Page 99 of War Queen
Sorrow? Not pride? Not accomplishment? But sorrow?
Mikael nodded.
The old woman frowned. “And you still want this story on your skin?”
He looked at Norah, then back to Salta Tau. “I do.”
Norah’s eyes welled. He wasn’t celebrating Mercia. He felt her loss with her. Even in his triumph, even in the happiness of having believed he’d changed his fate, he felt sorrow.
Salta Tau motioned for him to lie down on the mat.
No. No,no.He couldn’t do this. “Wait!” she cried.
Mikael’s brows drew together as he shifted his weight back. “What?”
“You wouldn’t feel sorrow if you knew the truth.” Her words came before they could stop them. “Alexander’s not gone, and your fate’s still unchanged. I saw it.”
Salara-Mae covered her mouth with her hand.
A line spread deep across his brow. “What do you mean? My fate? You saw it?”
“Samuel painted it again. It hasn’t changed.” She shook her head. “Mikael, I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to tell you, but…”
“The Bear is dead.”
Norah winced. “Yes. And no.”
“What do you meanno?” Then his stare shifted from confusion to anger. “You saw this in the North? Why didn’t you send word?”
“Because… I needed to tell you in person.”
“But you didn’t.”
Norah cursed herself for it not being the first words off her lips when she saw him. She looked at Soren, and he gave a small nod of encouragement for her to tell him the rest.
Mikael twisted his head toward him. “You knew about this?”
“Don’t blame Soren,” she said quickly. “I told him I would tell you. I should have already, but I was waiting for the right time.”
“Now would be the right time.” His words simmered in anger.
The right time would have been sooner. This was a very wrong time, but she had no choice. She drew in a breath. “He’s shown himself to me. Even after death. Visions, or his spirit, I don’t know how to explain it, but he comes to me.”
“The Bear is dead,” he said again.
“I know, which is why I said I can’t explain it.”
His nostrils flared, and light caught the white of his teeth between his partially parted lips. “Who else has seen him?”
“He’s come only to me.”
The darks of his eyes were the darkest they’d ever been.
“Tell him how,” said Soren.
She tried to swallow the growing lump in her throat. Her hand shook as she reached into her pocket and pulled out the blood vial. She felt Soren’s searing gaze, but she didn’t look at him. He hadn’t known she had more. “I receive these,” she told Mikael as she held it out for him. “When the blood touches my skin, he comes to me.”
Mikael took the vial from her hand, looking at it closely. He was calm now. Too calm—the calm that came when he shifted to battle. “And you invite him?” he asked. “You call him to you?”
