He smiled ruefully. “That is the prevailing theory, yes.”
“You don’t agree?”
“The Shroud isn’t about darkness. It’s the Underworld. Death.” There was something in the way he said it, a weight to the words, that had me studying him closely. There were a handful of scars peppered around his face that I’d never noticed before. Small silver lines along his jaw, just above the runes, and a few that chipped down his throat, slightly distorting the strong blue lines. “I thinkwe’re drawn to the Shroud,” he said, “because some of us are closer to death.”
A small shiver passed through me. Given my current predicament, that made an awful sort of sense. One wrong move was all it would take for a blade to come down on my neck. The Underworld could be anticipating my arrival and was calling me to it.
Keir shrugged. “But what do I know?”
My brows drew closer together. Along with the scars, there was a weathered appearance to Keir’s face that I only just recognized. It was in the heavy lines of his brow, the pinch at the corners of his eyes. “I have a feeling you know a great deal,” I murmured.
He glanced over at me, yellow irises startling against the dark kohl. They moved over my face, examining me just as carefully as I’d just done him. Voice sincere, he asked again, “What’s wrong, Majesty?”
I dropped my gaze to my hands and swallowed. The truth would get me killed but… perhaps a partial truth would suffice. “I learned to pray beside the Lotus River,” I said quietly. “It was so long ago, most of my memory is blurry, but it was my father’s favorite place… I think.” The memory was too frayed to gather more than a few impressions. “The river was loud, I remember. And there was a tree nearby that kept it from being too hot. Praying there… it was peaceful.”
Mama had been there, too. Vaguely, I recalled a gentle voice reciting the worshipful words, the soft spray of water as the river splashed over the bank. “Prayer brings me back to that peace. When my thoughts are too loud or when I’m scared, Ketet comforts me with it. But now that I can’t reach her, I don’t…” Emotion clogged my throat. It felt like losing the gods and that last connection to my parents in one fell swoop.
Gently, he prodded, “What’s stopping you from praying?”
“I try, but it’s not… working. There’s no peace, no comfort,nothing.” I fiddled absently with a splinter sticking out of the banister. “I don’t know how to live without my prayers.”
The wind whistled between us in the ensuing quiet. Keir gazed stoically out over Kaldfold. “It’s a blessing and a curse, isn’t it?”
I glanced up at him curiously.
“Hope,” he elaborated. “At its core, that’s what prayer is, right? Hope that the gods are listening. Hope we’re not alone. Hope that they’ll help. It’s a painful thing to lose.” Tendrils of brown hair whipped around Keir’s face, deepening the line between his brows.
“How do I get it back?” I asked.
He looked at me, gaze heavy. “When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
My throat was suddenly tight. “Hope will come,” I whispered, defending my queen even now. She was all I had left. “The Gods-Chosen will save your people.”
“See, you say that,” he said, and angled his body toward mine, “and I can hear the truth in your words, smell it in that distinct scent of yours. Everything about you compels me to believe you.” He was so close that his supernatural warmth wrapped around me, blocking out the wind. “And yet that rabbit’s heartbeat… why does it scream out that you’re lying?”
I took several breaths. Maybe it was my bad mood or the isolated quiet of the watchtower that gave me a surge of confidence, but I found myself blurting, “I want to make another deal.”
He frowned. “What?”
“That day on the horse, you gave me an answer in exchange for hearing me beg.” The memory sent heat crawling up my neck. “I want another answer. Preferably without the humiliation this time. You have questions, too, so… an answer for an answer.”
He observed me for several seconds, during which time I didn’t breathe. He was probably scenting me for deception. It was risky to promise him answers, since I knew exactly what his question would be. But my soul felt empty without Ketet, the Underworld was counting down the seconds until it claimed me, and there wereunexplained markings on my forehead. Ineededanswers, and if this was the only way I’d get them, then so be it.
Keir gave a curt nod. “Ask your question.”
Victory filled my lungs. I faced him fully. “What do you smell in my runes?”
His face shuttered, all traces of softness gone. “Ask a different question.”
“No.”
He stared at me, and I stared back. Anticipation and fear twined together inside me. I feared that look in his eyes, but I thought of the strength I’d felt when the shadow creature had offered to show me who I was. How light I’d felt without this burden of terror hanging around my neck all the time. I tried to harness that feeling and stood a little straighter.
A muscle in Keir’s jaw popped. Then, “Cinnamon.”
I blinked. When he said nothing more, I dumbly repeated, “Cinnamon.”
He nodded curtly, that muscle in his jaw bulging again.
