Page 39 of Shadow Queen
His golden locks were gone, shaved off. He was dressed in a loose black tunic and leather breeches.
“Alexander,” she called.
He stopped.
He looked up from the table, but the eyes looking back at her were not the brilliant blues she knew so well. They were dark sapphire, and angry.
They locked with hers, and his lips peeled back in a chilling smile.
Norah woke with a start to Vitalia gently nudging her. She sucked in a breath and stumbled up from the chair she’d been sitting in.
“Are you all right, Salara?” Vitalia asked.
Her racing heart slowed as she realized she’d fallen asleep watching over Alexander and Soren in the sanctuary.
Slowly, she nodded. She looked at the men. Thanks to the poppy, they were still asleep, their chests rising and falling slowly with their breaths.
“You should go wash and get some rest,” Vitalia whispered. “I can stay with them until you return.”
Norah looked down at her dress, with its golden fabric crusted in browning blood. She wasn’t sure if she could go back to sleep, but she did need to wash. Norah brushed her hair out of her face. She could trust the men to Vitalia’s care for a time.
She walked stiffly to the chamber she shared with Mikael. He wouldn’t be there, not after what had happened. He was most likely in his study. She caught her reflection in the hall mirror and noticed a dried smear over her temple. Alexander’s blood.
Would she accept this? She thought she knew herself, but she could barely recognize the woman looking back at her. Her hands shook as she pushed open the chamber door. The image of Alexander stung her over and over, and she couldn’t breathe. Her stomach twisted at the memory of his beaten body hanging limply from the post.
As she stepped inside, she stopped. Mikael’s sheathed sword leaned against the wall.
He was here.
A madness swept around her, crawling up her body and searing itself into her mind. She reached down and wrapped her hand around its hilt and then pulled it from the scabbard. Her skin burned with a fury, and her vision tunneled as she moved around the linen panels.
As Mikael stepped out of the bath chamber, she met him with his blade to his neck. He stopped abruptly. Norah pressed the point of the sword against his throat and walked him backward to the wall. Her arms shook—whether from her rage or the weight of the weapon, she didn’t know. She dug the tip of the blade farther into his skin. Could she really hurt him? She wanted to.
“Salara,” he breathed.
Did he expect her mercy? When he had none? She gritted her teeth as her eyes welled.
Slowly, Mikael reached up and curled his hand around the blade.
But still she held him. She could make him pay. Except her body wouldn’t let her. She couldn’t move.
Mikael guided the tip away from his neck and then pulled the sword toward him. She trembled as she surrendered and let it slip from her hands.
And she hated herself—she hated that she couldn’t hurt him, like he had hurt her. She hated that he could see her weakness for him.
He stepped closer, his eyes burning into her. She couldn’t meet them. He reached up to touch her cheek, but she turned her face. He pulled her closer still. “I know you’ll bring death to me, but it won’t be today,” he whispered before he kissed her head somberly. Then he moved to the door and left her to her heartache.
Mikael found the Mercian captain on the wall, and the captain straightened as he neared. Mikael leaned forward against the stone, looking out over the city. He was curious about this man. Caspian—the only Northman that Soren didn’t seem to completely despise, and who held the Bear’s trust. A rare combination. Perhaps the rarest. He was also the man who managed to contain Salara as Mikael punished the commanders.
“I believe her heart’s filled with hatred for me now,” Mikael shared in a burst of openness.
“It’s very possible,” the captain answered honestly.
Mikael could see why Soren tolerated him. His commander valued candidness, no matter how brutal. He did too. “I knew it would come,” he said somberly. “But I didn’t think she’d try to take my head. She threatened me with my own sword. But then, I’m not sure I’d expect anything less.”
Caspian’s eyes widened, and he shifted in surprise.
Mikael sighed. As painful as her rage toward him was, he couldn’t even muster anger over it. “She loves so fiercely.” He had hoped he had won some of that fervor. But after today, he was sure that anything he’d won in her heart had been lost.
