Chapter Fifty-Five Samira
FIFTY-FIVE SAMIRA
A hiss of pain made me jerk my head up. Keir blinked hard against the sun as he came to. The rain had stopped a long time ago, leaving behind the unforgiving heat again. Keir groaned as he tried to sit up, then dropped back down with a curse.
“You shouldn’t move,” I warned.
“Get it off.” His voice cracked on the words, shaky hands reaching blindly for his chest. For the band wrapped around it.
“How do I—”
“Buckle. On the left.”
Careful of his wound, I hiked his tunic up to his sternum. The band was made of thick leather, and it was bound tightly around his ribs. Pressing against the exposed bone. I couldn’t help but cringe. “Keir, what is—”
He snatched my wrist and looked up at me pleadingly. Tears pricked the edges of his eyes. “Please, Amunet. Get it off.”
I nodded quickly and tilted my head to find the buckle. I undid it and pulled the band away from his chest.
A breath whistled past his teeth and he slumped back to the ground, eyes drifting shut. “Thank you.”
I held the band in both hands. It was rough, strong, and the side that had been pressed to Keir’s skin was scratchy. “Keir, what is this?”
He clenched his teeth and forced himself onto his elbows. He took one look at his cauterized side and coughed a humorless laugh. “There better be no more talk of me and my word now, Majesty.” He collapsed to the sand again, breaths quick. Even that small movement had taken a lot out of him.
“Keir, why were you wearing this?” I pushed.
“I have to.” His voice was softer than before. He was fading.
“What do you mean?”
“Pain… breaks through… the haze…” His breathing evened out as he lost consciousness again.
I glanced back down at the band. He’d said that to me before, when we’d been in the Shroud. But we’d both come into the Mirror Realm wearing what we’d been in before, which meant that Keir had been wearing this in his cell, far away from the Shroud. Why? It seemed torturous.
I placed the band in Keir’s hand. The last thing I wanted was for him to wake and add theft to my list of crimes. And then my eyes drew up to where the sun was glinting off Ashorah. My brows furrowed as a thought suddenly occurred to me.
Everything was reversed in the Mirror Realm.
My scars had switched sides. North was south. But…
But if everything was reversed in this place, then Ashorah would be to the east.
We’d been heading west.
This was the Wastelands, I was sure of it, and the sun was reflecting off something out there. That compulsion in my chest remained, a gentle nudge in that same direction. But it was no longer comforting, no longer offering me the security of a plan.
Because if that wasn’t Ashorah glinting under the sun, then I had no idea where I was leading us.
Keir’s pained groan woke me in the middle of the night. My head popped up from where I’d been dozing beside him. “Keir?”
A sheen of sweat covered his face and his form was racked with shivers. I placed my uninjured hand against his forehead. It burned, hotter than his normal Shifter body heat. Fever. A spark of fear lit in my stomach.
I moved to reach for one of the water-filled boots, but Keir’s hand shot up to catch my wrist. I gasped, startled.
Eyes still closed, he returned my hand to his forehead. “You feel good,” he muttered.
“I’m just getting you some water.” I cradled the back of his head and fitted the boot to his lips. Precious drops leaked out the corners of his mouth as he drank. I let him have a few swallows before I had to pull it away. We were down to only three boots now.
But when Keir’s brilliant eyes fluttered open, dazed with fever, I wiped any anxiety from my face. “It’s going to be okay,” I told him calmly.
A large smile spread across his lips as he gazed up at me. The first real smile I’d ever seen on him, free of scorn or arrogance. Even in the dim moonlight, it made him look devastatingly beautiful.
Keir’s hand drifted up to the side of my face. He pinched one of my braids between his fingers, combed through it until the strands were free. “Soft,” he murmured.
I huffed a laugh. If he knew he was pawing at my hair like a kitten, he’d be furious.
Those unnatural eyes of his trailed away from my face to my neck, and his hand followed.
He stroked the curve of my throat where it met my shoulder, the same place he’d buried his nose against during the Lunar Feast, and a soft heat spread through me.
“Right there,” he slurred, voice a hoarse rumble. “I wanted to put it right there.”
“Put what?”
“But I’ve been thinking about it. Now I think I want to put it here.” His touch trailed down to my chest, pausing just above the mess of my scar. “People won’t see it as often, but you’ll trace it instead of this.”
A mass of goose bumps rippled down my body. Suddenly, I wasn’t laughing anymore. “Keir, what are you talking about?”
His gaze returned to mine with that dazzling smile, eyes crinkling. “Say it again.”
“Say what?”
“My name. I like how you say it.”
I felt like I had a fever, too, skin far too warm. “Keir.”
He rumbled a hum of approval that made my skin tighten.
His lids began to droop once more, and I hesitantly resettled my hand on his forehead.
He tilted his face up so that his nose brushed against the sensitive skin of my wrist, nostrils flaring as he drew a deep breath.
Then he slumped back into sleep, lips curved up.
I stared at him. My neck and chest tingled faintly, and I felt out of breath.
I knew Keir was just lost to the cloud of his fever, but what he’d said echoed through my skull.
I rested my free hand over the scar on my chest, but for the first time since I’d received it, I felt no compulsion to trace it.
Keir’s fever broke around dawn and he slept most of the day, only waking up a couple of minutes at a time. Long enough to take a sip of water and then pass out again. Each time, he appeared a bit more lucid.
At one point, he caught me studying him and frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
My cheeks burned and I mumbled some excuse. He didn’t seem aware of anything he’d done or said the night before. For some reason, it felt like my secret. I didn’t want to voice it for him to somehow taint with his annoyance or anger. I cradled it within my heart and told him nothing.
During one of those brief intervals of wakefulness, I mentioned my concerns over Ashorah, but neither of us had a better option. We’d find what awaited us when we got there.
My stomach growled in hunger, and no matter how hard I clenched it, the growling wouldn’t stop. If I was hungry, I imagined the man bear beside me had to be absolutely famished. I needed to find something to eat or we’d both die.
So I dug. Sifted through the sand inch by inch, the sun beating into the top of my head, burning through the fabric of my dress, roasting me.
I wasn’t sure how long it was before I found a centipede. It was a quick little thing, but my desperation made me quicker. I dove for it. Pinched it between my index finger and thumb, its tiny legs pinwheeled, tickling.
If there was one, there were more, and I’d need a place to hold them. I tore the skirt of my dress until just above my knees and then dropped the centipede onto the fabric, quickly twisting it closed and tying a tight knot on top. Then I went back to digging.
By the time the sun had set, I’d found five more centipedes, a scorpion, and a handful of small spiders. Though I hadn’t been a scullery maid, I’d seen Chef Nena work enough to know I shouldn’t risk eating any of these raw. Which meant I’d need to make a fire.
I grabbed two rocks, but my heart sank when I realized there was no kindling. Not even puffs of dry grass to use.
Keir moaned as he woke. Just like every time, he tried to rise, and this time he managed to sit up fully. He shoved his long braid off his shoulder with a relieved breath, then frowned at my dress and the makeshift knapsack. “What are you doing?”
I locked my eyes on his braid. “I need your hair.”
“Excuse me?”
I held up the sack. “To cook. I don’t have enough hair or I’d do it myself.”
“Sorry, why do you need hair for that?”
“Do you see any other way to start a fire around here?”
Keir’s eyes scanned our surroundings, and when he looked back at me, they were wide with panic. “You can’t cut my hair. Use my shirt.”
“You’ll burn faster that way and increase your risk of heatstroke. It’s too dangerous.” At his horrified look, I added, “It’s only hair.”
“No.”
I blew out a frustrated breath through my nose. “You won’t shift to get us there faster, and you won’t cut a few inches off your feet of hair so we can eat. What sort of guard are you?”
“The sort that saved your life from an enormous killer bird.”
“I saved your life from that bird, too,” I shot back. I wouldn’t let his vanity get in the way of our survival. I reached for his braid.
He smacked my hand away, and I hissed as pain rocketed up my arm.
Keir sat up straighter. “You’re hurt.”
I held my palm against my chest before he could see the burn. “I’m fine.”
Keir took my wrist gently. I let him draw it toward him.
Even in his human form, I couldn’t help thinking of his hand as a paw for how large it was as it cupped mine.
His thumb smoothed over my fingers, and they uncurled, revealing the burn.
A muscle in his jaw popped. When Keir looked up at me again, I couldn’t decipher the gleam in his tawny eyes but found I couldn’t look away.
Then he released my hand and drew his braid forward. Rubbed the thick brown locks between his fingers. “A Shifter’s hair symbolizes rank,” he said, voice quiet. “I’m the highest-ranking Shifter in Kaldfold. Have been since I got my runes.”
My face softened. “It’ll grow back, Keir.”
“No,” he said, “it won’t.” But he glanced back up at me, taking in every scratch on my face, the sunburns, the blood crusted on my neckline, my injured hand, and swallowed.
Between one blink and the next, claws took the place of his fingernails. He held his braid in front of him, took a sharp breath, and slashed.
At least a foot of brown hair thudded to the sand. His lips thinned as he retracted his claws and offered it to me.
I took the rope of hair carefully, the meaning behind it making it feel heavier.
“Just because you cut it in this realm doesn’t mean it’s cut in our world,” I said softly.
Keir smiled tightly. “Maybe.”
I placed his hair on the sand and then got to work striking the two rocks together. “How’s your side?”
“Hurts like a bitch,” he responded. “But it’ll heal.” His brows drew together when he saw my handiwork on his wound. “How’d you know to do that?”
“I saw a healer do it in the palace once. A guard in the barracks.” I wasn’t sure why I told him. Probably a mixture of starvation, dehydration, and the reverberation of last night ringing in my head. “I had to help hold him down while the healer worked.”
Keir cocked a brow at me. “What was the princess doing in the army barracks?”
The clump of hair finally caught, and I leaned forward to breathe it to life. It was a small fire, but it would do. I opened the bag of squirming insects and pulled out one of the centipedes, holding it above the modest flame. But it kept shifting, and my fingers were instantly too hot.
Keir took the centipede from me without a word, held it against one of the rocks, and smashed the other down on its head. It stopped moving. Then he reached into his hair and pulled out a pin. Part of his coiled hair sagged to the side as he held it out to me. “A spit.”
I accepted it with a short nod and skewered the centipede. As I held it over the flame again, I met Keir’s searching gaze. “I already told you,” I answered. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Now would be a great time to share, Majesty.”
I crossed my legs and gazed at the centipede. It slowly curled in on itself. “I worked a lot in the palace. In whatever way was needed of me. Sometimes, that included the barracks.”
“And if you didn’t, you were punished?” He glanced down at my chest.
I pulled my neckline aside to reveal the X. It struck me how easy it felt to show it to him now. “This was because I stole water.”
Keir’s eyes snapped back up to mine. “What?” When I kept quiet, he prodded, “But it’s your water.”
“No, it isn’t.” Releasing the neckline, I nodded to his other side. “How are your ribs?”
Keir looked like he wanted to insist on an answer. But after a moment, he dropped his gaze to the flame. “It’s an old wound.”
“It looks…” Horrible. Painful.
He shrugged. “It is.” Despite his efforts to appear unbothered, the muscles in his shoulders wound tight.
Voice quiet, I asked, “How long were you in the Shroud, Keir?”
He brought his eyes back to mine, and I could see the wealth of pain in them, the gleam of ever-present madness. Years’ worth of suffering held in that bright yellow gaze. When he spoke, it was a choked whisper. “Forty-eight hours.”
My eyes widened.
Rade’s mother had been in the Shroud half that time and had been forever changed by it.
Had felt its pull even years later. But Keir had been in that horrible place for two full days.
No wonder he was so harsh. Between the wound to his torso and the one to his mind, it was a wonder he could function at all.
And Rade… Rade had been planning to send him back. Did Keir know that as he waited in his prison in the mountain? Nausea coiled in my gut.
“What was it like?” I asked softly.
A muscle worked in his jaw. “Nice, at first. Like you saw. And then…” Keir squeezed his eyes shut on one very hard blink.
“It taunts you with your dreams. The good ones and the bad ones. Makes it impossible to know what dangers are in your head and what are real. Turns you against yourself until you submit.”
I was overcome by the horror of it. I took his hand.
His eyes opened again and landed on my touch. Slowly, his fingers curled around mine.
“And that band you’re wearing,” I dared. “It keeps you from going back, doesn’t it?”
Keir’s throat bobbed. He eased his hand away from mine. “It’ll be slow, but I’ll be able to walk tomorrow.” His turn to change the subject. “We’ll leave at first light.”
I only nodded and pulled the blackened centipede off the hairpin. I didn’t even taste it when I popped it into my mouth.