Salta Tau rolled her lips together with a bob of her head and held out her hands. Mikael took one and then took Norah’s. Then he nodded for Norah to take the other.
Norah reached out, taking Salta Tau’s hand and completing the circle.
Salta Tau closed her eyes and spoke what sounded like a spell into the air. She rocked slightly, forward and back, forward and back, with her eyes closed as she silently mouthed the words over and over.
Norah glanced at Mikael, but he only watched the old woman intently.
Salta Tau stopped. “I see,” she said, her eyes still closed. She dropped their hands, but Mikael still held on to Norah’s.
“Battle. Blade. Blood. Crown.” The old woman spoke in the Northern tongue now, her accent thick and choppy.
The corners of Mikael’s mouth turned up, but Norah frowned at her words. Surely it didn’t take a special gift to see what could describe most every story in Kharav.
Mikael released her hand. Servants in long linen tunics stepped forward and stripped him of his clothing. Norah squirmed, still uncomfortable with the unabashed Kharavian ways, although she wasn’t offended. She kept her eyes on his face.
They spread a mixture of herbs across his chest, letting it sit a moment before sponging it away.
“To clean the skin and numb it,” Salara-Mae explained. Norah hadn’t realized Mikael’s mother had stepped beside her, and the woman’s voice startled her.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not much,” Mikael assured her.
“It hurts a great deal,” Salara-Mae said. Mikael scowled at her.
Norah swallowed.
“Sit beside me,” he told her. Then he lowered himself onto the heavily embroidered mat on the floor and lay on his back, waiting.
Norah took a seat on the floor cushion to his right, and Salara-Mae took the additional cushion just behind.
Salta Tau sat on Mikael’s left side. The woman picked up a long tool with what appeared to be barbed bone at the end. She dipped it into a bowl of ink and set the edge against the skin of Mikael’s chest. Then she struck it with a small mallet. Blood sprang from around the edge of the tool, but the woman wiped it away and continued.
The inking felt like eternity. The constant tapping of the mallet, the bleeding—Norah felt it pained her more than Mikael, who lay motionless. She could barely make out the design forming under Salta Tau’s hands—a patterned circle of some sort.
Finally, as the sun started to set, Salta Tau stopped. Mikael’s chest was a mix of blood with ink, and Salta Tau spread a thick mixture of herbs over it. Then she covered it with her hands and spoke again in the Kharavian tongue. Norah bit the inside of her cheek to quell her impatience. She wanted to see the finished image. Even though it seemed somewhat unoriginal, as she had gathered through Salta Tau’s words—swords, blood, something with a crown—this was their story, and she wanted to see it.
She cast her eyes around the room as they waited. Salara-Mae sat expressionless. Norah looked up at the commander to find him staring back at her, his eyes dark and cold. They hadn’t spoken since her attack. Mikael told her Soren had been the one to find her, the one who’d saved her. She wondered if he would add that to his own inked stories. Under Tales of Regret.
Salta Tau wiped away the herb mixture from Mikael’s chest, catching Norah’s eye and calling back her attention. Mikael watched her as she leaned over him to see.
His skin was still raw and swollen, but very clearly now appeared the image of two crowns, mirrored against each other along a spear in the center, and bordered with layered blades to create a circle. On the top sat Norah’s Kharavian crown, or rather, a representation of it in the geometric patterns of their marking style.
Then she gasped.
She hadn’t recognized it at first because it was inverted, but on the bottom was her Mercian crown—her mother’s crown. It wasn’t a patterned interpretation like Kharavian ink images, but instead bore the crown’s exact likeness.
“How did you see this?” she breathed. “Where is it?”
Mikael looked down at his chest. “What?”
Norah’s lip trembled. She looked back up at Salta Tau. “Can you tell me where it is?”
Mikael pushed himself up to sit and caught her hand. “Where what is?”
“My mother’s crown. I lost it.” She paused, her eyes welling. “I lost it when you took me as I was on my way to Aleon.” She looked back up at Salta Tau, her desperation surfacing. “How can you see it? Do you know where it is?”
“That’s not how the Gift works, Salara,” Mikael said softly.
“No.” She pleaded Salta Tau. “If you saw it, maybe you can see what was around it. It could help me find it.”
But the old woman shook her head.
And the disappointment came as heavily as the original loss. Norah let out a breath, trying to regain control of her sudden emotion.
The servants spread another mixture of herbs across Mikael’s skin, and he shifted for them to wrap it. When they finished, he donned his clothing again. Then he reached out his hand and helped her to her feet.
He didn’t release her after she stood. Instead, he pulled her closer. “I’m sorry, Salara.”
She shook her head. “You’ve done nothing wrong.” Her voice came in barely a whisper.
He seemed to waver on his words. “Does it bother you?” His eyes searched hers. “Does it bother you that it’s on my body?”
He was worried about how she felt about it. His concern quieted the churning inside her. It calmed her mind. “No.” She looked at his chest, now covered in bandaging and his tunic. “At least I have an image of it now.”
He raised a brow. “Do you always do this?”
“Do what?”
“Look for the best in everything?”
She struggled for words. What else was she to do?
He gave a gentle smile as he offered his arm, and she slipped her hand into its warmth.
Norah stood in her sanctuary, looking at Catherine’s letter—the letter Alexander had given her a week ago—still unopened. She should read it. But not yet. She didn’t know what was keeping her, but just… not yet.
The door of the chamber opened behind her. “Salara,” Vitalia said, and Norah turned. She held out a folded parchment, a wide smile on her face.
“What’s this?” Norah asked as she opened it. When she saw the image, she gasped. The image of her mother’s crown.
“I thought you’d want it,” Vitalia said.
“Where did you get this?”
“The lord commander sent a detachment out this morning. Each soldier holds a copy. They’re tasked with finding it.”
Norah’s eyes widened.
“There’s even a reward for citizens,” Vitalia added.
“The lord commander?”
Her maid raised a brow with a shrug. “I know.”
This man continued to confuse her. Norah couldn’t believe she was about to do this, but she took the parchment and left to find the commander.
He sat in his study, finishing a letter. Norah had never been in the room before. It looked much like Alexander’s in Mercia—a large desk covered in parchments, cabinets full of books and records. When he saw her, he didn’t rise. She bit the inside of her cheek. He was always testing her, always trying to show her she didn’t have complete power.