The sun sat low, close to the horizon, spilling colors of blood across the sky. Fitting. A crowd had gathered ahead in the courtyard, and it unsettled her stomach. “Stop here,” she said.
Bhastian brought the chair to a halt. “Is everything all right?”
“Help me up,” she said to Vitalia. “I want to walk the rest of the way.”
“Salara,” her maid protested. “You’re still healing.”
“I said help me up.”
Her maid sighed disapprovingly but stepped to help her as she was bid.
“Let me,” Bhastian said, coming forward and gently scooping his hands under her arms to help her stand. She didn’t want his help. He was loyal to the commander, was someone the brute trusted, which meant she couldn’t trust him. But she did need the help.
Norah winced in pain, forcing herself to inhale and exhale until it subsided to an ache.
“Salara,” he said as he stepped around the chair to her side, trying to encourage her to abandon her effort.
“Just give me your arm,” she panted.
Bhastian looked around, clearly unhappy with her decision, but he held out his arm for support. She looped her hand through it, steadying herself.
Carefully, they continued forward, arms locked, unhurried.
The crowd parted as they drew near. She spotted Alexander. His face was full of disapproval. He started forward to meet her, but she shook her head to stop him. Mikael shot her an objecting look as well, but he said nothing. Out of anyone, he knew the importance of the perception of strength with power.
Her attacker was on his knees, his arms bound behind him. What she didn’t expect to see were others with him—a woman, a boy, and an older couple. The younger woman wept. Norah looked at her closer. She knew this woman.
It was one of Mikael’s previous wives.
Norah had seen her at the celebration when she first arrived in Kharav, only Norah hadn’t known who she was then. She suspected the older man and woman to be their parents, and the boy a younger brother perhaps. They all knelt, bound, with their heads down. Why were they here?
Norah looked at Mikael in dismay. “What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded.
He said nothing, but his eyes were dark, his intentions written on every crease of his face. He was going to execute them all. A wave of horror flooded her.
“North Queen,” her attacker called out to her. “I beg you. Please spare my family! Myral. My mother, my father, my brother. They had no part in my doing. I acted alone. Please!”
Norah found herself clutching on to Bhastian as she gaped at them. Myral. Yes. That was the woman’s name.
“North Queen,” Myral cried. “I’ve spoken harsh words against you. But my parents and younger brother are innocent.” The woman swallowed back a sob. “Please, spare them!”
Norah could only stare at the woman. The knot in her throat choked her voice. Norah had required the annulments. She was the outsider who’d come and turned the wives away from a life they had known, a life of status and privilege. How could she fault this woman just for speaking against her?
“Please, North Queen,” her attacker begged, and she turned her eyes back to him.
Mikael stepped forward, seeming to grow even larger as he readied to give his judgment. Her heart hammered in her chest. He was going to kill them.
She let go of Bhastian’s arm and willed herself to stand on her own. “I’m not the North Queen,” she called out. “I am Salara.”
Mikael stopped, and she felt his attention on her.
Her attacker nodded desperately. “Yes, of course, Salara.”
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Amet, Salara,” he said quickly.
“And you sought to avenge your sister?”
Amet fought back the tears and nodded his head. “Yes, Salara,” he said. “To avenge my family’s dishonor.”
“It’s you who dishonor your family, by attacking your salara, and without the decency of a challenge.” She paused, unable to say the words, unable to speak his fate. But she had to. “I can’t let you live,” she managed to get out.
The man nodded, weeping.
Quickly, she told herself. She needed to be quick to save the rest of them. Her eyes moved back to Myral. “But you. I forgive your words, and I won’t seek further justice, against you or your family.”
Amet and his sister gasped in relief, crying in appreciation.
Norah glanced back at Mikael, and rage rippled across his brow. His lips parted, flashing his teeth. She’d pardoned them publicly. Would he overrule her with his own judgment?
Urgency clawed at her. “Remove them,” she ordered the guards. She didn’t want Amet’s family to see his fate, and if she could get them away before Mikael acted on the threat in his eyes…
The guards grabbed the family and dragged them from the courtyard. Myral let out a cry but didn’t resist. Gentler, Norah wanted to call out, but Mikael’s fury grew with each passing moment, and she just wanted them gone. Away.
Mikael watched as they were dragged from the courtyard. He didn’t stop them, but his need for retribution hung heavy in the air. She gave into it, nodding to the punisher. Amet resigned himself to his fate as the steel blade came for his life. Blood sprayed across the cobblestone. Even though she knew it was coming, she couldn’t help but flinch.
A sickening calm settled over the courtyard.
Norah clutched her stomach tightly. Her lip trembled, but not from the crippling pain she gritted her teeth against. She had to get away from the death, away from this place, away from Mikael. She moved back toward her chair with as much calm as she could muster, but she thought she might not make it.
“Salara,” Bhastian’s voice came behind her. “Let me carry you. You can’t walk.”
She shook her head. “No,” she breathed through the pain, “just help me back.”
He took her arm and walked her back, and she sank thankfully into the chair when she reached it. Then he pushed her back to the castle.
Back in her chamber, Norah let Bhastian and Vitalia help her into the bed, where the healer busied himself with checking her wounds.
Mikael entered, standing back and waiting as Norah was tended to. She refused to look at him. He was angry, she knew. But she was angry too. He would kill an entire family…
The healer gave a nod when he was finished. “The wounds are fine,” he told her. “But you need to be more careful until you’re healed.”
The healer and Vitalia gave a bow and left her to Mikael. She could feel the burn of his gaze, but she still couldn’t look at him. “Those people were innocent,” she said. She couldn’t keep her voice from shaking. “They didn’t need to die.”
“They did,” he replied with cold gravel in his voice. “They did so that everyone would know what happens to those who threaten you. You could have died.”
She snapped her gaze to his. “But I didn’t!”
“But now they know you’re weak.”
“Mercy isn’t weakness!” she spat back.
“Fear is!” His nostrils flared, and his brow dropped low. “You didn’t spare them with mercy! You spared them because you couldn’t stomach their blood.” He drew back. “And I’m weak for letting you.”