Please, please, please, I will do whatever you ask of me. I swear it!
The door whipped open, and I swung my blade—
Jasim dodged it and held up his hands. He was covered in blood, some his, some not, and the beginnings of a bruise forming on the right side of his face. He put a finger to his lips, warning me to be quiet.
When I dared to glance down, I saw the bear lying on the floor, yellow eyes open but unseeing, his slit throat pouring out blood. It ran across the floor and pooled around my feet. I flexed my toes in the blood, sticky, still warm, and felt a modicum of relief. Where there was death and sacrifice, Shaya was near. Death was his conduit to the living. I waited for the rustle of his wind. Some silent assurance that he was back, that he was sorry, that he would help me.
Chick, chick, chick…
My relief drained like the Kald’s blood between the limestones.
Jasim waved me forward, and before I knew it, we were in the queen’s old chambers.
The furniture in the room was covered in white sheets, unused since my mother’s death, and a dusty tapestry hung innocently against the wall beside the large bed. Jasim pushed it aside to reveal a heavy door. He heaved it open and ushered me through.
I lifted the skirt of my mother’s dress and stepped into the dark hallway. Jasim pulled the secret door shut behind us.
FIVESAMIRA
Tabia ran a damp rag over my arms, doing her best to get rid of the grime that had become a second skin. “It’ll be all right, Samira,” she told me. “All you have to do is stand there. Then, before you know it, you’ll be with Ketet in the Paradise Fields.”
I nodded, though I was trembling with terror.
She tossed the rag aside and looked at me for a moment.
I’d known Tabia the entire time I’d worked in Khada Palace. Though we hadn’t been permitted to speak much, she was one of the only kind faces I ever saw. A staple of the last sixteen years. When I looked into her brown eyes now, I saw fear. For me. “It’ll be all right,” she repeated, giving my hand a squeeze.
I clung to her for as long as I could, until Tabia and the others had no choice but to run.
Leaving me in my queen’s rooms with exactly five guards. They faced the door with determination, but they were as trapped as I was.
I ought to feel honored to stand in place of my queen. Like Tabia said, I’d get to see Ketet before anyone else. And I’d do so while saving the Gods-Chosen’s life. That was no small thing.
But all I felt was fear. So much fear.
With each blink, I saw that Kald tear out the guard’s throat, and nausea burned in my gut. It was going to hurt, dying. I was accustomedto all sorts of pain. It should be easy. But I could hear the screams through the open window. There was something so chilling about hearing men scream. It made my knees clack together, my heart nearly pounding out of my chest.
I’d woken Nadia up as soon as I spotted the figures in the river, and she’d run off to tell the guards while I rushed to the Gods-Chosen. I wondered if she was safe, if she’d managed to escape yet, if Tabia had, or if their screams were mixed in with the cacophony of others’.
The screams that were getting louder. Closer.
The guards shifted on their feet, strangling their scimitars.
I stood behind them and tried to calm my breaths, clasping my hands in front of me and then unclasping them. I hoped the Kaldfolk would kill me quickly. Then it wouldn’t matter what sort of defilement they put my corpse through. The Mother would offer me treasures in the Paradise Fields, riches I would never have been able to experience in this life. I’d certainly have all the bread and water I could want.
The screaming and footfalls were directly outside the door, and I could no longer hear my own thoughts over my thundering heart.
The door was flung open so hard, it slammed into the adjacent wall with a world-shatteringboom.
Bears burst in and were on the guards in a single blink, tearing them apart. I gasped in horror and backed up toward the bed as the smell of copper filled the room. Enormous teeth flashed; spittle flew. The guards’ screams died as their throats were ripped out, blood spurting.
Then there was silence.
It had only taken seconds.
No candles had been left burning when my queen fled, allowing the creatures to stick to the shadows as they stalked the perimeter of the room. Each step measured, heads low. A pack on the hunt. Their bright yellow eyes seemed to hover in the darkness.
A bear walked directly into a moonbeam, the blue fur of its maw drenched in the guards’ blood, and then it reared up on its hind legs. Its limbs retreated and molded into the body of a man, and I got my first real glimpse of one of the northern monsters.
