Page 135 of The Shrouded Queen
“Believe what you want,” he interrupted, tipping up his chin and glaring down his nose at me, “but I have never broken my word.If you’d been telling the truth about your skills with a khopesh, I wouldn’t have been able to kill you.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “And I wasn’t actually going to kill you.”
My breaths were jagged pieces of glass in my lungs as I struggled to keep from exploding. I’d never felt rage like this. The pressure of it built inside me, and it took every ounce of willpower to keep a lid firmly planted on top of it.
“No?” I seethed. “You just drew blood because you’re a twisted bastard who likes the taste of it—and oh yeah, pissing on cabins like an untrained dog?”
“I marked your cabin to keep you safe. Or have you forgotten that Bain nearly ripped your throat out that night? He would’ve come back the second you were alone. My scent protected you.” I opened my mouth, but he plunged on before I could respond. “You’re the one who lied every chance she got. The way I see it, if anyone is going to break their word, it’s you.”
He was right. I was already nearly laid bare before him—my lies and my guilt. Why not tell him everything? For a second, my name hovered on my tongue. But it stuck there. My last piece of protection against his full hatred.
“All I’ve ever tried to do is act with honor—” I began.
“Do not,” he snarled, “talk to me about honor, Khada. Your people don’t know the meaning of the word.”
“And you know nothing of my people.”
“I know that seventeen years ago, your king marched into my home,” he said, yellow eyes flashing. “And he forcedmypeople into the streets. He rounded them up—tookchildren—and threw them into the Shroud. Then he set up a perimeter so that anyone who tried to escape met the edge of his soldiers’ blades.”
My anger ebbed as my brows furrowed.
But he wasn’t done. “Some managed to get away before the legions arrived, but some of us”—he pulled the hem of his shirt up, exposing those slashes across his abdomen, the white of his ribpeeking out through the skin bound by a leather band—“some of us went in and didn’t come out for days.”
I stared at the scars, fury guttering out like a blown candle, and I shook my head as if that alone would make it untrue.
“The Shroud was Shaya’s will, your king decided,” Keir continued mercilessly. “The Underworld god’s desire to reclaim us—because Kaldfolk are demons, right? Shaya’s abominations? Your king wanted to force all Kaldfolk into the Shroud, where he thought we belonged. He knew it would kill us, drive us mad, turn us into monsters, and he forced us in anyway. Now tell me, Majesty, was that honorable?”
No, King Zaid wouldn’t… He couldn’t have.
But the loathing on Keir’s face, the scars on his body, those weren’t lies.
“I… I didn’t know,” I whispered. But had Amunet? Had she known what her father had done? She’d only have been three at the time of the invasion—certainly not to be blamed—but if she had known, then she had lied to us.
Keir had been stuck in the Shroud. For days, he’d said. No wonder he always had that gleam of madness in his eyes. No wonder he despised Amunet as much as he did. He’d come face-to-face with monsters, in the Shroud and outside of it.
“I’m sorry,” I said brokenly.
Keir stiffened.
“I mean it—”
“Quiet.” His eyes strayed over my head.
The hair along my body shot up. I turned and scanned the desert. And when I saw it—only a handful of miles away—my blood ran cold.
An enormous bird with sand-colored feathers and violet talons. It didn’t look exactly the same as the one I had seen in the White Horns, but there was no mistaking it.
A Roc.
My heart dropped. “I thought there was only one of its kind.”
“There is.”
“Then how—”
“I don’t know.” Keir’s eyes were wide as the bird flew closer.
My breaths picked up speed as my mind raced. “We have to hide.” But Rade wasn’t there to pull a magical shield over us.
Echoing my thoughts, Keir said, “Not many hiding places in a wasteland, Majesty.” He drew his sword from its scabbard on his back. The blade was almost laughably tiny compared to the massive beast heading our way.
