Page 93 of Shadow Queen
She was right. Alexander had promised. And maybe they could learn more about this strange power Alexander had. Reluctantly, Norah nodded.
Naavi knelt over Alexander, putting her hands on his chest, and she closed her eyes. Shifting her shoulders, she bowed her head. A frown formed on her lips. She paused, opening her eyes briefly and looking at her sister, and then ran her hands to Alexander’s head before trying again.
Finally, she stopped, shaking her head. “It’s too strong, sister. It protects him even now. I can see nothing. Not his memories, not his dreams. I can’t even feel his mind. I don’t know what he is. But if I can’t see him, others can’t either.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” Soren cut in. “We saw the visions of him with our own eyes.”
“There is no power escaping this shield. Whatever creates those visions, it’s not here.”
“Or it is, and you can’t see that either,” he said gruffly.
Sana’s eyes burned. “I’ll see you cut out your own tongue.”
“Please,” Norah begged for civility. She fought to hold back her tears of disappointment, the upset. She would never get her memories back, but if she focused on that right now, she’d fall apart. She turned her mind back to Alexander. “We’ll stay until he wakes, and then we’ll be on our way.”
There was a darkness to Sana’s eyes, but she said nothing.
“Bring him this way,” Naavi told them, turning down a long corridor.
Caspian looped one of Alexander’s arms over his shoulders, but Alexander was a larger man, and Caspian struggled to rise.
Norah looked pleadingly at Soren, and he clenched his jaw as he grudgingly pushed Caspian aside, picked up Alexander over his shoulder, and carried him after the woman.
Naavi led them to a chamber with a small bed and soft woven blankets. Soren dropped Alexander onto it less gently than Norah would have liked, and she glared at him.
Norah straightened his head on the pillows and brushed his hair from his face. With his eyes closed, he looked so peaceful.
“Rest now,” she whispered to him as she clutched his hand.
Chapter twenty-six
NaaviofferedNorahacup of hot tea as she sat down in a side chair. “Sana’s gone to the library to search the manuscripts, to see if there’s anything that can be found.”
Norah gave a nod as she took the tea. “All I keep thinking is that there was the tree in Mercia.”
“There’s no tree in this world with magic more powerful than the Wild, and the greatest of our powers is in the pool. If there was magic that could give you what you wanted, it would be the water.”
“Then it has to be Alexander,” Norah said.
“Or it’s you,” Soren interrupted.
Norah looked up with a start. “What?”
He shrugged. “Maybe it’s not that you’re bringing memories back to life. Maybe you just didn’t let them die. Not all of them.” He nodded to Alexander. “At least not of him. And then maybe you uncovered only the pieces still there.”
“No,” Naavi shook her head. “I broke the bond.”
He grunted in annoyance. “Only a fool would believe they could.”
The room fell silent. Mikael sank onto a bench by the wall, his face stoic. Even Caspian shifted uncomfortably in his place near the doors.
Her heart sank with the thought that maybe Soren was right. When she’d seen the traveler in Mercia, there was a door that wouldn’t open to her. Then the kiss with Alexander brought back the memory of them at the tree. With Bhasim, the traveler in Odepeth, that same door had been opened, that memory inside, but nothing else. He’d told her there was nothing else, but she hadn’t believed him. She believed him now.
“So that’s it then,” Norah said softly, breaking the quiet. “The rest of them are gone.” She felt the tears on her face and wiped them away. Anger suddenly welled inside her, and the cup of tea shook in her hand. She looked up at Naavi. “What a cruel thing,” she said. “Those memories were mine, and you took them!”
Naavi sighed. “It wasn’t meant to be cruel. It was meant to save you.”
Norah stood abruptly, dropping her cup to the floor. It shattered against the stone. “But you didn’t save me, did you? I was still taken by the Shadow King, and as if that weren’t enough, everything I loved was stripped from me. My home, my family—you took everything from me.”
