. I felt her shuddered breath on my skin, the drip of her hot tears. There was a reason I never spoke of this. It made me feel raw. Like an old, festering wound.

“When I learned of both of their deaths…it was Kyavor who told me. He’d been my instructor then too. He’d received a message from the Karath , who was angry that my father had chosen death early and that he’d taken my mother with him. Two mysar commands were laid upon me by Elysom as penance, and they could be whatever they wanted. The commands are like debts that need to be paid. Whatever two tasks Elysom asked of me, I would have to obey without question.”

“The Dakkari scouting missions…and…”

“Marriage,” I said, my lips twisting. “That one in particular was my aunt’s doing, and she gave it to me only recently. She knew how much that mysar command would cut …because I’d vowed to never take a wife. And that was common knowledge in Elysom and certainly to her.”

“What?” she asked in astonishment. “You never wanted to marry?”

“After witnessing the tragedy of my parents’ marriage? For years?” I asked, shaking my head. Sad understanding reflected in Klara’s eyes. “ Never. But my aunt, Kethra…she thought my father murdered my mother, her beloved sister. She blamed him for her sickness, for her death, for taking her away. She wanted to make me remember that, so that every time I looked at my wife, I might remember the one my father took. The one he vowed to protect.”

I gazed at Klara, seeing her process that information—that I’d never intended to marry. That mysar command had once felt like a cruel twist of a dagger in my belly. Only now…I saw it much differently. My aunt had instead given me a gift.

“It all makes sense now,” she whispered. “Especially why you were so angry in the beginning.”

I gritted my jaw. “I never meant to hurt you, Klara. But you have to understand, I?—”

“I do understand,” she said quietly, rising up onto her knees until she was right in front of me. Her arms wound around my neck, and I saw her . She wasn’t withdrawn right now, she was here . With me. And she was shining so brightly as she looked at me. “But even when you didn’t want me, I could see that you were good .”

“I want you now,” I confessed to her. More than I ever thought possible. “And always.”

She smiled, pressing her lips to mine in a soft kiss. “I know.” She sniffled. “Thank you for telling me, Sarkin.”

I pulled away so I could see her fully as I said, “I told you this because I want you to understand that I know something about shame and how it follows you. How it can feel unshakeable.”

Her chin lifted as she absorbed the words.

“I’m not saying it’s easy, aralye ,” I told her. “It took me a year after I bonded with Zaridan before the challenges to my title stopped. Because of my father’s memory, because of events that people knew nothing about, sacrifices he made that they cannot fathom. But I earned my right as Karath in their eyes. You will need to do the same. Perhaps not through claiming an Elthika, but through other ways. You are kind. Giving. You are open to everyone because you know you can learn from anyone. Those are your strengths.”

I brushed my hands over her cheeks, catching the last of her tears.

“And you can throw a mean dagger if all else fails.”

The small chuckle that emerged from her felt like a win in itself, though it was short-lived.

“Maybe I will ‘dagger’ the Sarrothian,” she said, pulling away to look up at me. “Not in a literal sense, obviously. I mean that… I learned how to throw daggers so well because people said I couldn’t . You know I hated that most of all.”

My lips quirked, and I ran my hand over her face, thinking her so lovely. I trailed my fingers through her hair, observing how the ends curled around my fingers. “I can so easily imagine you sneaking out at night to practice throwing daggers on the wildlands.”

She guided me back until we were lying down, her head on my chest. It felt so natural with her. So easy. And I felt like a weight had been lifted from me, now that I’d told her about my father. It had been like a scar that had never healed properly, one that always pulled and itched.

“Do you feel shame for what your father did? You said you felt it follow you…but what your father did was out of love. There’s nothing shameful about that.”

“I wish he hadn’t stolen the eggs,” I confessed. “He should’ve known better, but I also know how much he hated watching her suffer. We both did. He was desperate. Desperate to help the person he loved.”

She nodded against me, though I couldn’t see her expression. “Whatever happened to Tyzar? Did you ever find him?”

I smiled as I dragged my fingers down her arm. “That is a happy story, at the very least. He fled north, as my father commanded him. After I claimed Zaridan, I made it my mission to find him. He lives close to Muron’s Spine. A peninsula in the North, a sacred place. He has a mate. Two hatchlings that are growing strong by now. Soon we might see them at Tharken, and I hope one or both will choose a Sarrothian rider.”

Maybe even our child, came the sudden thought. How fitting that would be.

I dragged in a deep breath, feeling how much the knowledge pleased Klara.

“I still visit on occasion, if I’m ever in the North to meet with the Kylothian,” I informed her. “One day I will bring you to meet him too.”

“I would like that,” she whispered. “I would like that very much.”

Silence stretched between us, and I heard the distant, dulled sounds of the celebrations of our horde. Klara sighed, reality flooding back in.

“Can I write your story?” she asked quietly. “Your father’s story?”

Something tightened in my chest. Longing? Grief?

“I believe very strongly in recording stories. Putting them to parchment. They are our history, after all,” she said. “How many stories would have been lost if not for scribes who took the time to record them…and I think it would be a shame if yours was lost too. People should remember your father, your mother, and Tyzar.”

I clutched her to me tighter, my heart speeding in my chest. I’d done everything I could to build a careful, impenetrable wall around me after the losses of my life.

How had she wiggled between the cracks?

I repeated her words. “I would like that very much, aralye .”