Chapter Seventeen Samira
SEVENTEEN SAMIRA
A handful of Kaldfolk came riding up to the longhouse, faces flushed with cold and exertion.
Each rider carried at least two or three more people on their horse.
Urgency marked their every movement. They barely paused to deposit their passengers before turning their horses around and bolting back down the hill, sending frozen earth exploding up around them in a wave.
Rade led me through the unfolding chaos, steps hurried as he dodged rushing Kaldfolk.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
Rade stopped beside an idle horse. “The Shroud.”
Before I could ask anything further, he hefted me onto the horse.
I scrambled to grab hold of the saddle’s pommel and pull myself the rest of the way.
Rade climbed up behind me, arms encircling me as he grabbed the reins and dug his heels into the horse’s sides.
We took off like an arrow down the hill from the longhouse.
My heart lurched against my rib cage, and I held on to the saddle’s horn for dear life.
We raced away from Frostguard. A shadow loomed at the horizon, growing as we drew closer. A wall of darkness.
That allure I’d felt in the forest, which made my insides clench and gooseflesh break out all over my body, stretched from the ground far, far into the sky. A writhing mass of solid black. Like the night sky had become a living thing.
We came to a stop when we reached flat land, a town full of thatched homes.
Kaldfolk ran wildly. A woman cried out as she was knocked off her horse by a young man.
He seized the reins and kicked the beast into a sprint.
The woman paused to look back at the impending darkness.
The terror melted away for a moment. Her eyes became shiny, and her face went slack with awe. She took a step toward it.
Sillia raced up to her. Scooped her up, deposited her into a different saddle, and smacked the horse’s hide, sending her sprinting back up the hill. Then she turned to help the next person.
The living shadow pulsed, reaching toward us inch by inch, swallowing the settlement more with each second.
“What is that?” I asked breathlessly, not taking my eyes from the horrible wall.
“That,” Rade said as he slid off the horse, “is the Shroud.” He gazed up at me, eyes imploring.
“See this, Amunet. See what’s happening.
” Then he turned and ran to where a figure was standing much too close to the darkness.
One look at the swinging braid, the yellow eyes stark against the night backdrop, and I recognized Keir.
Velka raced by me on horseback, as fast as the wind.
She jumped off her steed, grabbed two more people who appeared enthralled by the darkness, both of whom were marked with black tattoos, and deposited them on the back of a horse.
When the horse took off back to Frostguard, she stooped to the ground.
Before she even landed on all fours, she was a bear, paws streaked with blue like the tattoos on her hands. She chased after the horse.
I slid off my horse on shaky legs, lips parting as I took in the Shroud. Keir and Rade were just ahead of me, and I suddenly noticed there was a third person with them. An elderly man in a wooden rocking chair.
“You have to leave,” Keir was saying to him. “You have to go now—”
“I already told you, I’m staying right here,” the man responded. Unlike the others, he didn’t look like he was in a trance. But he was resolute in remaining in that chair.
Keir turned to Rade. Where his First always possessed an air of total control, now he seemed frazzled, wide golden eyes stark against his kohl-painted face. “Do something.”
“It’s his decision.” The king said the words tiredly. Like it was a conversation they’d had many times before.
“He has a granddaughter. I can’t find her. It’s possible she’s already been taken to Frostguard, but he’s not—”
“It’s his decision.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s deciding!” Keir burst out. He grabbed Rade’s shoulder with one hand, the fabric of the king’s shirt bunching beneath his grip. “Please, Rade.”
Rade hesitated a moment more, eyes darting to the Shroud, which was only a couple of yards away now. Then he looked at the old man. “Come on, Finan. Get up.”
“My wife was taken by this thing twenty years ago,” the old man replied stubbornly. “I want to see her again.”
“Your wife is dead, Finan. Your granddaughter isn’t.”
“You’ll look after Milena.” Finan set his jaw and faced the darkness.
Which had scuttled even closer. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and my feet shuffled with the desire to carry me toward it.
Consciously, my mind was awash in terror, yet I couldn’t shake the need to feel those tendrils wrap around me.
Ice slid down my spine, and I studiously avoided looking at the Shroud, as much as I could avoid looking at a looming wall of darkness.
A muscle feathered in Rade’s jaw, and he snapped his eyes shut.
The tattoos on the side of his head started to glow the bright red color of a sunset. When he opened his eyes again, the brown had transformed to the same shade of red and shone, too, like his irises were lit from within.
I gasped. I’d suspected he might be a witch, but I wasn’t truly prepared to see magic.
The old man jolted to his feet, yanked by an invisible string. “No,” he said as he took a step forward, stiff, his feet moving against his will. Just like the stories I’d heard. Kaldfolk power that made a person a slave in their own body. It was chilling to behold.
As Finan took another involuntary step, he looked up at the sky. “I’m not lost!” he shouted. “Do you hear me? I’m not lost!”
Like his puppet’s strings had been cut, Finan slammed back down into the rocking chair.
At the same time, Rade let his breath out in a sharp gust. His shoulders slumped in defeat, tattoos returning to their dull ink and eyes a normal brown.
He looked to Keir. “I’ve done what I can.
As long as he’s thinking clearly, he’s allowed to make this choice. But we have to leave. Now.”
Keir growled in frustration and took a threatening step toward the old man. “I’ll throw you over my fucking shoulder!”
But Finan just took Keir’s large hand in his shriveled one and patted it softly. “It’s all right, my boy. It’s all right.”
“No—” Keir began.
Rade grabbed Keir’s arm. “Let him be. It’s time to go.”
Keir released Finan’s hands almost violently. He spun around, anger and defeat in his eyes—and then his gaze caught on me and widened. “You brought her—”
“I said we’re leaving! Now, Keir!” roared the king.
Like a turned dial, the frazzled energy left Keir.
The muscles in his neck bulged as his face elongated.
Fur sprouted, claws burst forth, and when he landed on all fours, he was an enormous bear.
I balked, momentarily stupefied. I’d witnessed Velka shift just minutes ago, but there was something vicious about the way Keir shifted.
As if the beast was not coaxed forward but tore free of his human skin.
“Amunet!” Rade was already in the saddle, hand held out toward me. I let him pull me up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist as Keir took off, our horse following him—
“Grandpa!”
I stiffened and twisted to see a little girl who couldn’t have been older than five.
I didn’t see where she’d come from, but she must’ve been hiding when people began stampeding out of the village.
She approached Finan, frightened tears rolling down her face.
The old man pulled her into his lap. Was he going to let her be devoured by the Shroud, too?
I’d spent my entire life fearing the Kaldfolk. Hating them. But that little girl, so helpless… she reminded me of my first night in Khada Palace all those years ago. I’d cried just like that, calling out for Mama and Baba.
Finan had made his choice. But I wouldn’t let the little girl be taken by the darkness.
“Wait!” I shouted, and pointed.
Rade twisted around, black hair a banner that whipped against my cheeks as he spotted the little girl. “I can’t risk your safety!” he said. “We’re out of time!” And maybe he was right. The Shroud was licking at the old man’s feet.
But the little girl’s eyes were wide with terror and confusion as she gazed up trustingly at her grandfather.
I sent a prayer for protection up to the gods and threw myself off the horse.
“Amunet!”
The ground slammed into me so hard my teeth rattled in my skull.
Pain shot through the right side of my body as I rolled, but the moment I got my bearings, I jumped to my feet and ran toward the darkness, fighting every primal part of me that screamed at me to stop, and the inexplicable part of me that wanted to dive into its inky depths.
The old man was hugging his granddaughter tight as she clutched a doll to her chest, her cheeks still wet with tears.
My boots slid on the frozen ground, coming to a stop inches away from her. “Come on,” I said, “we have to go.”
“But, Grandpa—”
“You’re Milena, right?” I interrupted, eyes darting to the Shroud.
“Yes,” she sniffed.
“Milena, we have to run. Okay?”
“It’s all right, baby,” Finan told her. “Go with the Gods-Chosen.”
A beckoning touch caressed my back, and I gasped.
It was like the Shroud had tentacles and was trying to wrap them around me.
Trying to reel me into the wall of night.
I staggered back a step. The gentle tendrils weren’t cold, like I’d imagined, but soft.
Coaxing. Like I could lean back and they would cushion me—
“Amunet!” I glanced up to see Rade several yards away, his horse shifting nervously. “We have to go now!”
Terror clogging my throat, I mentally shook myself. I hooked my hands under the girl’s armpits, heaved her into my arms, and ran as fast as I could.
“Grandpa!” Milena screamed, reaching an arm over my shoulder.
I tucked her head into my neck, holding her even tighter. “Don’t look.”