Page 103 of The Shrouded Queen
I rolled my eyes. I knew all of that already. Dead Man’s Forest and the Dry Lands had featured prominently in my tutoring as forbidden landscapes. Dangerous, deadly places, only slightly less feared than the Wastelands.
The Temple of Shaya might as well have been a world away. But that was all right. My only reason for visiting the temple was to reconnect with my father. Which I had, seeing as I had been magically transported thousands of miles away. And I’d done it by sacrificing Malik instead of Jasim. A mercy from my father.
“Shaya brought me here for a reason,” I said. “He wouldn’t have rescued me just to thrust me into danger. We have to find out why.”
Jasim turned me to face him. “If we go in there, we might not come out.”
“I know—”
“You have to live, Amunet.” His fingers spasmed on my shoulders. “Nothing else matters. I can’t lose—” He cut himself off abruptly. One of his eyes had swollen shut while his other one was shot through with veins of red.
I took a moment to examine him more closely. He really was in bad shape. His entire right arm was slick with his own blood. Sweat rimmed his ashen face, his thick curls hung limp and matted, and the left side of his face was swollen and splotched in purple and blue.
Concern etched my brow. “What happened to you?”
A muscle in his jaw feathered. “They left me in camp when they took you. Probably assumed I was dead. When I woke up, everyone was gone, but their tracks were easy to follow. Sara brought you to some outpost where Anwar was waiting. It took some time to stake the place out, and I probably could have done with a bit more planning, but I didn’t know what they were doing to you. It’s possible I wasn’t thinking clearly.” He winced.
He’d survived that first attack. He could have left me. Instead, he’d risked death again to save me. The words of love he’d whispered just before the night had gone to shit swirled through my mind, and my throat constricted. When I spoke, it came out in an emotional whisper. “I’ve treated you horribly for years, but you still…”
Jasim looked away from me toward Dead Man’s Forest, yet I got the impression that he wasn’t really seeing it. Staring through it to a different place, a different time altogether. “I have spent the last thirteen years with the Khada Guard, and it is… not a nice place. Everything about it is meant to harden us into ruthless warriors. I learned to wear the mask. To be ruthless, to be aggressive, to be worse than everyone else just to survive. I got so good at it that I never took the mask off. Maybe I forgot how to. It became a part of me. And then… I met you.” He looked at me, eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. “You wore a mask, too, and I could see it. You wanted people to think you were ruthless, too. But sometimes your mask slips. And when it does…” His shoulders lowered as he gazed at me. “You’re magnificent.”
I shook my head wordlessly, eyes burning.
Jasim reached out his uninjured arm to cup my cheek. “I know you have your demons, Amunet. I know being a Gods-Chosen isn’t easy. But beneath that mask, you aregood. You try to be good every day. I see it.”
I was a creature of the Underworld. I was a girl willing to save the world or burn it down if her creator asked her to, because Shaya was the only one who truly knew me and truly loved me. That was what I’d always believed.
But maybe… maybe Jasim was right. Maybe I’d concocted a mask for myself to protect me from Zaid’s cruelty, from those who would use me, from those who hated me because of my father. Maybe everything I’d done—throwing a servant to the Kaldfolk, making false promises to Nasir, conspiring to sacrifice Jasim, nearly decapitating Malik—maybe none of that was reallyme. Maybe whatever goodness Jasim thought he saw in me wasn’t an illusion at all. My face was still awash with Malik’s blood, but maybe the creature full of rage and violence was the true illusion.
A smile lifted my lips, fragile, new, a little shaky. “Thank you for coming for me.”
Jasim’s eyes softened. He tilted my face toward his and pressed a tender kiss to my lips, one that lit a spark in my chest. I shifted closer, and Jasim inhaled a pained breath. I broke the kiss with a soft apology. Then I said, “We have to go into Dead Man’s Forest.”
“Amunet—”
“We can’t trust any of the princes anymore. And this is where Shaya sent us. So it’s where we’ll go. Just keep your scimitar handy. Okay?” I waited for his agreement. If we were going to move forward together, then I wanted it to betogether. Not because I had decreed it.
Jasim let out a long breath, studying the intimidating entrance. After a moment, he reluctantly nodded. “Stay close.”
If we’d had any supplies, I would have suggested patching him up first, but the most I could offer was an arm around his waist. Then Jasim and I hobbled into Athar’s playground.
FORTY-TWOSAMIRA
I was lying on a blanket on the floor of a cove, a smooth slab of rock in the mountain. The lake’s water didn’t ripple beside me, silent as ever, and a campfire blazed a few feet away. Beyond it, stars sparkled in the night sky, the wind whistling.
Blinking blearily, I tried to sit up—but stopped with a hiss when my leg gave an angry throb.
“Easy,” Rade warned from where he sat next to me, feeding the fire. He wore only a flimsy cotton shirt, and I realized it wasn’t a blanket I was lying on after all but his tunic. He smiled tiredly. “How do you feel?”
“Okay.” My leg tingled and pulsed, but as long as I didn’t move it too fast, that horrible pain was gone. “Did you heal me?”
“The bones only. Skin will take longer.”
The wounds on my knee, ankle, and shoulders were wrapped in bits of fabric, which Rade must’ve torn from one of the many layers he always wore. A sharp, minty smell reached my nose, and I spotted a bit of green peeking out from under the binds.
“Neem leaves,” Rade said in answer to the look on my face. “Helps numb and disinfect.”
“Oh.” With shaky arms, I pushed myself up, careful not to jostle my leg, gritting my teeth against the pain in my shoulders. “Thank you, Rade.”
