Page 64 of The Shrouded Queen
“Majesty.” A hand clamped around my elbow.
I jerked to a halt. I hadn’t even realized I’d wandered forward until then.
Keir’s gaze was firm, those pretty eyes shining out of a luminescent face. I gasped, hand drifting up to his cheek. Rough from rising stubble and sticky with clay. “You’re glowing,” I murmured in awe.
His jaw worked beneath my fingers. For some reason, that made me giggle. His fingers curled around my wrist and gently pulled my hand away. “So are you, Majesty.”
“What?” I glanced down and startled. My skin was indeed glowing. Or at least the clay they had coated me in was.
Rade stepped up beside me, his skin lit up, too. When I glanced around, I realized we wereallglowing. “Fire doesn’t burn here,” he explained. “So no torches. This is the only thing that works.”
“We’re like fireflies.” I laughed. No one else did. I didn’t mind.
Rade gave me a tight smile. “Stay close, okay? Keir—”
“I got her.” His hand settled on my back, urging me forward. I beamed up at him and sank into his side. Surprisingly cozy for a man made of such hard muscles. I snuggled into him as we walked and his hand smoothed around my waist. Pleasant shivers spread through me.
Even Keir was nicer here. I liked it. I would stay—
A sharp pain shot through me.
“Ow!” I turned to Keir with wide eyes, rubbing my side. “Did you just pinch me?”
“Pain breaks through the haze.”
Even as he spoke, I recognized the ache in my cheeks from smiling, the foreign giddiness in my stomach. I swallowed hard, feeling suddenly ill.
“It’s okay,” Keir assured me softly. “Just keep moving.” His hand flattened against my back again, and I let it anchor me as we pushed on. The urge to laugh bubbled up a couple of times, but I focused on the throbbing pain in my side instead.
The darkness rippled away, cringing from our light, creating a reluctant path. In the shadows, I heard shuffling, like somethingwas following us. Tracking our path. In the distance, a crazed laugh sounded.
“How do we awaken my magic?” I whispered to distract myself. Feathers rustled above our heads as an unseen bird took flight.
“You must receive your runes from the Seer.” Rade gestured to the red tattoos—runes—on the side of his head. “They will center your power there, so the priestess will know where to pull it from when we are joined.”
“Will mine be red, too?”
“Probably.”
Velka offered, “Red runes signify a god’s blessing. Blue marks us as Shifters. Black means no magic.”
I tripped over a root that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Black meant no magic? I was going to emerge from the Seer with black runes, and they’d discover me here, in this place stuck between our realm and the Underworld. Maybe they’d just leave me here to be twisted.
If I even got that far. Would the Seer need to bestow runes on me before she outed the truth?
Gods-Blessed and originally from Ashorah, Zarqa was as famous as any legend. The only Seer currently living, blessed by Ayeen, Goddess of the Moon, with powers of prophecy. It was rumored she’d left Ketopolis years ago, but I never imagined she’d exchanged it for… this.
“How can she live here without being twisted like everyone else?” I asked.
“Zarqa is under Ayeen’s protection,” Rade replied. “The Seer is most powerful in the night, when her goddess rules the sky, so she has decided to live within the Shroud, a perpetual night, and the goddess’s shield allows her to move through it without suffering its effects or being in danger by others who have already succumbed.”
As if on cue, a scream exploded out of the trees, and I whipped my head in its direction, the hair on the back of my neck standingon end. The Seven closed ranks around Rade and me, all of them baring their teeth in a growl, axes and blades at the ready.
Something moved. Two blue flashes in the dark—eyes.
And then four. Six. Ten. More and more eyes, all focused on us. Surrounding us.
One stepped forward.
