Page 61 of The Shrouded Queen
Wake up, you stupid girl, he spat.If you were Shaya’s beloved daughter, why would he abandon you? It’s a lie. You are a lie.
“No.” I shook my head hard, trying to clear it. The voice might be the king’s, but the doubts were my own, simmering somewhere deep in my mind for weeks. They were heresy, sacrilege. They would only push Shaya further away. I could not allow them into the light of day.
Fine, he went on ruthlessly.If you’re so sure Shaya isn’t the villain, and I’m already dead… what characters remain in your story? Who is left to play the villain? Except you.
“I amnotthe villain. And this isn’t a fable. I exist because ofyourdeal with the jinn. I am a solution toyourmistakes,yourineptitude.”
The king didn’t respond. There was no chuckle, no breath against my cheek.
The quiet was more foreboding than the rasp of his voice.
“Hey.”
I gasped with a flinch.
But it was just Jasim. He paused a foot away. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I replied instantly. My mouth was dry, my chest heavy, and there was a dull ache in my throat where Sara’s knife had nicked me. But I sank into two decades’ worth of training and schooled my face into one of smooth indifference. “Did you find out anything from Nasir’s soldiers?”
He observed me a moment longer.
The truth attempted to sidestep my training and spew from my lips, anticipating his strong arms around me, the warm press of his body against mine. I clenched my jaw tight. This habit of wanting to tell Jasim things was… new.
Eventually, he said, “We’re leaving.”
“Anything more specific?”
“Now.” Jasim jerked his chin over my shoulder.
I turned to find a collection of Reeda soldiers, perhaps twenty or so, waiting in disciplined rows. Beside them were a couple of wagons holding jugs of water rations, sacks of food, and supplies for shelter. Sara joined the militia with a line of goats in tow for sacrifice.
“Queen Amunet.” Nasir approached with a boyish smile, though there was a heaviness to his gaze. A smudge of dullness to his gold-flecked irises. The weight of his people’s deaths. He tried to stand tall as he swept his hand toward his waiting soldiers. “Shall we?”
We were going to the Temple of Shaya. I really was just being paranoid. As I followed Nasir to one of the wagons, I waited for the relief to set in.
It never came.
First the itch. Then the claws. Now irrational paranoia and ghostly voices. What would come next? How much worse would this get? And for how much longer?
Because I didn’t think I could survive the rest of the month like this.
TWENTY-FOURSAMIRA
Change quickly,” Velka told me. “We start at the sun’s zenith.”
Her face was caked with white clay, which cracked slightly when she smiled at me, and her light brown hair was braided differently, twisting around her head in a crown. She wore a tunic with open sleeves, joined by a small piece of fabric at the elbow. I could see the rest of her blue tattoos, swirling from her fingers all the way to the tops of her shoulders.
She held out a tunic for me to wear. I asked her to look away as I changed into it, not from any modesty, but so that she wouldn’t see the scars on my back and chest.
The tunic was similar to hers, but my open sleeves were bound at the wrists instead of the elbows. When I moved my arms, the thin fabric billowed out like wings. It was entirely too thin for the cold, but Velka instructed me to leave my cloak behind. Instant gooseflesh spread over my body as I stepped outside.
Keir waited there, a statue beside Velka. His face was also painted in that white clay, nearly hiding the tattoos along his jaw. A stark contrast to the black that usually covered his face.
Velka took my arm and led me away, with Keir falling into step behind us. I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my head.
A crowd of Kaldfolk had formed in front of the longhouse, a lineon either side of the dirt road, creating a path that led down the hill to where a larger mass of people waited.
All staring at me.
