Page 16 of Shadow Queen
Norah turned back against the tide of war and saw herself. Riding beside her—the Aleon king.Phillip. They rode side by side, battled side by side.
Her heart beat in her throat as she staggered backward. She’d seen this image before. She knew what accompanied it. She spun around, her eyes combing the clash of death. She searched for him.Alexander.
And she found him.No.Norah ran toward him.
He slid off his black warhorse, his sword in his hand. But something was different about him, there were things she hadn’t noticed when she’d first seen the painting of the vision in Mercia. His hair was cut short, his golden locks gone. Malice dripped from his skin. His black leather-plated armor was trimmed with the color of old blood, and on his shoulder, bladed pauldrons—not the head of the great Northern bear.
This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be Alexander.
His eyes were locked on the figure of a man downed by an arrow in front of him—a large, armored man in a horned helm.Mikael.Alexander stalked toward him as Mikael tried to pull himself backward and away. Mikael held his sword in his hand, but he didn’t lift it. He didn’t even try to fight—why wasn’t he trying?
“Get up!” she cried. Why wasn’t he fighting? “Mikael! Get up!”
Alexander swung his sword above his head.
“Alexander, no!” she screamed, but he couldn’t hear her. “No!” she screamed again as he brought the blade down, severing the helmed head from the king’s body. A cry ripped through her throat; the feeling of loss as real as if it had truly just happened.
The image faded and fell away, and Norah dropped to her knees on the marble floor with a sob. This couldn’t be the future. It should have changed when they wed. This couldn’t be Mikael’s fate.
She wouldn’t let it.
“How do I change it? Please,” she begged, “tell me how to change it.”
The seer shook his head. “You cannot change fate.”
“Of course you can! My father saw me captured by the Shadow King and hid me away.”
“Yet you were still captured,” he said.
A chill rippled through her. How had she not realized it before? Her father hadn’t seen the senior Shadow King capturing her. He’d seen Mikael. Her father took her away for fear of a danger that wouldn’t come until years later.
He’d changed nothing.
What if she could change nothing?
Her emotion threatened again. What had she done to warrant a fate so cruel? Did the gods hate her? Did they even exist?
Well, damn the gods. Damn Hammel himself. They could curse her. They could take from her, but if they thought they could break her, they were wrong. If they thought she wouldn’t fight, they were wrong.
Norah forced the despair-filled air from her lungs. She needed to pull herself together and figure out what to do next. She gathered her strength and stood.
“Thank you for seeing me, Bhasim,” she whispered.
He gave a small bow of his head.
She turned to go, then paused. “What did you show the lord commander?” Mikael had said the commander wouldn’t speak of it, even to him.
The seer hesitated. “That you must ask him.”
How strange he’d share what he had shown Mikael, but not the commander. She didn’t have the strength to press him for it, though.
She left the temple feeling like the air’s weight would crush her. The vision of Mikael’s fate seared her mind. It haunted her.
Calla ran to her as she stepped outside, with Cohen right behind her, and Norah was relieved to see them both safe.
“What happened?” the girl asked. “Did he refuse you?”
Norah shook her head.
