Page 74 of Shadow Queen
“W-What?” Norah stammered, caught off guard by the direction of the conversation. “Those men attacked him! This isn’t his fault!”
“No? It’s not his fault that he works to align the North with Aleon? It’s not his fault that he provokes hostility from my ally, and my lord commander is forced by duty to aid him?”
“Merciais your ally!”
Mikael swept his books from the desk, and they scattered to the stone floor. “And will they join me when the Aleon king invades to build his new empire?”
“Gregor won’t stand by and let his brother build his empire around him,” she snapped back.
“Will the North stand with me against Aleon?” he pressed again.
Norah looked at him, speechless. They both knew the answer to that question.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “And now you force me to break with my ally if I can’t resolve this.”
“Give me to him,” Soren said to Mikael. “He’ll punish me, but he won’t kill me. You know he’s wanted me for his army for some time now.”
“I won’t do that, brother,” Mikael told him.
“If you lose the alliance with Japheth, you’ll lose the support of the nobles,” Soren said.
But Norah knew Mikael would never give up Soren, even in the face of losing everything. “You aren’t going to lose your alliance with Japheth,” she said, trying to reassure him. “We’ll figure something out.”
“Iwill figure something out,” Mikael snapped at her. “You’ve done enough.”
She stepped back in surprise, but Mikael didn’t give her time to react. He turned and left the study. The commander gave her a cold eye before following after.
Gregor burst through the doors of the throne room, where they waited. Norah sat to Mikael’s left, beside him on her own throne. Soren stood to his right, just off the dais.
She hadn’t tried to talk to Mikael again before they’d gone to face Gregor. She’d wanted to, given the stress written over his face, and the challenge of how to fix this. Losing the alliance would bear severe consequences, some from which he might not recover. The question was—how far was he willing to go to mend things before severing the alliance—and Gregor’s head with it?
“I want his head!” Gregor bellowed. This stupid man truly didn’t know how much danger he was in.
Mikael rose, poised, calm, not showing any of the signs of worry he’d had just moments before. But Norah knew what lay below the surface.
The king of Japheth glared at Soren, who stood silently while he waited for the determination of his fate. “You’ll give me his head!” he seethed at Mikael.
“You don’t want his head,” Mikael replied coolly.
Gregor trembled with all the rage a frail man could muster. “I want justice! Give him to me, and I’ll take him to Japheth to decide reparation.”
“And what would that be?” Mikael asked.
“I’ll let the boy’s mother choose.”
Mikael’s voice was calm and steady. “We both know that’s not a solution. Let’s come to an appropriate punishment and it will be done here. Today.”
Punishment.A tremor rolled up Norah’s spine. Would he really punish Soren? And how?
“We’re speaking of my nephew! The son of my wife’s sister.”
She frowned. There was a woman who could stand to be married to this man?
“A mere lashing won’t be sufficient,” Gregor spat.
“There’s nothingmereabout a lashing,” Mikael said, his voice getting edgier.
Norah’s skin prickled. Soren wouldnotbe getting a lashing.
