Page 16 of War Queen
They took their seats. Norah waited impatiently. Months had passed since she’d fled Mercia. It felt like years and days at the same time. So much could have happened by now. Whathadhappened? Now she would know. Suddenly, she didn’t want to know. She glanced around. Where was Adrian?
Mikael’s hand wrapped around hers, and she looked up at him. He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed her skin, and a calm returned.
“You settle me so easily,” she told him.
He smiled. “You do the same. I didn’t move these chairs together only for you, you know.”
Gods, she loved this man.
Finally, the doors to the throne room swung open, and a small army of the Crest entered with a Northman at their center. Her heart pulsed so hard in her throat that she thought she might choke on it.
He stopped before her and bowed. “Queen Norah,” he said as he pulled off his helm. He was younger than she’d expected. She didn’t recognize him and glanced around again for Adrian, but he was strangely still absent.
“I bring a message from the lord justice,” he said.
She froze.Alexander. Slowly, she stood. “Alexander sent you?” She didn’t feel steady on her feet. “He’s alive?”
He stood with his mouth open, as if confused. What was confusing about her question?
“He’s alive, and he’s well?” she asked again, more urgently this time.
He bobbed his head. “Yes, Regal High. Alive, anyway.Wellis relative, yeah?”
What didthatmean?
“And he sends me,” the man added.
She clenched her hands to keep them from shaking. “You have a letter?”
He bowed his head again. “No, not a letter. Only his words.” And he stood.
It was all she could do to not clamber down the steps and shake him. “Well, what does he say?” she pressed.
The soldier looked around uneasily. “Um, I’m to deliver it to the Destroyer.”
“What?”What?Alexander would send a message to Soren and not her? “What’s the message?” Her patience was now gone.
He hesitated.
Mikael rose from his throne and stepped beside her. “What is the message?” he demanded.
The soldier shifted back. “To prepare for war.”
Her heart leapt into her throat. She couldn’t breathe. “Alexander sends a threat?”
“No,” the Mercian soldier said quickly as he eyed Mikael. “Not war against him. To join him in taking back Mercia. The lord justice holds the loyalty of the North in the queen’s name.”
“So why a call to war?” Mikael asked him shortly. “If the lord justice commands the army of the North, why doesn’t he just give it back?”
“Well, because he’s not lord justice anymore, I guess.”
Norah’s heart stopped. The council had removed him.
“And even if he was,” the soldier continued, “the council holds control with mercenaries. He can’t take the kingdom back alone, and so he’s been waiting in silent opposition.”
“And what of Aleon?” Mikael asked.
The soldier shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not privy to such information.”
