Page 159 of War Queen
“I can show her to you,” he said softly. “As she was. I can help you remember.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I would know it would be you under her face.”
“And if I stay right here?” he asked. “I can simply show her to you.”
She stared at him. Could he really do that? “Like a vision, or a memory?”
“Something like that, yes.”
Just the thought of seeing Catherine well again knotted a cry in her throat. She couldn’t speak; she only nodded through her tears.
The sky brightened, and he looked past her shoulder.
Norah turned and followed his gaze. Her breath caught as she saw her grandmother standing by the stream. She glanced at Lucien in disbelief, then back to Catherine.
Her grandmother’s face was bright, healthy. She held out her arms to Norah.
Norah glanced back at Lucien, her eyes wide. “It’s not a memory, it’s…” She looked back to Catherine. “It’s like she’s there.”
“You can touch her,” he said softly.
She gripped his hand tightly as she stared at him in astonishment. He gave her a nod, and Norah stumbled up from the bench and rushed to her. She cried as her grandmother’s arms swept around her, and she buried her face into the softness of her fur-shouldered gown.
Warmth. She felt warmth.
This wasn’t a normal vision. Yes, she could feel Lucien when he came to her, but not his warmth. Norah didn’t understand how it was possible, but she didn’t care. She only clung to Catherine.
Finally, her grandmother pulled her back, looking into her eyes. Norah wanted to remember her just like this—smiling, happy. Catherine wiped a tear from Norah’s face and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. Ever so softly, she leaned forward and gave Norah a kiss on her cheek. With a final smile and soft squeeze of her hands, she slipped back into the light and was gone.
Norah wept, smiling through her tears. She stared at the light long after Catherine had left.
Finally, she turned back to Lucien, but something was wrong. Blood ran from his right nostril.
“Lucien!” she cried, and ran to him. She dropped down on the bench beside him and pulled his face so that he looked at her. “Lucien, are you all right?”
“I don’t have the strength to stay with you much longer,” he said weakly. “It’s the seemingly simplest things that are sometimes the hardest.”
“What do you mean?”
He gave a weak smile and squeezed her hand. Blood spilled now from his left nostril. It grew dark around them.
“Lucien! Whatever you’re doing, you have to stop! Go. Rest.”
“Will you call me back, Norah?” he asked, wavering.
His image faded, and her hand pushed through him as though he were only a shadow. She gasped. She could no longer feel him. He slumped to the side, barely able to keep himself up, but Norah couldn’t help him.
“Yes, but go,” she urged him. “You’re hurting yourself.”
He gave her another weak smile and faded until he was gone.
She sat alone in the darkness of the stairwell, her pulse racing. What had just happened? Showing Catherine to her had obviously done something to him, had hurt him somehow. Why had he done that, at his own expense?
Her racing heart warmed.
It was a kindness. He’d given her a kindness.
She was getting through to him.
