Page 174 of War Queen
“Look at me,” he called her back, and her tear-filled eyes met his again. “You’re going to be all right.”
Suddenly, the burn subsided, and she gasped as she looked back at her hands to see the flesh bonding back together, healing as if the wounds had never existed. The pain faded altogether.
Her sobs calmed, and she quieted. Mikael’s brows drew together in confusion as he stared at her hands. He wiped back the blood and gaped at her flawless palms.
“What…” He stopped, his mouth slightly open. “What happened? How is this possible?”
Her heart slowed as her terror subsided. She ran her thumb over the flesh. “He has a healer,” she finally managed to get out. “A special healer.”
“He did this to himself?”
Then she knew. “He’s drawing his blood. So he can use it.”
The pounding echoed through the darkness. Norah stood beside Mikael as he beat his fist against the door of the row home on a cobbled side street. They were looking for Nemus, the Mercian traveler seer, to see if he knew how to break the tether.
Norah’s breath shook as they waited.
“Are you sure this is the one?” Soren asked from behind them.
Mikael beat the door again, harder this time.
She bit her bottom lip. “Ummm… yes.”Maybe.She’d only been here once with Catherine… in the dark… after being led through a maze of tunnels. But this door looked like the one from before.
“Really?” Adrian asked. “Because it looks like all the others.”
She glanced down the street at the rest of the houses. It did look like every other door.
“Perhaps it’s a different one?” Caspian asked.
She pursed her lips. There were too many men here with too many opinions. This was the door.
Just as Mikael was about to beat again, it opened.
Norah let out a sigh of relief as a familiar face looked back at them. Esther, Nemus’s wife. Norah had first met her when Catherine had brought Norah to see if Nemus could unlock her memory.
But Norah’s relief was short-lived. Esther stood horror stricken, her eyes red and swollen, her breaths short and gasping.
Something was wrong, and it wasn’t their midnight visit.
“Esther, what’s wrong?” she asked.
Esther stepped backward.
“Where’s Nemus?” Norah asked.
The woman shook her head, still overcome with emotion.
“Esther, where’s Nemus?” she asked again. Her stomach twisted. Something wasverywrong.
Slowly, the woman pointed back into the house, her hand shaking.
Mikael and Soren pushed past, drawing their swords. Norah followed. Adrian reached and grabbed her hand, ready to pull her back, but she shook him off. She needed to find out what was happening.
They reached the back room where a modest bed was centered on the wall. But Nemus lay unnaturally on the floor in the corner of the chamber, unmoving. A cushion had been flung against the foot of the bedpost—the same kind of cushion he and Norah had sat on when he’d done the blood spell to enter her mind.
They approached slowly.
The old seer was the color of death, his mouth open in a silent scream, his eyes wide with horror but unseeing. Black veins spidered under the icy hue of his skin, stretching from his fingers up his arms.
