Page 35 of The Shrouded Queen
Bain maneuvered around him and leaned over his shoulder to say something in his ear. It made Hedin’s eyes widen, and he yelledout “No—” Bain wrapped one hand around his chin, and the other grabbed him by the back of his head. With a quick jerk, he snapped Hedin’s neck, thecrackreaching over the cry of the crowd to my ears.
I gasped in horror as Hedin collapsed on his face. He didn’t move again.
Bain had killed him with his bare hands right in front of everyone.
And they werecheering. My stomach turned over and bile built in the back of my throat.
“Time?” Keir asked Velka.
She smirked, and it almost looked like pride as she gazed at Bain. “Four minutes, fifty-three seconds.”
Bain grinned. “Like I said.”
Keir sauntered into the ring to clasp Bain’s hand. Bain laughed, high on the thrill of the fight. No one seemed to care that there was a dead body lying at his feet, someone whose only crime was not being liked by a group of six people.
Keir turned, and his eyes grazed over mine, smile falling away. I couldn’t interpret the meaning in them. But newfound terror, sharp and consuming, sparked through me.
“Keir,” Rade snapped. “My chambers.” Without waiting for a response, he stalked down a hallway behind the throne.
Keir pulled his gaze away from mine to look at his friends and rolled his eyes, making Velka, Dalla, Cano, and Bain laugh—Sillia watched with a small smile against her best efforts—and then he followed his king down the hall.
Theylaughed. At murder.
At some point, I’d started to think Velka could be my ally here.Foolish. Somehow I’d forgotten that there had been a castle full of bears the night I was taken. None of them had acted on their own. None of them would be in Rade’s Seven if they weren’t equally vicious. Maybe Keir hadn’t been lying when he said they weren’t cannibals, but they were certainly monsters, all of them.
I didn’t wait for Keir to return or for the others to finish celebrating. I spun around and ran back to my cabin, slamming the door shut behind me. If I could, if the gods hadn’t picked me for this task, I would’ve run straight through the Frozen Sands, back to Ashorah. Instead, all I had was this small cabin that locked from the outside and a bloodstream full of fear.
I wiped the burning tears from my cheeks and dropped down beside the fireplace, knees pulled so tightly to my chest it was hard to breathe. Nausea swirled in my gut.
Please, I prayed.Ketet, Phadar, someone, anyone, save me. Get me out of here.
No one came to save me. No one ever had.
I was alone in a nest of monsters.
FIFTEENAMUNET
It was night by the time I drew my camel to a halt at the top of a hill outside Reeda. Mercifully, we’d not run into any other assassins. Either the one from the trading post was a shit tracker or the broken nose was enough to put him off the job entirely. Whatever the reason, I drank in the sight of the town below as if it were an oasis snug between the dunes.
Minus the water. And the lush trees. And beauty in general.
I’d accompanied the Khada Guard on patrols, many of which went to the principalities, multiple times in my ten years of training, but Reeda was smaller than I remembered. Lanterns and the moon offered just enough light to see the houses built of straw along gravel roads, and a few people in poorly stitched linens milling around. The consistent sound ofchink, chink, chinkresounded over the city like its personal orchestra, from a mine located somewhere to the west.
“We’ll draw less attention if we enter on foot,” Jasim said as he dismounted. He pulled on my camel’s reins, guiding it to lie down so he could help me. His hands were careful of the still-healing wound in my side, and he released me the moment I was on my feet. Just as he’d been doing for the past several days since the near chimera attack, he avoided my eyes.
It rankled me. As Jasim tied our camels to a post, my annoyance rose until I could taste its sourness on the back of my tongue. Hiseyes were always on me. I wanted them back. Especially now. “What is it?”
He paused. Didn’t turn around. “What?”
My nails dug into the back of my neck. The itch was now a consistent burning, my blinks synced up to the claws tapping in my ears. “You’ve been acting weird for days. Why?”
He shrugged as he gathered our supplies off the camels. “Just trying to prepare myself.”
Ice sliced through my veins. He knew my plan. Somehow, he knew.
But then he said, “You’re going to negotiate with Prince Nasir. Figure that’ll be easier for you without any romantic entanglements to worry about.”
My shoulders lowered as his meaning hit me.
