Page 140 of The Shrouded Queen
Keir took my wrist gently. I let him draw it toward him. Even in his human form, I couldn’t help thinking of his hand as a paw for how large it was as it cupped mine. His thumb smoothed over my fingers, and they uncurled, revealing the burn. A muscle in his jaw popped. When Keir looked up at me again, I couldn’t decipher the gleam in his tawny eyes but found I couldn’t look away.
Then he released my hand and drew his braid forward. Rubbed the thick brown locks between his fingers. “A Shifter’s hair symbolizes rank,” he said, voice quiet. “I’m the highest-ranking Shifter in Kaldfold. Have been since I got my runes.”
My face softened. “It’ll grow back, Keir.”
“No,” he said, “it won’t.” But he glanced back up at me, taking in every scratch on my face, the sunburns, the blood crusted on my neckline, my injured hand, and swallowed.
Between one blink and the next, claws took the place of his fingernails. He held his braid in front of him, took a sharp breath, and slashed.
At least a foot of brown hair thudded to the sand. His lips thinned as he retracted his claws and offered it to me.
I took the rope of hair carefully, the meaning behind it making it feel heavier.
“Just because you cut it in this realm doesn’t mean it’s cut in our world,” I said softly.
Keir smiled tightly. “Maybe.”
I placed his hair on the sand and then got to work striking the two rocks together. “How’s your side?”
“Hurts like a bitch,” he responded. “But it’ll heal.” His brows drew together when he saw my handiwork on his wound. “How’d you know to do that?”
“I saw a healer do it in the palace once. A guard in the barracks.” I wasn’t sure why I told him. Probably a mixture of starvation, dehydration, and the reverberation of last night ringing in my head. “I had to help hold him down while the healer worked.”
Keir cocked a brow at me. “What was the princess doing in the army barracks?”
The clump of hair finally caught, and I leaned forward to breathe it to life. It was a small fire, but it would do. I opened the bag of squirming insects and pulled out one of the centipedes, holding it above the modest flame. But it kept shifting, and my fingers were instantly too hot.
Keir took the centipede from me without a word, held it against one of the rocks, and smashed the other down on its head. It stopped moving. Then he reached into his hair and pulled out a pin. Part of his coiled hair sagged to the side as he held it out to me. “A spit.”
I accepted it with a short nod and skewered the centipede. As I held it over the flame again, I met Keir’s searching gaze. “I already told you,” I answered. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Now would be a great time to share, Majesty.”
I crossed my legs and gazed at the centipede. It slowly curled in on itself. “I worked a lot in the palace. In whatever way was needed of me. Sometimes, that included the barracks.”
“And if you didn’t, you were punished?” He glanced down at my chest.
I pulled my neckline aside to reveal theX. It struck me how easy it felt to show it to him now. “This was because I stole water.”
Keir’s eyes snapped back up to mine. “What?” When I kept quiet, he prodded, “But it’syourwater.”
“No, it isn’t.” Releasing the neckline, I nodded to his other side. “How are your ribs?”
Keir looked like he wanted to insist on an answer. But after a moment, he dropped his gaze to the flame. “It’s an old wound.”
“It looks…”Horrible. Painful.
He shrugged. “It is.” Despite his efforts to appear unbothered, the muscles in his shoulders wound tight.
Voice quiet, I asked, “How long were you in the Shroud, Keir?”
He brought his eyes back to mine, and I could see the wealth of pain in them, the gleam of ever-present madness. Years’ worth of suffering held in that bright yellow gaze. When he spoke, it was a choked whisper. “Forty-eight hours.”
My eyes widened.
Rade’s mother had been in the Shroud half that time and had been forever changed by it. Had felt its pull even years later. But Keir had been in that horrible place for two full days. No wonder he was so harsh. Between the wound to his torso and the one to his mind, it was a wonder he could function at all.
And Rade… Rade had been planning to send him back. Did Keir know that as he waited in his prison in the mountain? Nausea coiled in my gut.
