Page 47 of The Shrouded Queen
Would she?
Guilt curdled in my stomach at doubting the Gods-Chosen foreven a second. It didn’t matter what King Zaid had or had not done, my queen was nothing like him. That I knew wholeheartedly.
And yet.
The Kaldfolk weren’t cannibals. They weren’t heretics. Two of the three things I’d always been told were lies.
The Shroud was real. I’d seen it with my own eyes, felt its call. Rade clearly had magic, but he’d have to be incredibly strong to fabricate an illusion that massive. He hadn’t even been strong enough to remove an elderly man from his rocking chair.
Unless that was just part of the ruse, to make methinkhe wasn’t strong enough.
But the fear in Velka’s eyes, the unease Keir was doing his best to hide, those didn’t look fake. They had seen monsters. They had seen tragedy. Rade said every member of the Seven was cracked in some way. Maybe the Shroud was why.
Trying to undo the knot of thoughts swirling around my mind, to sniff out manipulation or untruths, was giving me a headache.
I asked, “So why am I here?” I was looking at Keir, who had made the decision to kidnap the Gods-Chosen. He met my stare unflinchingly.
But Rade was the one who answered. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, light brown eyes boring into mine. “We’ve tried everything,” he insisted. “Spells and incantations. Prayed to Ketet. Pleaded with Shaya. Nothing has worked. But”—he licked his lips nervously—“there is one thing we haven’t tried.”
“What?”
He glanced at his friends before scooting closer, our knees brushing. “I wasn’t chosen as king for my fighting ability. Any of the Seven—any Shifter in Kaldfold, for that matter—would have me beat there. I was chosen for my magic, gifted to me by Eira.”
One of Ketet’s daughters, Goddess of the Lost.
I gaped. “You are Gods-Chosen?” I could not remember a time the gods had sent two of their children at the same time.
He huffed a laugh. “No. Not chosen. Blessed.” His face grew serious. “There is no one more lost than those trapped in the Shroud. Eira sees that, and she entrusts me to save them.”
Gods-Blessed. I had heard of people who had been touched by the gods. Different from King Zaid’s blessing to rear Shaya’s daughter. More tangible. Usually reserved for healers, seers, or soldiers. Or… a king.
Now I understood the weight on Rade’s shoulders. It was the responsibility for his entire people.
“Can’t you just pull people out of the Shroud?” I said.
“If I’d been king when the Shroud first took hold, maybe. But now I’m not strong enough to do it on my own.”
“That’s where you come in,” Velka said.
My heart skipped a beat at that. Rade took my hands in his. “You are of Shaya’s blood.” Eagerness coated his every word. “His power flows in your veins, the same power that makes up the Shroud. If we were to combine our magic, I think we’d be strong enough to close the wound, as it were. Plug the leak.”
I nearly choked. “Combine our magic?”
He released my hands abruptly and returned to his desk.
I looked at Velka and Keir. Keir’s face was tight, but Velka was watching me with unveiled hope.
“There is a ritual. Our ancestors called it the Merging,” Rade explained as he opened an old tome, its spine near disintegration. He thumbed delicately through the pages until he landed on the right one. “It hasn’t been used in ages because it is only fit for those with power—power that hasn’t existed among humans since the War of the Ancients—but the chieftains of the old world swore by it.”
He held the book out to me. I took it with unsteady hands, the vellum cover rough beneath my fingers. I didn’t bother looking at the words—as a slave, I had never been taught to read—and instead focused on the drawing in the center of the page.
It showed two people, a man and a woman, with red tattoos all over their faces. Their palms were pressed together, and a red glow emanated from between them, swirling up and around their heads.
“Back then,” Rade said, “every ruler was blessed by the gods, and the Merging ensured that the ruling pair were equal, power shared between them so that they would lead as one.”
I studied the drawing. The light around their heads seemed gentle, soft. Like an embrace. And the hands that were pressed together showed matching rings around their fourth fingers.
Wedding bands.
