Chapter Thirty-Four Samira
THIRTY-FOUR SAMIRA
The Wastelands were just a speck on the horizon, yet I hadn’t looked away from them for nearly an hour.
I’d stared at that hint of desert for so long, I saw it on the backs of my lids with every blink.
I didn’t mind the wind, the chill, or the way the wooden banister dug into my forearms as I leaned against it.
I hadn’t felt so alone since those initial hours after my kidnapping.
Velka and Rade had checked on me often over the last couple of days, and I made sure to visit Milena every chance I got, but it was as if I were trapped on one side of a glass window while they simply waved at me from the other side. Separate.
The Trench was where the worst souls were sent after death, where they suffered for eternity, severed forever from the gods, left only with Shaya. Where the death god let his soulless mind run rampant with ideas of torment.
One lie. That was all. I could feel it like a literal stain on my heart. One lie, that was the price of my soul.
I traced a finger over the X on my chest, almost thinking I’d push too hard and my chest would cave in like a rotted log, utterly hollow.
From the ground below, Keir called, “Nearly done up there, Majesty?”
“No,” I replied flatly.
“Going to be much longer?”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t have to stay.”
He didn’t respond. I thought he must’ve left, until the ladder groaned and his yellow eyes appeared in the square door in the floor. “The Lunar Feast is tonight,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I’d actually like to go. Which I can’t do until you’re tucked safe and sound in your cabin.”
Evening was still hours away. I didn’t bother pointing that out.
“Just give me five more minutes.” I dropped my chin into my palm and brought my eyes back to the Wastelands.
The life I’d had was so far away. A life I no longer yearned for but despised.
My memories of my time there seemed to contort and shift as the truth slipped out from behind the mask of my zeal.
Keir climbed fully into the watchtower and warmed the space by my side. “What’s wrong with you? Is it your power? Has something happened?”
“Can’t you just sniff me and magically know?” I asked sarcastically.
“That’s not exactly how it works.” He paused. “Plus, I tried that already.”
I huffed a humorless laugh. “Of course you did.”
“What is it? You’ve been acting weird all week.”
“I’m really not in the mood today, Keir.”
“If it’s something to do with the Igniting—”
“Could you please just—” I cut myself off when I heard my voice echo out over the hill.
I drew a deep breath. While there was a good deal I wanted to rage at Keir for, the current cause of my anger could only be blamed on myself.
With conscious effort, I uncurled my fingers, which had made themselves into fists, and spoke in a more measured tone.
“Five more minutes and I’ll come down. I won’t make you late for your party. I promise.”
His brows arced in surprise, but he didn’t say anything. I didn’t have it in me to feel triumphant at rendering him speechless.
I followed the thick line of clouds back to the Wastelands, which burned away the closer they got to Ashorah’s searing sun, until there was nothing obstructing the sight of the gentle blue sky. Deceptive, that gentle blue, since working under it felt like being broiled alive.
And in the opposite direction… the Shroud.
I tried to avoid looking at it, but my gaze was inevitably drawn to its inky depths.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that those swirling tentacles were every bit as aware of me as I was of them, like they were looking right back at me.
But it didn’t unnerve me. Rather, I had to fight to keep my lips from stretching into a smile and my feet from carrying me to its doorstep.
“Always there, isn’t it?”
My eyes slid to Keir.
He’d turned to rest his elbows on the banister, too, gaze trained on that writhing wall. “Even when you’re not thinking about it, you can always feel it trying to pull you in. Right here.” He rubbed the heel of his palm against his sternum with a frown. Exactly where I felt that indescribable tug.
My brows lifted. “You feel drawn to the Shroud?”
He nodded, expression unreadable. A breeze ruffled the rope of his braid, shifting it a few inches over his shoulder blade.
I didn’t bother being surprised that he knew I felt it, but I was taken aback by the fact that he’d decided to share he did. “Velka thinks it means we have a greater propensity for darkness.”
He smiled ruefully. “That is the prevailing theory, yes.”
“You don’t agree?”
“The Shroud isn’t about darkness. It’s the Underworld.
Death.” There was something in the way he said it, a weight to the words, that had me studying him closely.
There were a handful of scars peppered around his face that I’d never noticed before.
Small silver lines along his jaw, just above the runes, and a few that chipped down his throat, slightly distorting the strong blue lines.
“I think we’re drawn to the Shroud,” he said, “because some of us are closer to death.”
A small shiver passed through me. Given my current predicament, that made an awful sort of sense. One wrong move was all it would take for a blade to come down on my neck. The Underworld could be anticipating my arrival and was calling me to it.
Keir shrugged. “But what do I know?”
My brows drew closer together. Along with the scars, there was a weathered appearance to Keir’s face that I only just recognized. It was in the heavy lines of his brow, the pinch at the corners of his eyes. “I have a feeling you know a great deal,” I murmured.
He glanced over at me, yellow irises startling against the dark kohl. They moved over my face, examining me just as carefully as I’d just done him. Voice sincere, he asked again, “What’s wrong, Majesty?”
I dropped my gaze to my hands and swallowed.
The truth would get me killed but… perhaps a partial truth would suffice.
“I learned to pray beside the Lotus River,” I said quietly.
“It was so long ago, most of my memory is blurry, but it was my father’s favorite place…
I think.” The memory was too frayed to gather more than a few impressions.
“The river was loud, I remember. And there was a tree nearby that kept it from being too hot. Praying there… it was peaceful.”
Mama had been there, too. Vaguely, I recalled a gentle voice reciting the worshipful words, the soft spray of water as the river splashed over the bank.
“Prayer brings me back to that peace. When my thoughts are too loud or when I’m scared, Ketet comforts me with it.
But now that I can’t reach her, I don’t…
” Emotion clogged my throat. It felt like losing the gods and that last connection to my parents in one fell swoop.
Gently, he prodded, “What’s stopping you from praying?”
“I try, but it’s not… working. There’s no peace, no comfort, nothing.” I fiddled absently with a splinter sticking out of the banister. “I don’t know how to live without my prayers.”
The wind whistled between us in the ensuing quiet. Keir gazed stoically out over Kaldfold. “It’s a blessing and a curse, isn’t it?”
I glanced up at him curiously.
“Hope,” he elaborated. “At its core, that’s what prayer is, right? Hope that the gods are listening. Hope we’re not alone. Hope that they’ll help. It’s a painful thing to lose.” Tendrils of brown hair whipped around Keir’s face, deepening the line between his brows.
“How do I get it back?” I asked.
He looked at me, gaze heavy. “When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
My throat was suddenly tight. “Hope will come,” I whispered, defending my queen even now. She was all I had left. “The Gods-Chosen will save your people.”
“See, you say that,” he said, and angled his body toward mine, “and I can hear the truth in your words, smell it in that distinct scent of yours. Everything about you compels me to believe you.” He was so close that his supernatural warmth wrapped around me, blocking out the wind.
“And yet that rabbit’s heartbeat… why does it scream out that you’re lying? ”
I took several breaths. Maybe it was my bad mood or the isolated quiet of the watchtower that gave me a surge of confidence, but I found myself blurting, “I want to make another deal.”
He frowned. “What?”
“That day on the horse, you gave me an answer in exchange for hearing me beg.” The memory sent heat crawling up my neck. “I want another answer. Preferably without the humiliation this time. You have questions, too, so… an answer for an answer.”
He observed me for several seconds, during which time I didn’t breathe.
He was probably scenting me for deception.
It was risky to promise him answers, since I knew exactly what his question would be.
But my soul felt empty without Ketet, the Underworld was counting down the seconds until it claimed me, and there were unexplained markings on my forehead.
I needed answers, and if this was the only way I’d get them, then so be it.
Keir gave a curt nod. “Ask your question.”
Victory filled my lungs. I faced him fully. “What do you smell in my runes?”
His face shuttered, all traces of softness gone. “Ask a different question.”
“No.”
He stared at me, and I stared back. Anticipation and fear twined together inside me.
I feared that look in his eyes, but I thought of the strength I’d felt when the shadow creature had offered to show me who I was.
How light I’d felt without this burden of terror hanging around my neck all the time.
I tried to harness that feeling and stood a little straighter.
A muscle in Keir’s jaw popped. Then, “Cinnamon.”
I blinked. When he said nothing more, I dumbly repeated, “Cinnamon.”
He nodded curtly, that muscle in his jaw bulging again.
“That’s… it?”