Page 192 of North Queen
His brow dipped, and pain flashed in his eyes. “Would you not stay with me of your own free will?”
If she had the choice to leave… “Mikael.” Her voice cracked.
His nostrils flared, and his brow dipped lower. He saw her hesitation. Her truth.
“Mikael,” she said again. Yes, she wanted to leave. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t return. Did it?
He straightened and looked to the lord commander. “We leave now.” The commander handed him a belted sword.
Norah’s pulse quickened as he fastened it around his waist. “What are you doing? Where are you going?” she asked. Fear flashed through her.After Alexander. She caught his arm. “Mikael, wait.”
“I have to go to the seer,” he said. “I’ll be back in three days’ time.”
Her heart steadied a little with the relief he wasn’t riding after Alexander, but she didn’t understand. “The seer?”
“I have to see if the Bear plans to bring Aleon against me.” His voice was cold now, and he backed just out of the reach of her touch.
The knot in her stomach twisted until it ached. “What about me?”
He paused. “I can’t let you go.” To the seer or to Mercia? A dark storm eddied in his eyes, and her heart dropped.Neither. “I’ll return in three days,” he said.
“Take me with you,” she pleaded. If there were new visions of what was to come…
“Only Kharavian royal blood can visit the temple of the seer,” the commander said.
And apparently the commander, Norah added to herself in frustration. She pursed her lips. Rules didn’t apply to him.
Mikael frowned. “You’ll stay here,” he told her. He cast an eye toward Artem, then he and the commander strode out, leaving her with only the captain.
And just like that, she was a prisoner again.
Chapter fifty-five
NorahwoketoVitaliacalling her in a panicked voice.
“Salara! Salara!” her maid cried. “You have to wake up. Something terrible has happened!”
Norah sat up with alarm, blinking the sleep from her eyes and trying to focus her mind. “What? What’s happened?”
“It’s Bremhad!”
What? “What about Bremhad?”
“He didn’t come home last night. Kiran found him on the workmen’s stairs, just outside the kitchens.”
Vitalia’s words came too quickly, and Norah was having trouble following. “Wait, but… is he all right? Where is he now?”
Her maid paused, swallowing, and then shook her head. “He’s dead, Salara.”
Norah clenched her quilts in her fists. A weight crushed her chest. She couldn’t breathe.Dead? Her mind swirled around her. She stumbled from the bed and let Vitalia help her with a dress. “Where’s Kiran?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“At the public mortium.”
The mortium. She felt as though a dagger had been thrust into her chest. “W-What happened?” she stammered as Vitalia quickly finished the lacing on her dress and ran to get her cloak.
“The prefect is saying Bremhad fell on the stairs and hit his head, that it was an accident.”
Norah swept out of her sanctuary with Vitalia beside her.
