Page 66 of The Shrouded Queen
But if I refused to go inside, I would be just as damned. I didn’t have a choice.
Swallowing past the dryness in my throat, I stepped up to the door and knocked. No footsteps approached on the other side. All was silent. I raised my hand to knock again—
The door creaked open slowly.
No one was there.
I glanced back at Rade. He gave me an encouraging smile.
My gaze drifted behind him to Keir, who flicked his hand twice at me, waving me inside.
Fisting my hands at my sides, I stepped into the hut.
TWENTY-SIXSAMIRA
The door shut on its own behind me.
The inside of the Seer’s hut was cramped. The rotted wood filled the space with a moldy smell, making my nose curl. There was no furniture. The room was completely bare. And the pull of the Shroud seemed incapable of penetrating the thin walls; the urge to frolic and giggle dissipated the moment the door closed.
“Hello?” I whispered.
A delicate pink light sparked to life down a hallway to my left. Beckoning.
I steeled myself and headed in its direction.
I entered a kitchen. Rusted pots and pans hung from the ceiling alongside various herbs, an unlit oven beneath them.
The pink light was coming from a lantern on the low wooden table at the center of the room. But there wasn’t a flame. It was almost as if the lantern gave off the light on its own.
Movement caught my eye, and I startled. A cloaked figure that hadn’t been there seconds ago sat at the table, cross-legged on the floor. The hood fell back as she tilted her head up at me.
Her eyes were clouded with blindness, and wrinkles puckered around her mouth. But that was about as much as I could tell behind the countless red runes that covered her face. Even the edgesaround the whites of her eyes were red with them, like the tattoos had bled into her eyes.
She gestured to the other side of the table. “Sit,” she ordered, voice rough with age.
I licked my lips nervously and quickly obeyed, folding my legs under me.
“You’ve come to ask Zarqa for a fortune you do not care to see,” she stated. “But you will receive it all the same.” The Seer reached into the baggy sleeve of her cloak and pulled out a filled chalice.
I blinked in surprise. How could she have that in her sleeve without spilling it?
In the dim pink light, I couldn’t make out exactly what was in the cup save for small leaves floating at the top.
Zarqa brought the cup to her lips and took a hefty gulp. Then she held it out to me.
With shaky hands, I accepted the cup. Brought it to my nose and sniffed. It was a sharp smell, almost like mint, but with a strange follow-up odor that nearly brought tears to my eyes.
“Drink,” she said.
Bracing myself, I took a sip—and nearly gagged. The heady odor punched me in the back of the throat and burned all the way down.
“All of it,” the Seer instructed.
I didn’t give myself time to think before pinching my nose and downing the rest. It clung to my tongue, making each taste bud pucker in horror. I dry heaved.
Zarqa ignored it as she put the chalice aside. “Give me your hands.”
Still coughing, eyes watering, I reached across the table, and she clutched my hands in her leathery ones. She tilted her chin up, her long gray hair stirring in an unseen wind. Two pinpricks of lightpierced through her cloudy eyes, and she looked right at me. Her voice came out in a quiet hiss.“Samira.”
