Keir. I recalled the name now. Harsh and cutting, like the creature himself.
She gave him an exasperated look. “Rade’s going to be pissed as it is. You really want to make it worse by having her show up a terrified mess?”
Rade. King of Kaldfold. I swallowed hard.
“But we’ve got days until then,” the large Kald reasoned.
“Keir,” she said sharply.
Keir held his hands up placatingly. But his dark chuckle rustled my hair.
I kept my eyes on the road, spine ramrod straight, and didn’t look back again.
A camp awaited us among a cluster of spindly, leafless trees. The Kaldfolk had come prepared with cloaks and tents, so many of them that it looked like a small village had popped up in the forest. After learning of their tunnel under the Frozen Sands, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they’d thought so far ahead, but I was. They’d even brought food and some thick white liquid with too many chunks in it to be milk, which they gulped down eagerly.
The woman I’d come to learn was called Velka, Keir, and four of the others sat separately from the rest of the Kaldfolk. They each took a log or a stone instead of one of the prearranged tents, creating a circle around a sizeable fire.
They left one seat conspicuously empty.
Keir held my chain like a leash. I stood awkwardly behind him, my sandaled feet nearly blue as the cold of the earth bled up into my soles. My queen’s nightgown was made for Ashorah’s heat. Thin, breathable. In Kaldfold’s tundra, it was a useless scrap of fabric. But I wouldn’t dare ask to sit by the fire or—gods forbid—to borrow one of their large fur cloaks. Since making camp, Keir had almost seemed to forget about me, and I was grateful for it. Even if it meant standing in the freezing cold in nothing but a silk nightgown.
“By the gods!” one of the Kaldfolk around the fire exclaimed suddenly, making me jump. He turned to me, yellow eyes gleaming above high cheekbones, and the blue tattoos on his hands seemed nearly black in the firelight when he waved them at me. “Sit. If I have to hear your teeth chatter one more time, I’m going to lose my mind.”
My eyes darted to Keir. He debated a moment before nodding.
I stepped hesitantly into the circle. The warmth of the campfire washed over me. Every muscle in my body had been tensed from the moment I woke up in Keir’s saddle, and they begged for an opportunity to rest. I headed straight for that empty spot.
Already, I could feel the chill in my bones melting away. I didn’t think I’d ever been this cold. Winters in Ashorah could be brutal but never like this. There was an added bite to the cold here. Like the wind had teeth—
“Not there!” they all burst out.
I scrambled away from the unassuming rock, confusion and fear sparking through me. “I—I’m sorry. I thought you said—I didn’t mean to offend—I’m sorry—”
“Gods, stop apologizing,” Keir grunted, shifting over on his log. He jerked his chin at the space beside him. “Sit.”
I glanced at the Kaldfolk again, expecting to see fury or bloodlust. But Velka just lowered her gaze to the ground, elbows braced on her knees, a tin cup practically forgotten between her hands.Shadows painted her face, not just from the fire. I’d seen that look more times than I could count in Khada Palace. That was sorrow.
In fact, though some tried harder to hide it, they all wore similar expressions. It made my brows draw together, but I would take their sadness over their wrath.
Staying next to Keir was the last thing I wanted to do, but I sank down onto the petrified wood beside him. Even with several inches separating us, I could feel his body heat. I’d noticed his exaggerated warmth on the horse and guessed it must be a Shifter attribute. Between his warmth on my right, the fire in front of me, and the adrenaline that had shot through my blood when they’d yelled at me, I was no longer cold.
Silence descended on the group. Velka hardly looked up. The Kald who’d told me to sit stared blankly into the fire. Beside him sat a mountain of a woman. The lines on her face told me she was somewhere in her forties, and she was as big and brawny as the men around her, with tattoos curling up the back of her neck and wrapping around her ears like tentacles, reaching for her cheeks. She was also scarred. Twin slashes cut from the bottom of her eyes to the corners of her lips.
On the adjacent log sat a boy who looked to be the runt of the bunch. He wasn’t scrawny by any means, but whereas the others’ strength felt imposing, his seemed unassuming. I guessed him to be about my queen’s age, and he bore a strong resemblance to the large woman. I couldn’t see his tattoos, but I knew their blue lines must be curling somewhere under his thick clothes.
There was a girl on his other side, maybe a few years older than me, with eyes hard as steel. She glared at me from across the fire, directing every ounce of her sadness my way like a weapon. Like blame.
Velka cleared her throat, finally lifting her head. She looked at me, but her words were aimed at Keir. “You should feed her.”
My shoulders stiffened. Every instinct urged me not to eat anything they gave me. It could be poisoned—though I didn’t know why they’d want to kill me here instead of in Ashorah.
“She can eat tomorrow,” Keir responded, his voice rough with emotion. I turned to him in surprise, but he didn’t even glance at me. He held a twig in his hands and was mindlessly breaking it apart inch by inch, tossing the bits into the fire. Gone was the laughing smirk. He was as somber as the rest of them.
Velka sighed. “She has to eat—”
The Kald who’d told me to sit growled, “Stepping into the Second role a little fast there, eh, Velka?”
She gave him a dark look. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
