Chapter Twenty-Four Samira
TWENTY-FOUR SAMIRA
Change quickly,” Velka told me. “We start at the sun’s zenith.”
Her face was caked with white clay, which cracked slightly when she smiled at me, and her light brown hair was braided differently, twisting around her head in a crown.
She wore a tunic with open sleeves, joined by a small piece of fabric at the elbow.
I could see the rest of her blue tattoos, swirling from her fingers all the way to the tops of her shoulders.
She held out a tunic for me to wear. I asked her to look away as I changed into it, not from any modesty, but so that she wouldn’t see the scars on my back and chest.
The tunic was similar to hers, but my open sleeves were bound at the wrists instead of the elbows.
When I moved my arms, the thin fabric billowed out like wings.
It was entirely too thin for the cold, but Velka instructed me to leave my cloak behind.
Instant gooseflesh spread over my body as I stepped outside.
Keir waited there, a statue beside Velka. His face was also painted in that white clay, nearly hiding the tattoos along his jaw. A stark contrast to the black that usually covered his face.
Velka took my arm and led me away, with Keir falling into step behind us. I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my head.
A crowd of Kaldfolk had formed in front of the longhouse, a line on either side of the dirt road, creating a path that led down the hill to where a larger mass of people waited.
All staring at me.
“Go ahead,” Velka whispered.
“What?” I turned with wide eyes. “Aren’t you coming?”
“You outrank us,” she said. “We’ll follow you.”
I faced the path again. So many eyes, all searing right into my face. They wore laurels of woven twigs but no smiles and none of that white face paint. Serious as could be. My heart stuttered in my chest.
Velka whispered encouragingly, “It’s just a few yards.”
Right. Just a few yards. I faced forward again and pressed my shaking hands against my thighs. Amunet had paraded through crowds like these many times. It was just one step at a time.
My boots crunched loudly over the frozen earth, as if I were stepping on shattered glass.
That was the only sound. The silence was like molasses, thick, suffocating, coating every single person. My breaths seemed to echo. I tried not to let my shoulders hike up. Walk like a royal, I reminded myself.
When I finally reached the bottom of the hill, Rade was waiting.
His body was covered in that white clay, but two red streaks cut through it just under his eyes. His tunic was sleeveless, showing off the muscles in his arms.
I stopped beside him, and he gave me a reassuring smile as he gestured to the woman on his other side. Her face was painted in a reddish clay, and her hair fell in dark dreadlocks down her back. “She’s a priestess,” Rade explained.
I barely had time to nod my understanding before the priestess boomed to the crowd, “We begin when Phadar is at the height of his power, when the sun god is most awake, to awaken our soon-to-be queen.”
A solid boom ricocheted down the hill, startling me. I turned.
Keir and Velka stood in line with the Seven, all wearing that white paint. They held wooden shields in their hands and slammed their swords against the wood again, letting out another boom that vibrated in my skull.
The priestess reached behind her and held up a bowl filled with that white paint. “Your power has been asleep for nearly twenty years,” she told me. “No longer. Today you will end its slumber. You will journey into night with the protection of the sun.”
She passed the bowl to Rade. He faced the crowd. “Come forward,” he commanded.
Cano approached first. He dipped his fingers into the paint and then reached for the side of my head.
“Cano of Netherridge,” he proclaimed as he smeared the cold, sticky paint over my right ear and then the left.
“I offer the strength of my ears, that your power might alert you of danger before it’s near.
” He gave me a small smile before he stepped aside.
Dalla came next, a thick line between her brows as she took the bowl. “Dalla of Keenforge. I offer the strength of my feet, that your power might be felt with every step.” She knelt and spread the paint from my thighs to the tips of my toes.
And on it went.
“Bain of Blackstone. I offer the strength of my arms, that you wield your power as a mighty fist.” He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Sillia of Netherridge. I offer the strength of my hands, that your power might flow from your fingertips.”
“Velka of the Pillars. I offer the strength of my voice”—she coated my throat with paint—“that your very words may shake the earth.”
Despite my nerves, my lips twitched up at that.
But then Keir stepped forward, and my smile dropped. “Keir of the Wild Valley.” His voice was softer than the others’, quieter, meant for my ears only. He didn’t look away from me even as he reached to dip his fingers into the paint. “I offer the strength of my eyes,” he said.
I had to close my eyes as he spread the paint over them, his large fingers surprisingly light, their heat a sharp contrast to the chill of the day.
A shiver slid down my spine. He made a long line of paint on either side of my eyes and then swept under them as well.
“That you might see through dangerous deception.”
My eyes popped open. Keir’s yellow gaze was unflinching, missing nothing.
When he rejoined his group of Shifters, it was a struggle to turn away from him, to give him my back. He was just trying to scare me. And I was sad to admit it worked.
Rade put both hands in the bowl of paint and scooped it out.
Then he dripped it across my collarbones.
“Rade of Frostguard. I offer my heart,” he said, and instantly I stiffened.
But there was nothing I could do as he touched a finger to the trickling paint and used it to draw a symbol over my pounding chest. When he skimmed the raised flesh of my scar, his eyes flicked up to mine questioningly.
I tried not to react, tried not to give anything away.
Mercifully, he didn’t comment as he focused on finishing the symbol.
“That your power will guide and fortify you through all your difficulties,” he said.
When he pulled his hand away, I could see the curiosity wending through his mind.
First my callused hands and now my chest. Neither of these marks should be on a queen.
I waited for him to say it, to declare it, for Keir to seize me by the arms and haul me back to the longhouse.
But the king said nothing. He simply turned to face the priestess.
The priestess spread the remaining paint on any piece of flesh not already touched and stated simply, “That you might be a light strong enough to face the night.” She placed the bowl on the wooden table behind her.
The Seven mounted horses. Two more were brought forward for Rade and me. “What’s happening?” I whispered to him.
“The first ceremony.”
“I thought that’s what this was.”
“No.” He gestured for me to get on the horse. The paint made my legs stick together as I climbed up. Rade got onto his own horse and echoed the priestess, “Now you must face the night.” And he gazed pointedly ahead.
At the writhing, dark wall of the Shroud.