Page 171 of Shadow Queen
“Nothing has changed, Salar.”
Mikael let out a shaking breath. This was the strongest seer in the four kingdoms. As much as he hated to admit it, if there was a change to his fate, he was sure the old man would have seen it.
“There are other visions, though,” the seer told him.
Other visions. These he had to see. “Show me.”
The seer led him down the narrow hall to the back room that Mikael knew well, and the king took his place on a floor pillow in the center. Mikael waited as the old man gathered his things and sat on the floor across from him. The seer poured wine into a small bowl and pricked his finger with a gemmed dagger, letting the droplets of blood mix with the sweet juice of fermented fruit. Then he breathed the words of the blood spell and held the bowl out to the king. Mikael accepted it and drank.
As he swallowed the last of the wine, he waited for the seer to enter his mind. As all the times before, they sat in the temple of draperied shadows.
Mikael rose, standing in the temple of his mind, with visions all around him. The seer waved him to follow, and he did. They walked in the darkness, with no light on their path, and then stopped at a room hidden by a thick drapery. The seer pulled back the curtain, revealing a room so bright that Mikael squinted against the light.
They stepped into it, outside and into the center of a sprawling city. He didn’t recognize it, with its large buildings of marble and glass and patina copper domes. But his eyes caught the flags that lined the center mainway, leading to a large, opulent citadel.
Blue flags with a golden lion. The flags of Aleon.
His heart beat faster as he looked down the mainway to figures approaching on horseback.
Salara. Smiling. Crowds gathered on either side of the mainway, throwing rose petals. His blood chilled. Beside her rode Soren. Why would she go to Aleon? Why would Soren? So willingly, like Aleon was a friend. He felt the delirium of suspicion returning, but he forced it down. There had to be a reason—a completely rational reason, he told himself—for them to travel so freely to his enemy and to be received so warmly.
“Is this all you’ve seen?” he asked.
The seer hesitated, but answered. “It is all you want to see.”
Mikael knew this moment well—the moment where he could choose the path of peaceful ignorance or the path of haunting knowledge. But then he asked himself, had it ever been a choice?
“Show me,” he told the seer. “Show me all of it.”
Mikael turned and stalked the dark hallways, not waiting for the seer to lead him, but searching on his own. He wandered through the visions he had already seen, those that were already etched into his mind. He wasn’t interested in those, but one caught his eye—the image of Salara’s capture. It seemed like yesterday, yet so long ago. He paused at the room, remembering. He watched himself as he carried her, her unconscious body draped across his thighs as he rode his destrier through the night. He remembered how she’d felt—small and fragile, warm and soft. She’d smelled like fresh-hewn adda trees, intoxicatingly sweet. It had lingered on him even after she was no longer in his arms. The pull she’d had, even when he’d hated her…
And now, now that he didn’t hate her, now that he loved her…
Mikael let out a long breath. He ached for her now. He cursed himself. He had so little time left with her, and instead of spending it near her, with her, inside her, he had ridden to the ends of the earth, away from her. He needed to go back. He needed to leave this madness and get back to her. Ignorance—he chose it now. He didn’t want to see. He turned to leave. And then stopped.
Norah sat on her knees at the edge of a bed in her nightgown. She looked at him, but notathim. He wanted to reach out, to touch her, to pull her to him, but he knew she was only a vision.
Her hair glowed bright in the moonlight, like she was the moon herself. He looked around her. Mikael didn’t know this place. Another castle, perhaps, but not one he’d seen before. A cloaked man stepped past him from behind. Mikael’s pulse quickened as he watched Norah slip off the bed. She spoke words he couldn’t hear.
“What is she saying?” he asked, but he already knew the seer couldn’t tell him. There was no sound in a vision.
She didn’t seem to fear him as she stepped closer. Too close. Mikael gripped the hilt of his sword, but there was nothing he could do.
Faster than he thought human, she snatched her dagger to the man’s neck. Mikael panted a breath as pride rippled through him. His salara.
But the man didn’t counter. He only reached up slowly, showing his empty hands, and pulled back the cloak of his hood. Mikael felt his breath leave his body, and the heat of rage hit him like a battle charge.
The Bear.
Kill him. But Mikael knew she would never.
She dropped her dagger to the floor. Her mouth formed unheard words as she hitched a step back. He’d give anything to know what she said.
Norah reached out and put her hand on the Bear’s chest but made no move to push him away. Instead, she spread her fingers wide. Emotion filled her eyes as she looked up at him. Her gaze moved to his face, his lips. She trembled. Again, her mouth moved in silent words. The Bear stepped closer and brought his hand to her face.
Mikael gripped his sword tighter. If only he could strike that hand from its arm. But he could do nothing.
She leaned into his touch, only for a moment… before she surged forward and threw her arms around him. Mikael had seen her embrace the Bear before, but the way she clung to him—like she’d missed him, like she needed him. She held him like she couldn’t let him go.
