Hold it.
Cradle it close.
If even for a little while.
Fueled by that single blade of knowledge—ignoring its problematic implications I’ll battle another dae once we’re past this treacherous hurdle—I reach out, fingers wrapping around the málmr and bringing it close to my chest.
Something settles inside me like a key notched into place, though I don’t look too close. Don’t assess it.
This isn’t real.
It’s survival.
Kaan remains crouched before me, hands empty, holding the stance for so long the crowd begins to murmur. A few even gasp.
“What’s he doing?”
“He is asking for you to place your print upon his réidi,” Saiza rasps, her voice hitched with awe. “He is saying that he respects you above himself and, most importantly, above his honor.”
My heart stills, eyes widen.
“I—” I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve that. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“He is announcing you as his roskr. His greater. Should you accept this honor, his title will be passed to you should he fall this dae.”
Should he fall—
A strange piercing pain lances through my chest like a dagger plunged deep. “Wh—” My voice cracks, and I look at Saiza, a question in my eyes that I hope she can see, certain that if I try to speak, everything will come out in strangled bits.
What does it mean?
Saiza’s eyes soften, and she places her hand upon my cheek, cupping it. “It means that if Kaan loses, any decision you make will not be challenged. You can leave despite being claimed and receive no dishonor because you will be considered Hock’s greater.”
Every cell in my body charges with a current of thick, primal understanding, my next breath shuddered.
He’s ensuring I get out …
No matter what.
My gaze drops to the male before me, something swelling in the back of my throat that’s hard to swallow past, and I realize just how right I was to run.
To leave.
He’s much, much too easy to care about.
Saiza sweeps some of my own blood off my collarbone and uses it to paint my hand. “You may choose to print upon him and accept this great honor.”
I crunch my hand into a fist, release, looking at my blood slicked across it, then at the málmr caught in my other palm.
I don’t deserve this. Not one bit. But I also don’t want to disrespect him by refusing his beautiful gesture that weighs so much more than I’m now certain this magnificent male thinks I’m worth.
Silence reigns, and I battle to stuff those feelings down, wrestling them beneath my ribs while I look at the mural painted across his back. At the wonky moon half the size of my fist—like I could sweep it into my palms and cradle it.
I fall toward it heartfirst, pressing my hand upon the moon I love so much.
Kaan trembles all over, the motion vibrating up my arm and into my heavy heart, making my breath hitch.
He stands—too fast.
Too slow.
Some strange, unfamiliar part of me wants to reach forward and grab him. Scream for him to stay.
Beg him to live.
He keeps his stare to the ground and raises his fist, strikes his chest six times, then spins—stalking toward the weapon rack to the tune of the gasping, murmuring crowd.
Tension cuts the air, hundreds of stares scraping across my skin.
Delving beneath it.
I scan the leering crowd, then look to Saiza, her complexion pale, eyes bulging as she watches the King’s retreat. “Why six?”
“I am not certain,” she says. “Five for Oah. Six is unheard of.”
I swallow, tightening my hand around Kaan’s málmr.
He rummages through the weapons stacked upon a nearby rack, clunking things to the side, finally gripping the small knife I noticed earlier—the one with a maw’s worth of tapered teeth mounted around the fringe of the flat blade.
He passes it from hand to hand, grunts, then rips his boots off and tosses them aside. “Hach te nei, Rygun,” he growls, pointing to his beast, his stern words echoing off the crater’s sheer walls. “Hach te nei, ack gutchen!”
I lean into Saiza. “What’s he saying?”
“He is ordering Rygun to stand down … whatever the battle’s outcome.”
The last four words land like boulders upon my chest.
Blazing eyes still pinned on Kaan, the beast fills his chest with a breath he rumbles free, the sound so abrasive it packs the crater with a thick promise of fiery violence I understand perfectly.