Chapter Thirty-Six Samira
THIRTY-SIX SAMIRA
Queen Amunet had many parties over the sixteen years I’d served her.
Even just circling with trays of food or wine had been fun.
There was dancing, spectacularly vibrant clothes—and music.
Gods, I loved the music. Flutes and harps and drums, they filled the space with an energy unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
Sometimes, I’d pretend that I was a guest, a shy wallflower, observing my friends and waiting for someone to invite me to dance.
The Lunar Feast didn’t sound anything like Amunet’s parties.
There were no flutes or harps, only drums. Some were a deep thrumming to match my heartbeat and others were as high as a bird’s trills, the rhythm changing every few minutes.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Keir was responsible for one of them, which made me think of our conversation earlier today.
What he’d said about my runes. How he’d looked at my scar, the brand of my shortcomings.
The fire of mortification started to climb its way up my neck again, so I crumpled the memory into a ball and chucked it into the farthest corner of my mind.
Wild laughter rose above the drums, high-pitched and rowdy, and roars drowned out all the rest. Roars I hadn’t heard since that night they’d come for the Gods-Chosen. Bear roars. Low and hungry and frightening.
The fireplace painted my room in a comforting warm glow, but it didn’t help chase away the memories that wrestled forward, no matter how hard I tried to crumple those up, too:
Amunet’s green eyes, wide and frantic.
Tabia’s apologetic smile as she left me.
Men torn to pieces.
Bright yellow eyes in the darkness.
A knock sounded at the door, and a little girl’s voice called, “Queen Amunet?”
I shook off the bad memories and opened the door. “Milena,” I greeted her, doing my best to sound chipper. “Is everything all right?”
She was bundled in my fur cloak, the hem of it a train behind her, and her blue eyes were panicked. “Everything is so loud and I—” She cut off with a gasp when another bear’s roar rocked the longhouse behind her.
“Come in, come in.” I stepped aside quickly.
Milena scurried in, clutching her Ketet doll in a white-knuckled grip. Her skittish eyes kept darting to the door. Sympathy swept through me.
“Would you like to sleep here tonight?” I asked her gently.
In answer, she scampered to the bed and burrowed into the blankets.
Smiling, I crawled in beside her. It didn’t make much sense, but I suddenly felt a lot better having someone else in the room with me. Even if that someone was a five-year-old girl.
Milena blinked. “Are you crying?”
“No,” I said, and quickly wiped away any evidence to the contrary. “Just yawned.”
Milena took my hand under the covers, eyes knowing. “I don’t like the noise, either.”
I laughed softly and gave her hand a squeeze. Another roar blasted, and she ducked under the covers.
Protectiveness rose up inside me, momentarily chasing away my self-pity as I stared at her quivering form. Milena had been ripped from her family not once but twice, and those gods-damn Shifters were making her new home a terrifying hell.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of the bed and wrapping a coat around my shoulders.
Milena bolted upright. “Where are you going?”
“To see if I can get them to quiet down.” When her eyes widened impossibly farther, I said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be right back. Try to sleep.”
I waited for Milena’s hesitant nod before I opened the door and stepped out. Alone in the dark, my bravado evaporated, and all I could hear was Keir’s warning, Don’t come to the Lunar Feast, ringing in my ears.
But there was a little girl trembling anxiously in my room… and a stirring of curiosity in my chest.
I straightened my spine and walked to the longhouse.
It had been entirely transformed over the past few days. Lines of wildflowers hung from the ceiling. Statues carved of wood were posted along the walls, each a different face of the moon goddess, Ayeen. One for each phase of the moon.
Kaldfolk stood on the tables. They were writhing against each other in time to the drumbeats.
Some were truly entangled in each other, wearing very little clothing despite the chill of the night, and showing off their black runes, while others stumbled drunkenly, mugs of kefir in their hands, as they shouted words to some song I didn’t know.
Despite the decorations hanging from the ceiling and Ayeen’s statues, the hall was a mess.
Like an animal had torn through it. Or multiple.
Claw marks marred the tabletops and walls.
Food was strewn across the floor and trampled.
And some of the Kaldfolk were bleeding from scratches on their exposed flesh.
But no one had blue runes. No Shifters.
Rade was among the revelry, a crown of wildflowers around his head, eyes glimmering as he moved through the rapid steps of a dance. Sweat glistened on his face, and a smile stretched across his lips as he threw back a cup of kefir. He looked freer than I’d ever seen him.
I slipped through the crowd, tucking my elbows in close to avoid any bodies. “Rade.”
He turned to me with delighted surprise. “Amunet! I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I’m not, I just—”
He grabbed my hands and pulled me to his side. “I’ll teach you the dance. It’s very simple.”
“I’m sure it is, but I really just wanted—”
“Your Majesty!” Velka tumbled into me on drunken legs, giggling, eyes gleaming with something akin to madness.
Her braid was undone, hair a wild dark mess around her head, and she’d stripped down to her undergarments, which were slashed through, leaving very little to the imagination.
I noticed a black tattoo different from her other blue runes nestled just over her heart.
It looked like a very large bite mark—I guessed a bear’s bite.
Velka noticed my gaze and waved dismissively. “It’s just a mating mark.”
“A wha—oof.”
She yanked me into a tight hug. I could feel the scrape of claws against my back, as if she were not fully committed to her human form. “I’m so glad you’re here!” she gushed.
I surveyed the longhouse, looking for signs of the rest of the Seven, but it was only Velka. A small relief.
“I was just trying to get her to dance,” Rade told her.
“Oh yes, you must, you must! It’s so—” Her head snapped in the other direction, as if she heard something I couldn’t, and a wicked smile broke across her face. She let out an excited yip and shifted into a bear, barreling on all fours out of the longhouse, claws tearing apart the wooden floor.
I set my chin and refocused. “Rade, it’s so loud that—”
“Here, kefir,” he shouted over the drums as he thrust a cup of it at me.
“No, I don’t want—”
A woman caught his hands, and he laughed as he swung back into the dance.
I huffed in annoyance and set the kefir on the nearest table. One of the dancers kicked it over, splashing white all over my coat. I gasped and stumbled back a step. They all merely laughed and carried on. With a glower, I tore off the dripping coat and folded it over my arm.
The Lunar Feast was meant to be an event for the Shifters, for them to lose control. With animal spirits, complete abandon made sense. But Rade was just as bad. So were all the Kaldfolk with black runes. The cups of kefir were probably to blame.
Parties in Khada Palace were never like this. I could hardly hear myself think.
When Rade swung close enough, I snatched his shoulder, dug my nails in, and pulled him out of the line of dancers. “It’s scaring Milena,” I yelled directly into his ear.
“What is?”
“The noise!”
“If I ask them to stop, they won’t listen.”
“Could you try?” Now that I said it out loud, it did sound rather ridiculous.
Rade shrugged. Took my hand and led me to the circle of drummers, where he repeated my request. The drummers—none of which were Keir—just laughed and pounded harder. The sound reverberated in my head.
Rade gave me a crooked grin. “See?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. And really, I wasn’t. Of course they wouldn’t quiet their party for one scared little girl—or for me. But at least I could tell Milena I’d asked.
I turned to thank him, but he was already swept back up into the wild crush of bodies.
With a sigh, I fought my way through the chaos.
When I burst out into the night, I tilted my face up to the sky and greedily drank in the freezing air, for once grateful for the chill. Inside was far too suffocating.
I crossed my arms tightly over my chest and lowered my eyes, ready to trudge back to my room, an apology for Milena on my lips—
I drew to an abrupt halt.
Bain stood in my path.