Chapter Two Samira
TWO SAMIRA
Most nights, I collapsed into an exhausted, dreamless heap on my cot. But that night, it didn’t matter how long I tossed and turned, I couldn’t sleep. My stomach cramped painfully, and my ears echoed with the sound of a young girl’s desperate gasps.
I sat up with a huff.
My room was little more than a cubby in the clay walls beneath the kitchens. There was a small window offering a view of the Lotus River and a curtain for a door. Neither I nor my roommate, Nadia, had many belongings, just our uniforms, cots, and a pair of sandals.
I shifted onto my knees, moving slowly, cringing when my cot creaked.
But Nadia just made a soft snuffling noise and rolled over.
I folded my legs under me, sitting back on my calves and heels, and held my hands out to either side of me, palms facing up.
Then I let my eyes drift to the Lotus River through the window, a perpetually reassuring sight.
Past the river, I could see all of Ketopolis, the capital city of Ashorah, named for the Mother of All, Ketet.
The glimmering lights of the city shone like stars in their own sky.
When I’d first been brought to Khada Palace, I’d resented the city’s beauty.
The vibrant tapestries hanging from the Ketopolis Market, the tall domed structures, the bustling energy, the potent smells of spices that wafted toward the palace all the way from across the river.
I’d missed Mama and Baba and our little hut near the river, where our world consisted of the fish Baba caught, the bread Mama baked, and the handful of similar homes around us.
I had friends, I thought. But I’d only been six years old when I was taken, so my memories were mostly blurry.
I’d been desperately afraid without Mama and Baba.
All I knew were the scary stories they’d told me about Ketopolis.
Children slaughtered, criminals around every corner, evil royals overseeing it all.
But I was too young to understand how important all of this really was, how important the royals were.
Now I loved them. I’d sworn to it in front of my king, my princess, and dozens of guards. I loved them, and I’d vowed to love them until the day I died.
I let the sight of the river and city ground me as I prayed for Ketet to take away the gnawing in my stomach.
Prayer always brought me peace. It centered me. Blanketed me in comfort, whether or not my pleas were answered. As if for that moment, I wasn’t here in Khada Palace; I was suspended in a serene lake. Tranquil, placid, quiet.
But then my stomach rumbled again, wrenching me back to my tiny cot. A whimper rose in my throat.
You should’ve taken the bread, Samira. Not for your own selfish hunger, but so you could sleep and better serve your princess tomorrow.
My stomach groaned again as if in agreement, and I bit my lip.
Maybe the bread was still there. It wasn’t even close to morning.
Chef Nena wouldn’t have had a chance to clean up yet.
Maybe I could sneak back to the kitchen—just for a tiny bite.
And then in the morning, I’d tell Tabia what I’d done, and she could decide if it warranted a punish—
Something in the river caught my eye. A disturbance in the current. I frowned.
I’d watched the Lotus River for the last sixteen years. It lulled me to sleep every night, greeted me every morning. I knew the way it jumped over every rock, around every obstacle. But the way it was rippling now, going in the opposite direction…
Moonbeams streamed down on the river in perfectly straight columns.
And then they flickered.
It was dark. I was tired. There couldn’t be someone in the river. No one would dare, especially after Nailah’s punishment.
Unless it wasn’t a palace servant but rather someone from Ketopolis, a townsperson who wouldn’t know about a scullery maid’s disciplining.
The moonbeam flickered again.
There. A silhouette against the deep blue of the water.
Or rather, silhouettes.
One by one, they emerged from the river. Almost entirely silent. I could’ve dismissed them as Ashorans braving the crown’s wrath for a sip from the river.
If not for their hair.
The moonlight reflected off the sides of their scalps where their heads were shaved, and a long braid hung down each of their backs, varied in length. No one in Ketopolis wore their hair like that. No one in all of Ashorah wore their hair like that.
My hair was dark and short, barely reaching the bottom of my ears, like all female citizens of Ashorah. Men let it grow to their shoulders. And royals, like my princess, shaved their heads entirely, relying on wigs.
There was only one place I knew where people had such strange hair.
Kaldfold.
My heart hit my feet, and I shook my head, terror seizing me.
Stories about the monsters to the north were whispered in the pitch-black of night. Tapestries and hieroglyphs all over Khada Palace depicted King Zaid’s battle against them seventeen years ago, when he’d delivered the crushing blow that successfully pushed them beyond the Frozen Sand Mountains.
The Kaldfolk were battle-crazed. Foamed at the mouth when they so much as scented fear.
Rabid, depraved monsters that weren’t satisfied with just killing their victims. They mutilated them, defiled their corpses, ate them.
Heretic witches who could manipulate you into killing your own family, friends, yourself.
They’d plagued more than one of my nightmares.
And they were coming straight for the palace.