Chapter Thirty-Three Samira
THIRTY-THREE SAMIRA
After a whole day abed, the pain in my legs had entirely vanished. Which was good for me, since it took that long for Bain to poke his head into my cabin. My heart hit my feet at the sight of his sharp face.
“Rade wants to see you,” he growled.
“Where’s Keir?”
“Taking a break. Let’s go.”
I followed Bain out of the cabin, body tense.
Rade was waiting for me by the longhouse’s cedar doors, speaking to a large man with thick wrinkles roping across his forehead.
Suddenly, Bain grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. Before I could panic, he said, “Hedin was a traitor.”
My eyebrows rose. Hedin? Of all the things I expected him to say to me, it wasn’t this. “The man Rade was going to make Second? Why would Rade choose a traitor—”
“Rade didn’t know. Still doesn’t. No one did, except the Seven.
We kept it a secret. We needed time to plan the best way to punish him, to make sure the death fit the crime.
The fight cut our planning short. Velka thought you deserved to know.
” He rolled his eyes before his lips curled up into a nasty grin and he leaned in even closer, grip tightening until I winced.
“That is what we do to traitors. Hedin’s death was quick.
Most traitors don’t get that lucky. Remember that. ”
My heart nearly beat out of my chest. But I thought of how I’d stood my ground against Keir, how he’d backed down, how I’d made the decision to start fighting back. I adopted that same bravado now as I tipped my chin in the air and demanded, “Let go, Bain.”
For a moment, his Shifter eyes flashed and he looked like he was going to refuse.
I held his gaze for several nerve-racking moments before he slowly peeled his fingers off my arm.
With more courage than I felt, I turned my back on him and strode forward, ordering my legs to carry me the last few feet to Rade.
The king turned to me with a friendly smile, oblivious to the silent war I’d just won or the nervous sweat on my forehead. “Amunet,” he greeted me. “Thank you, Bain.”
His Fourth dipped his head and ambled off. But not before shooting me one more dark look that sent my stomach into a tailspin. I might have won just now, but it didn’t mean much. A snapped neck was Bain going easy. If he found out who I was and what I was doing here…
“Come on,” Rade said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
I swallowed down my fear and forced myself to keep my chin high as I followed Rade out of Frostguard. We didn’t speak much along the way. I didn’t know if Rade could tell something was wrong with me or if he simply liked the silence.
Kaldfolk—Shifters, specifically—had been birthed during the Time of Night, the height of Shaya’s power, the most frightening chapter in the War of the Ancients.
Half animal, half man, they’d torn through mortals like they were nothing.
It wasn’t until after Shaya was locked away, his power significantly diminished, that they’d developed consciousness.
That they’d become more man than beast. That didn’t mean their wild, animalistic side was gone, though.
I’d seen its strength with my own two eyes when they had invaded Khada Palace.
Bain could be one bad day away from snapping my neck, with or without Rade’s say-so.
Or rather, torturing me and then snapping my neck. If I was lucky. Which I never was.
“Here we are,” Rade said.
My eyes widened, and the air fled my lungs.
An enormous brass circle, large enough for a small assembly of people to stand in, was nestled into the earth, a bright emerald at its center.
It almost looked like a compass, except there were far more than four directions carved into it, with those symbols I’d glimpsed during my time with the Seer.
The markings curled all the way around the circle, a crisp border of black lines against the gleaming brass.
“What is this?” I asked.
“We’re not sure,” Rade replied, stepping into the ring, nodding that it was all right for me to follow. “We think it must be a remnant of the War of the Ancients. Look, do you see that?” He pointed to the emerald at the center.
I nodded, gaping. “That’s Ketet’s eye.” The emerald jewel was bracketed by thick black lines meant to resemble eyelashes, a common symbol to represent the goddess’s remaining eye. The lashes stretched up and drew together to form an arrow, which was aimed at one of the various indecipherable marks.
“So we unoriginally call this place the Eye of Ketet.” Rade smiled crookedly.
Hesitantly, I stepped over the circle’s border.
A hush fell. The hush of a sacred place. It wasn’t cold within the compass. And it wasn’t hot. It was comfortable. My panic and fear dissipated along with the chill.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Rade said, smile stretching.
“Yes.” I almost thought if I looked over my shoulder, I’d find the Seven Monarchs standing there. The circle carried the serenity I always found in prayer, calm and tranquil.
Rade nodded and approached the center. He knelt before it, resting his fingers just on the edge of the eye. “This is my favorite place in all of Kaldfold,” he said softly, reverently. “Peaceful, meditative. It feels like the Mother watches over this place.”
I drew to his side and lowered myself to my knees, following his movements and touching the edge of the eye.
A beautiful, wonderful place of worship.
An oasis, somehow shielded from nature’s cruelty.
The brass wasn’t corroded in the least, but gleamed as if it had been placed here just yesterday instead of millennia ago.
“My mother brought me here to say goodbye before she went back to the Shroud.”
I glanced up at him in surprise.
He struggled to meet my eyes. “She thought if she did it here, in this beautiful place, it would lessen the blow. And she was right. For as long as I remained in this circle, I wasn’t sad. Even when I couldn’t see her beyond the trees anymore, I wasn’t sad. Not here. Never here.”
But he’d had to step out of the circle eventually. And the shadows creeping into his face were answer enough of what he’d felt then.
Indeed, Rade seemed to feel a great deal. For his people, for his mother who had abandoned him, for the gods. I didn’t have very many people to care for like that. I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to even if I did. Perhaps the burden of caring for my queen was enough.
I licked my lips and thought about what solace Amunet could offer.
Rade didn’t have the heightened sense of smell the Shifters did, so I didn’t have to be so careful with my word choice.
“My mother died in childbirth,” I found myself saying.
This was Amunet’s story and not mine, but I thought it might comfort him just the same.
“I never knew her. But I think my life would have been very different if I had.”
He nodded in understanding. Then he said, “It’s foolish, I know, but I… Sometimes, I think that if I could just get rid of the Shroud, I’ll find her waiting for me.” He huffed an embarrassed laugh and scratched at his beard.
A couple of hours turned a person into a ghul. If she’d been in there a decade…
But we all needed a bit of hope. I was not so cruel as to take that from him.
I reached across the space between us and took Rade’s hand. “You are blessed by Eira, Goddess of the Lost. If there is a way to bring her back, you will find it.”
Rade smiled softly. “You know, I have good memories here as well. The first time I felt like I had a family again was here. Keir’s aunt took me in.
Things had been difficult—for both me and Keir.
But we came here and talked. We understood each other.
And I knew I had not just a friend but a brother.
” He let out a long sigh and looked up at the surrounding trees. “Things always feel easier here.”
They did. There was a lack of pressure somehow, like physical pounds had been lifted off my back as soon as I’d stepped foot onto the metallic surface.
Rade’s gaze lowered to my hand over his, and his smile faded. “Keir told me you were listening to our conversation.” My heart skipped a beat. “He seems to think you’re hiding something from me, Amunet.”
Slowly, I drew my hand away from his, blood rushing loudly in my ears.
“Ashorah is a blessed land. The Lotus River is obvious evidence of that. But this”—he ran his fingers along the edge of Ketet’s eye again—“this is proof that Kaldfold is blessed, too.”
I swallowed hard, struggling to look down at the emerald, no longer feeling worthy enough to do so. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought the jewel gleamed brighter. As if Ketet herself were glaring at me.
“So I will ask you this once, Amunet, only once, and I ask that here, in this sacred place, you be honest with me.” He locked his eyes with mine. “Is there truth to what Keir says?”
Everything I’d been taught, everything I believed, warned me not to lie here. Not here.
But Queen Amunet still had almost two weeks before the Igniting.
Plenty of time for the Kaldfolk to kill me and turn their attentions toward finding her.
And by the time they managed to find her, my deception would have enraged them, made them crueler to her than they had been to me.
She wouldn’t be offered a warm cabin. They’d hold her in chains.
And then drain her of every ounce of her power.
Bain’s threat rang in my ears. I could still feel where his fingers had clutched my arm. A little more pressure and he could have shattered every bone.
As my silence stretched, Rade whispered, “I saw you.”
My head whipped up.
He was watching me carefully. “I know we’re not supposed to share what the Seer shows us, but… I saw you, Amunet. You were by my side.”
“You saw me in your fortune from Zarqa,” I repeated.
Rade nodded.
Me. He’d seen me. Not Amunet. “What… what was I doing?”