Page 148 of War Queen
Norah almost screamed as the darkness broke, and cages came down around her. Men filled the cages, stripped of their armor and most of their clothing, even though it was the dead of winter. Some were bloodied, as though they’d just seen war. Others were emaciated, as if they’d been in the cages for some time. She couldn’t hear them, but terror still filled her. A man to her right retched his stomach contents through the bars of the cage onto the wheel of the wagon that carried them. Another man was hunched in a corner. His uncovered toes were black as death. Perhaps hewasdead.
“This isn’t real,” she whispered to herself, trying to quell the panic.It’s just a vision.
“Oh, it’s real,” he hissed. “It’s very real.”
The wagon stopped, and all the men around her were dragged from their cage. The vision shifted, and she was now among them. She gasped as she saw their captors. Their faces were wrapped in black like the night, and ink marked their skin. Shadowmen. Darkness loomed over her, and she jerked her head up. Her heart stopped. She knew this man, this horn-helmed giant.Mikael.
He spoke to a tall man with a shaved head beside him.
Norah was afraid to ask, but she forced herself to anyway. “Who’s he talking to? What are they saying?”
“A Serran slaver. And he’s deciding whether a small boy is worth any price at all, or if I should just be killed.”
Oh gods. He was just a child.
Mikael gave a short nod and left the slaver to his cargo, but she didn’t take her eyes from him. His movements were heavier, slower. And he was older. This wasn’t Mikael.This was long ago, and she would have been a child herself. This wasn’t Mikael—it was his father.
“Everyone I loved abandoned me,” Lucien said, “including Alexander.”
No.No, that wasn’t true. “He didn’t abandon you! Your brother loved you.”
The cages and men in chains fell away, and Lucien and Norah stood again in the winter forest.
Lucien snorted, shaking his head. “No. If he loved me, he would have looked for me. He would have tried to find me.”
“He was only a boy! He thought you were dead.”
“He would have felt me!” he thundered. “The way I have felt him all these years.”
“He didn’t have your gift!”
“He did,” he insisted. “He had a shield. I couldn’t see him.”
“No, it wasn’t the same. It was… different.”
He paused, and his face sobered. “How?”
How could she explain it? She couldn’t, and she shook her head. “I… We don’t know. He was only starting to uncover it when he died. But I swear to you, he didn’t know you were alive. He would have gone to the ends of the world to find you.”
He stared at her, not believing.
“I mean it,” she said. “If he had any idea you were still alive, he would have come for you.”
The anger on his skin cooled slightly.
“He would have come,” she said again, “as soon as he was able.”
His face softened, and his shoulders slumped forward. “I spent my entire life hating him. I followed the news of his rise, planning how I’d kill him too.”
Too? Her pulse quickened. “What happened to your mother?”
His eyes locked with hers, dark blue like stormy seas. “I learned how to control my power. And use it.”
Her heart raced. “Did you make her take her life?”
“I told you. I’ve done terrible things.” He didn’t look like Alexander anymore. She could see the differences now. The lines between his eyes were more pronounced. His face was… harsher.
She swallowed. This man was not Alexander. But she could see him—she could see the pain. And this wasn’t wholly who he was.
