Page 99 of North Queen
“All right, then,” she said, biting. “What have you planned for me? Is it to kill me?”
He cast his eyes around the room, molding his response, then his gaze locked back on hers. “I have planned for you to die, yes.”
Norah let out a long breath. She’d thought she’d fear the answer, but it wasn’t fear that ran through her now, just sadness. A sadness she’d let down her kingdom, her grandmother. Alexander.
“Now my answer,” he commanded.
Norah’s mind was a blur. What did he want from her? “What is your question?”
“Why is the Aleon king worthy?”
Confusion flooded her. “Of all the questions you could ask me, that’s the one you choose?”
His eyes bore into hers. “Tell me why.”
Norah felt a heat come to her cheeks. This question felt most personal to her, most invasive. “You only have one,” she warned, a bitterness rising in her.
“What is it about him?” he asked again.
There was nothing about him. Norah remembered nothing, so she knew absolutelynothingabout him.
“Why do you want to marry him?” he pressed.
“I don’t!” she snapped. She let out an emotional breath. She shouldn’t have said that.
“Then why are you?” he asked.
“Because he has what I need,” she said, relenting.
He gave a wry smile. “An army? To fight against me?”
“You’re out of questions.”
He snorted. “No matter. I already know the answer. I know what you need.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she cut back. No one did. Not even her. A cold calm returned. She turned back to the window to take her peace in the dream of village firelight.
Chapter thirty
AnoisestirredNorahfrom her dreams. It was light outside, early morning. She lifted her head to see the king. He was still asleep. She heard faint cries from a distance and rose quietly to the window. At the edge of the houses in the Horsemen’s village, she spotted a high-walled corral with a group of men trying to settle a frenzied horse. She glanced back at the king, who lay silent in his slumber.
Quietly, Norah slipped outside the house, looking curiously toward the corral. Shouts echoed from the men; there was alarm in their voices. She briefly forgot about the Shadow King and hurriedly walked over to see the commotion. A guard by the door made no move to stop her, but he followed close behind.
As she reached the corral, she slowed, her eyes wide. Men held ropes around a horse’s neck, and they fought to bring it under control. The animal lashed her head about, and a series of screams pierced through the air. Norah quickened her pace. She reached the enclosure and leaned against the thick beams, fascinated.
The mare pulled back against her restraints, and the men quickly drew together in front to hold her. A man approached her from the side, with a halter in his hand. When the horse spotted it, she tried to rear again. The man looked back at his teammates with a grin.
Norah became aware of a presence beside her. She didn’t need to look to know it was the commander, and she kept her sight on the men in the corral, ignoring him.
The mare tossed her head again and pulled back against the ropes. Norah felt the beast’s will to fight. Freedom was precious. Suddenly, the mare charged. She tore through the small group of men, knocking two of them to the ground and beating them with her front legs. Hooves met flesh with a sickening thud. The other men scrambled back, each pulling his rope, but they didn’t have the power to control her. The mare reared, whipping herself free from them, and set her sights on another man to her right. She rushed at him, shouldering him into the wall of the paddock, and whirled to find her next victim.
Norah gasped, stepping back. Her worry shifted to the men in the corral. Two of the men staggered to the edge and slipped through the railing, but one still lay in the center. Men yelled at the mare to draw her attention as others tried to approach the man, but the mare charged them again, pushing them back.
The man on the ground in the middle of the paddock stirred, reaching up an arm and calling out to his companions. His pleas angered the mare, and she attacked again, beating him viciously with her hooves.
“Why aren’t they helping him?” Norah said, gasping, to the commander, putting her contention aside. “Will they do nothing?”
He snorted. “And what would they do? That mare is more valuable than all their lives together.”
