k’s Reviews > The Horde King of Shadow > Status Update

“Let’s at least be honest about it... You need me because you know that I’m your best chance at finding more heartstones for your people & for the Elthika. & in order for that to happen, your people have to accept me. You’ll do everything you can to ensure that. I’m not a fool; I’m actually very practical. I know what’s at stake, just like you know there are other reasons why I want to be here.”

“I was in love with the way her mind worked because she thought so differently from me. She saw beauty in places where I’d never even thought to look. She found art in the folds of this life, where I had only ever seen duty and necessity.”

“Though he was close, we couldn’t speak to one another mid-flight like our bonded Elthika could. Every now and then, he would quicken Zari’s pace so that we could fly side by side, as if he wanted to look at me, wanted to admire me. And every time, I grinned like a silly lovesick fool until he smirked and returned to his place behind Lygath.”

These cuties 😭

“People come into your life, and they change you forever,” I said. “It doesn’t matter how long you knew them—they’ll always be there.”
Just like Sarkin would always be with me.
For evermore.

“Zaridan would do whatever you asked of her,” he finally said. His eyes flashed open to regard me. “And I would too.”
A bloom of realization, soft and gentle, spread like warmth from a fire. Something I’d only ever dared to wish for.
“You love me,” I declared.
He inclined his head.

“Seeing you on that ledge,I was faced with the possibility that I couldn’t save you if something went wrong.”
“But I⁠—”
“No,now it’s my turn,”he rasped.I bit my tongue. “You scared me today, Klara. Scared me to the point that I was confronted with a reality in which I could lose you.And that frightened me. More than anything ever has.”
My heart went fluttery & heavy all at once. “Really?”

“Your horde is your everything, Sarkin. I couldn’t disappoint you because it would’ve been a disappointment to myself.”
“You’re my everything now, you fool,” he said simply, so nonchalantly that for a second I thought I hadn’t heard him right. “Can’t you see that?”

“I watched the small speck of her back up on the ledge, and then she sprinted. My nostrils flared wide, my heart beating at its bony cage so hard I thought it might burst free. I watched the heart that was outside of my own body, the heart of vulnerability that was flayed wide open, leap off the cliff, silhouetted against the gray stone of Tharken.”

She does angst / hurt / comfort so well 😭

“Stepping forward into Klara, I brushed the tendril of hair away from her scar, remembering the jolt I’d felt in the marketplace in Dothik when I’d first seen it. How it had felt like all the air had been sucked from my body, a strange sense of familiarity and knowing making the city sway. As if I’d been there before. As if I’d been remembering her.”