Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

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 that we all were.

“Maybe now it is you who is the bravest of us all,” he told me, his voice thick with relief. Ever since we were younger, he always said he was the bravest of us all, that he could face down an entire horde of Dakkari warriors and live to tell the tale.

My laugh was husky and dry.

“Hi, Maxen,” I said, uncaring that I was crying, since he’d always teased me for it anyways.

Eli appeared, his mop of dark hair glittering from the firelight, followed closely by Viola. My breath left me, seeing them both. Eli was thinner than he’d been before, his face pale. And Viola…my beautiful sister, who I had spent most of my youth envious of. She was still beautiful, of course, but some of the light in her eyes, which had always glittered with warmth, had been extinguished. I wondered if it would ever return.

But she burst into tears when she saw me awake, deep shoulder-shaking sobs, and my last two siblings joined us, huddled close, and I embraced all of them in turn, squeezing tight, never wanting to let go again, until we were all a mess of tears and relief. I breathed in their familiar scents and heard the rhythm and cadence of their voices, which I had drifted off to sleep to for so many years. And I felt so much love fill me that it was difficult to breathe.

How many times had I envisioned just this? How many times had I envisioned us together again and safe?

My breath hitched, my eyes going to Maman. “The vovic?”

“There was a cure. Lozza hadn’t lied about that,” she told me, wiping her cheeks. “All of us have taken it. You still need to take yours.”

I didn’t think I did. I thought that Kakkari’s power had seared whatever had remained within me.

“And the others? Are they all right?”

“Yes,” Eli said. “Most of the Killup and Nrunteng returned to their homes earlier in the week, led by Dakkari guards.”

“And the humans?”

Maxen hesitated. “A couple died from vovic after you left. But the ones that lived…they have no villages to return to. Most came from a single village that the Ghertun destroyed three years ago. The horde king...your horde king offered them a home here, as did the other Vorakkar. Rath Kitala, I think. Some went with him. Some remain here.”

Relief threaded through me, so powerful that it left me drained.

And Davik…just like I’d known, he was a good male. The best of them, as Lokkaru had once said. Giving lost souls a home, a place to belong. Like Lokkaru herself, like Bissa, like Nillima…like me.

Just then, as if my thoughts had summoned him, Davik entered the voliki, trailed by Hedna.

With my family around me, with my heart full to bursting, I locked my gaze with the Vorakkar who had captured me utterly and completely.

His chest was heaving as he regarded me. There was a strain and a darkness in his gaze that lifted and brightened when he saw me awake. He looked as if he hadn’t slept and I just knew that when I’d been asleep, he’d watched over me and held me close at night, worrying all the while.

My love for him was a quiet thing, deep within me, etched into my bones and infused through my veins.

I didn’t need my gift to know he felt the same.

I didn’t need my gift to know that love would be there always. That this was permanent.

There was much that needed to be said between us. But in that wonderful moment, I simply looked at him and I knew that everything would fall into place. He’d told me to have faith.

Now I finally did.

* * *

The restof the afternoon was spent in my bed. Though I’d been eager to rise, to get some fresh air, my mother fretted over me, feeding me until I was full, and keeping me to my bed to regain my strength. She’d nearly fallen into hysterics when I’d risen to bathe and my knees had buckled briefly.

My family remained there with me for the entirety of the day. And Davik as well, though he kept out of the way, his nearly silent presence in the voliki as he watched me making my family a little wary and nervous. Davik was intimidating. There was no doubt about it. But my brothers, as overprotective as they’d always been, had seemed to come to terms with him being there…or perhaps they were just frightened of his constant scowl, or the scars lining his flesh, or the fact he was almost twice their size.

By the end of the evening, I was itching with restlessness and I wanted—and needed—to be alone with Davik. We hadn’t been alone since I’d woken. We hadn’t been alone since before he’d left for the Dead Mountain.

“Has a voliki been prepared for you?” I asked them.

Mamanhesitated and then said, “Yes. We are staying in one together for now.”

I nodded, my gaze straying to Davik again. He was standing, his arms crossed over his chest, near the entrance of the voliki, where he’d been nearly all day, as if he knew how much I needed my family close to me. He didn’t want to interfere, though I wanted him next to me.

“Will you…” Maman asked before starting again, “Will you be staying with us there?”

I looked at her, noticing that Davik seemed to tense at her words, noticing that Maxen, Eli, and Viola’s eyes were on me, anticipating my answer. I felt a little guilty at the question. I had just been reunited with my family—the one thing I’d wanted and craved and thought about since we’d been separated by the Ghertun. I should want to spend every last moment I could with them.

But I had a male now too. A horde king with red eyes and a deep scar down his cheek that he still hadn’t told me about. A horde king who loved me, as I loved him.

“No, my place is with him,” I told her, catching my siblings’ eyes too. Something like…understanding seemed to dawn in my mother’s gaze. “But I’ll see you in the morning. Bright and early.”

Maman’slips lifted slightly, just a small curl at the corner.

“Are—are you sure, Vienne?” Viola asked quietly. She had barely looked at Davik, had actively tried not to. My gut churned, thinking about everything she’d experienced under the Dead Mountain, and I knew where her hesitation, her fear for me, lay.

“Yes,” I said, catching Davik’s gaze, reaching out to squeeze Viola’s hand. “I am certain. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Mamanreached out to cup my face, brushing her thumb over my cheek. “All right, mon coeur. Sleep well.”

We said our goodbyes for the night. Maxen and Eli left first, inclining their heads at Davik, who regarded them silently as they left. Viola exited next, though she kept her head down, her pace seeming to quicken as she passed him. As for my mother, she stopped briefly when she reached him, reaching out her hand to place it on his forearm.

“Thank you,” was what she told him, a brief silence stretching between them as they regarded one another.

Finally, Davik inclined his head to her. This was uncharted territory for him but he was trying.

Mamanpatted his arm, looking over her shoulder at me one last time…then she smiled and left the voliki. Outside, I heard them all, speaking quietly, their footsteps retreating, no doubt heading to their own home for the night.

Then my gaze went to Davik, saw that his was already on me.

We were finally alone.