Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The horde king returned to the voliki in a blackened mood.

My breath hitched when his eyes immediately found me, sitting in the middle of the bed, cross-legged.

His mood blackened further when he saw the floor had been cleaned and cleared of the old food and broken dishes but he said nothing. Instead, he stripped off his trews and strode, naked, to the cool bathing tub and stepped inside.

I was only in a tunic, my legs and feet exposed. My pants were hanging near the fire, drying after I’d tried to wash them.

“You are not a slave here.”

His voice was soft but firm.

“I know,” I said, just as softly.

He closed his eyes briefly as I studied him. I didn’t know what had happened earlier, after I’d entered his mind at his command. It had been strange, consuming…and oddly intimate. Even during his apology, I’d sensed the truth in his words. I hadn’t needed to enter his mind to know how he felt about the events of three nights ago.

“I owe you an apology as well,” I decided to say, picking at the furs that tickled my legs on the bed. Water trickled when he turned to look at me, his brow furrowed.

“For what?”

“For that night,” I said. “Truthfully, I have no idea who the Vorakkar was.” The one that had my father killed. “It was wrong of me to accuse you of anything. I think…I think I was just feeling…vulnerable.”

I didn’t know if that was the right word but it was the only one I could think of to describe my emotions that night.

“And you were right. Names do have power. I didn’t realize how much.”

“Because I called you Vivi?”

I licked my lips. It didn’t hurt as much, hearing him say it now. That first time, though, it had felt like a punch in the gut.

I cleared my throat. “My father wanted a better life for us. He grew up in the old Earth colonies. He knew what peace felt like, what the lack of fear felt like, until his home was destroyed and that was taken from him too.”

When I darted a peek up at him, I saw Davik was watching me carefully from his place in his bath. I got the strange sense that hearing me speak was helping to keep him calm, keep his mood steady. So I kept talking.

“Hordes didn’t pass by our village often. The men took risks. They hunted so we were not hungry. They gathered materials and supplies from the forests so that we might live more comfortably, though they knew it was against your laws. We were a small village, one of the last to settle here. We thought we were safe. Until a horde came. I saw my father executed,” I told him, though I didn’t meet his eyes. I kept my gaze on the furs, kept picking at the little tufts of hair across it. “I watched him die, heard my mother’s screams, and my sister crying. And all I could do was stand there, like I was seeing something from someone’s else life. Not mine. It was a nightmare but I never woke up.”

In some ways…I was still asleep.

“I am sorry about your father, leikavi,” came his voice. “I truly am.”

When our eyes connected, I knew he was. I knew that he was because he knew deep, terrible loss as well. Loss that festered like a wound, one that never quite healed. I knew because I’d sensed it—I’d felt it. Buried inside him.

I cleared my throat, trying to shake off the memories. I couldn’t allow them to suffocate me. I needed to move forward, like always.

“What I’m trying to say is that,” I started, meeting his eyes, “my father always called me Vivi and hearing you say it…it just brought back a lot of buried memories, some happy and some sad. And I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything. And I don’t think you’re a monster.”

His jaw clenched.

“And…and if you don’t want me to have your name,” I said, “I will never speak it again. I promise you that. I promise that I never meant to steal it in the first place.”

The horde king blew out a long, even breath. His gaze flickered to the fire in the basin, watching the flames dance for long moments.

Finally, he said quietly, “I want you to have my name.”

Something warm spread in my chest at his words, the sensation foreign and startling.

“Really?”

“Lysi,” he murmured, his gaze returning to me. “But I want to know how you discovered it.”

I owed him that much. I’d stolen his memory, after all. It was his knowledge by right, even though it exposed me and my gift. If my mother knew what I was about to confess to a horde king of Dakkar, she’d lock me away before I could even open my lips.

Davik finished washing quickly before he stood from the bathing tub. He passed a clean fur over his body once before striding towards the low table, still heaped with food. He gestured for me to join him there and I carefully scooted down the bed, slipping from the edge, sitting across from him at the table.

“Did you eat?” he wanted to know.

I nodded but I always felt like I could eat more. Like my body had been starved for too long and wanted to make up for what had been lost.

“Eat more, leikavi,” he commanded, as if he could read my thoughts.

I reached forward for a small bowl of broth, but he placed a few chunks of meat inside it before I spooned the silky liquid out.

“What does leikavi mean?” I asked quietly.

His jaw worked as he chewed his food, flexing powerfully. When he swallowed, he said, “In Dakkari, it means small, beautiful one.”

My breath hitched, my brow furrowing. Beautiful?

I’d never thought of myself as such. Viola had always been the beauty. My brothers were very handsome as well, but I’d received none of their good looks.

He thought I was beautiful?

I spooned more broth between my lips to try to hide some of my shocked embarrassment…and pleasure. A rather sizable, vain part of me liked that he thought I was beautiful. I wanted to be beautiful…for him.

And yet, as I thought of Viola, I knew that beauty came at a price. And if my sister had her way, she’d hide herself away forever. She’d wish to be so hideous that no one ever looked at her again.

I sobered, my chest squeezing.

Tonight as I’d looked at the moon, it was nearly full. I had a little over two weeks until the black moon. Barely any time at all. Already, half of my time was gone. And what had I accomplished?

Making candles in a Dakkari horde.

Breathing in a slow breath, I decided that we needed to get this conversation over with. It was past time.

“What do you think it is that I can do?” I asked him.

He took a healthy swig from his wine, his throat bobbing as he swallowed.

“Nik,” he said, surprising me. “I want you to tell me. In your own words.”

Fair enough.

I took a deep breath. “I can sense someone’s emotional state. I can enter their mind and understand what they feel, though I cannot understand why.”

Davik stopped eating to give me his full attention.

“A-and I can change someone’s emotions,” I said softly, carefully. His eyes flashed. “Most of the time, I can bend someone’s will to my own.”

He peered at me, his brow furrowed. “Most of the time?”

“It doesn’t always work,” I admitted softly. “Sometimes the mind is too strong-willed.”

“Is that why the Ghertun sent you to Dothik?” he asked. I could practically see the way his mind was working.

Biting my lip, I nodded.

“They know about what you can do?” he growled softly, gripping the edge of the table, his claws beginning to scrape at the wood.

“No,” I said. “Not specifically.”

“What does that mean?”

I placed my hand on his when he made a deep mark into the table. He frowned down at our hands and then seemed surprised when he saw what he’d done.

When I leaned back to pull away, he caught my palm, keeping it in his. When the back of his claw traced my thumb, surprisingly gently, I shivered.

“D-during the cold season, I crossed paths with Lozza. One of his wives had birthed him another four sons,” I told him. “There was a celebration held and the higher ranking sibi were invited.”

His lips pressed together.

“My sibi brought me, as most sibi did with their slaves.”

“Do not call yourself that,” he growled softly.

My brow furrowed, my lips parting in surprise, but I moved forward with my story.

“Those celebrations are usually the only chance I have to see my family,” I confessed.

Davik tensed, his grip on my hand tightening ever so slightly.

“And my sister,” I started, my throat growing tight. I cleared it. “My sister’s sibi…he treats her terribly. I saw her sibi strike her because she accidentally spilled food when she was serving him. Then he hit her again and again and I went over to him…and I made him stop.”

I shuddered, remembering the hatred in his mind. The malice. He was cruel because he liked to be cruel.

“It drew the notice of Lozza. He saw it as entertainment. He didn’t realize it was because of my gift that I could change the wills of others. He thought it was a talent. He thought I was simply persuasive.” I smiled but it was bitter. “A silver-tongued human he thought nothing more of than a lowly pet.”

Davik’s nostrils flared. He dropped my hand, leaning back against the pole which jutted up towards the canopy of the voliki.

“He kept an eye on me though. After that. I felt it. I knew that he was planning something and when he summoned me to his throne room one afternoon, I knew that something was about to change.”

I could still feel the fear I’d felt that day. Yet, I’d also felt relief. Selfish, profound relief that I’d be free of the Dead Mountain, if only for a short period of time. And then tentative hope had sprouted when he’d told me his terms.

“Lozza knew he couldn’t send a Ghertun to Dothik. The Ghertun would be killed on sight. He knew that humans are seen as the weakest race out of us all. He knew a female human would be very little threat to deliver a message. He thought I was persuasive…but he also thought me expendable, should the Dothikkar wish to kill me instead of listen to me.”

Davik made a sound in the back of his throat. Was he thinking of that day? When I’d been led into the great hall of the Dothikkar? When the Dakkari king had looked at me, much like Lozza had—amusing, a brief entertainment, but expendable?

Then I’d ruined it all by opening my mouth.

Right then, remembering that day, I was tempted to smile. The look on the Dothikkar’s face had been…bewildered. As if he couldn’t understand how such a lowly human like me could bring such turmoil to his city.

“So, no,” I told him softly. “Lozza doesn’t know about my gift. What I can truly do. Because if he did…I don’t think he would have let me out of his sight at all.”

I shuddered. For that, I was grateful. To be a slave of Lozza’s was unthinkable.

Now that I’d begun to speak of it, I couldn’t stop. It felt…nice talking about it. Instead of keeping it bottled up inside me, always afraid someone would discover it for themselves and then use it against me.

“My gift hurts me when I use it,” I said. “My head feels like it’s splitting in two, I get nauseous, I feel weak and dizzy. Lights get so bright they are blinding. Usually I sleep for a very long time afterwards.”

He nodded, as if he’d realized this already.

“But only when you change emotions,” he finished for me. Davik processed this all quickly. I could see how fast his mind worked, though he’d already had his suspicions before.

“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “When I only want to feel, it doesn’t hurt me like that. It’ll only give me a brief headache before it goes away. But even now, it seems to be…changing.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Earlier,” I said, biting my lip as I felt a flush spread up my neck. “When I entered your mind…it didn’t hurt me. At all. It felt different. My gift might be changing again, getting stronger.”

When I’d been younger, I’d only been able to sense people’s emotions. My mother simply thought me an empath, more sensitive to others’ feelings. She’d dismissed it. After a while, however, my gift shifted, changed as I aged. Not only could I sense someone’s emotions, I could alter them. When I’d told my mother that, she’d looked at me in horror. As if seeing me for the first time. As if I were some beast in her daughter’s skin.

I shut my eyes, taking in a deep breath, before I met Davik’s eyes again.

“You…” I licked my lips. “You’re the first that’s ever felt me.”

His red irises flared briefly.

“Felt my gift, I mean,” I said softly, feeling my cheeks heat. “Not even my family could tell when I was using it. What...what does it feel like to you?”

“Like my skin is electrified,” he rasped, making my breath hitch. “Like I’m being touched. Then there’s warmth and I swear I can feel you, all over. In the air I’m breathing. Underneath my skin. In my blood. On my tongue.”

His words tightened my nipples, which was not the response I’d expected.

“It’s different with you,” I confessed after a short pause. “Even that first night. There was something different and I—I don’t know why or what it is.”

“Maybe because my mind does not work like others’. Maybe because I am…” he trailed off.

Mad?

Was that what he was going to say?

I didn’t think that was what it was.

I thought…I thought it was because he was like me. Different. He was connected to something larger, something beyond himself.

He had a gift all his own…only he didn’t realize it. He thought it was made of hallucination, of madness. Whereas it was very likely he’d been born with it. Just like I’d been.

When I opened my lips to tell him these things, no sound came out.

“Tell me how you discovered my name,” he commanded softly, staring at me from across the table. He’d stopped eating, though he had to be starving. I wondered if he thought any differently of me now. If I would catch him staring at me like I’d sometimes caught my mother staring at me: with wariness. “You said you can only sense and change emotions.”

I lifted the goblet of wine to my lips to ease the dryness of my throat. “I said that I think my gift might be changing.”

He waited. He’d brought a hand up to trace the line of the deep scar on his left cheek, an unconscious habit, perhaps.

“I’ve never had reason to change someone’s emotions more than once,” I said. “And with you, I’ve done it twice now.”

“The first night in Dothik,” he murmured. His brow furrowed. “And with the Killup.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “I think it’s connected. That night when I said your name…I’d been dreaming. And I think—no, I know—I’d been dreaming a memory of yours.”

His spine stiffened. The tension in the voliki grew so thick it was suffocating.

“Which one?” he growled.