“Are you all right?” he asked.
“We were here before,” she breathed.
He froze, and his eyes burned. “You remember?”
“Yes. No.” She shook her head but didn’t take her eyes off him. “But I remember you. Here, like this.” She reached her hand up and threaded her fingers through his golden locks. A wave of warmth washed through her despite the winter air. “Your hair was slightly longer,” she whispered.
Norah drew her fingertips to his cheek, feeling the smoothness of his shaven face. The heat in her stomach grew, but the flash of the image was fading. Alexander’s face. His golden locks. His eyes, young and mischievous. They were just moments, but she needed them. She needed to hold on to them.
She pulled him closer. “I know they’re here.”
His brow creased. “What’s here?”
She searched his eyes, and the image reached out once more. Younger Alexander. The Alexander that smiled. She drew in a ragged breath, feeling a stitch in the canvas of her being.
“Norah?” His voice brought her back.
She shook her head. “No, no. They’re here.”
“What’s here?” he asked.
“Stop talking.”
She looked into his eyes again—the depths of their blue were drowning. It was Alexander. He was stirring her memories. Her breath quickened.
Summer lazed around them, and they lay on their backs under the tree, laughing. Alexander rolled to his side and caught a lock of her hair.
She smiled at him. “Where will we go?”
“Wherever your heart desires.”
“By the sea,” she said. “Where the water is warm, and we can lie in the light of the sun.”
He leaned over, stroking her cheek with the back of his fingers. “You are the sun,” he said, and kissed her tenderly.
The vision faded. She gripped him tighter, trying to draw more of the memory.
“What did you see?” he asked.
Familiarity flowed from where her skin touched his. Norah brought her other hand to his face and pulled him even closer. Her sight clouded. Before she could think of her actions, she lifted her chin and brought her lips to his. He stiffened but let her pull him in.
There was a sudden shattering, and the memory was as clear as the present.
Darkness sat around her as she waited at the tree for Alexander. Her heart raced, and she smiled to herself, pulling her bag closer. She’d brought only the things most important to her; this was all she was taking. There would be no more castles, no more life of privilege, but they would be together, and that was all that mattered.
A silhouette in the darkness made her jump, and she laughed as she recognized him, feeling silly. “You startled me,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand. She could see his face in the moonlight.
He wasn’t smiling back at her.
“Is everything all right?” She looked around him, noticing he wasn’t holding anything: no supplies, no belongings. “Where’s your pack?”
“There is no pack,” he said, and she felt a strange pit in her stomach. “Norah, I can’t take you from here. We can’t go.”
“What?” She shook her head. “What are you saying?”
“We can’t go. You can’t go.”
Confusion flooded her. “I don’t understand. We planned, we—”
“You’re going to be queen, and if you leave now, you’d be abandoning your people.”
“I don’t want to be queen! I want to be with you! I love you, and this is the only way we can be together.”
He pulled his hand from hers and stepped backward.
“Alexander,” she pleaded, stepping forward to bridge the gap. “We love each other. We’re going to be together.”
“No,” he said. “We can’t.”
A surge of desperation ran through her. “We can! We can go right now. You don’t even need your pack. Let’s just go!”
“Norah, we’re not going,” he said more firmly.
The heat of emotion sprang across her cheeks.
“We can’t,” he whispered.
“I don’t accept that!” she cried.
His face hardened. “I don’t love you!” he said sharply.
Her breath caught in her throat at the harshness of his words. “That’s not true,” she breathed. “That’s not true.”
“You’re going to marry King Phillip. Everything you want, he can give it to you.”
“I want you!”
Alexander shifted in the quiet. “That will pass. Go back to the castle, Norah.” Then he pulled back, fading into the darkness.
She was alone.
Norah sank to the base of the tree as a sob escaped her.
She broke away from Alexander and stumbled back against the tree, touching her cheek, wet with tears. It was just one memory, but every emotion she had ever felt came flooding back: the love, the deep affliction of the heart, the agony of it breaking.
“You left me.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own.
“Norah—”
“Like I meant nothing to you.” She shook her head as she bit back the bitterness of shame. How foolish she felt to have developed those affections for him all over again.
“Your grandmother discovered us,” he told her. “She reminded me of my duty and told me what I should have told myself.”
“Then why do you play with me now?” she cried.
He shook his head. “No. Norah, I—”
“I want to go back.” She slipped past him and headed for the castle. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. It would hurt.
“Norah,” he called after her.
But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t.
Norah lay in the bath, drawing in the heat from the water and desperately trying to focus on anything to take her mind away from the ache in her chest. She closed her eyes and leaned against the back of the tub, cursing her emotion. Catherine hadn’t wanted her to name Alexander as her lord justice. Now she knew why. Perhaps she had always known but didn’t want to see.
Regardless, as much as she hated to admit it, she wouldn’t have chosen differently for her lord justice. Mercia needed Alexander. She still needed him.
The chamber door of the bedroom opened and closed, but she didn’t sit up. She didn’t open her eyes. There was only one who disregarded the social graces of her privacy.
“Norah,” Catherine called.
She stayed, unmoving, not answering.
“Norah!” Her grandmother’s voice came more urgently now.
Under the warmth of the water, a chill ran over her skin. Did Catherine know she had been with Alexander? Had he said something? Is that why she was here?
Catherine burst into the bath chamber. “By the gods, child! Did you not hear me calling you?” She didn’t give Norah time to reply. “Samuel sends for us. A vision’s come—of you! The first one since you left!” She disappeared into the side cabinet chamber.
Norah sat up in the tub, and her stomach knotted. “Of me?” Her mind drifted to the memory that had returned at the tree. Surely it wasn’t a coincidence.
Catherine bustled back into the bath chamber with a gown and undergarments. “Why are you still in there? Get out! Quickly!”