“I think I’ll retire,” Salara-Mae said, pushing back her chair and rising.
“You haven’t eaten,” Mikael said.
“I’m not feeling well. I’ll take something later, in my room, if my appetite returns.”
“I trust you’ll be better tomorrow after you’ve rested.”
She looked at him coldly. “I seriously doubt it.” Despite her abhorrence to the idea of their marriage, she wasn’t without etiquette, and she gave a small bow to Norah. “Your Majesty.”
Norah struggled to swallow the meat and gave a nod back. “Salara-Mae.”
The woman turned and left with two guards at her flank.
The king’s brute took another drink from his chalice, and Norah saw the color on his lips: a dark iron red. Blood. Blood filled his chalice. His eyes locked with hers, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end as her stomach twisted in revulsion.
“We’ll announce our marriage tomorrow and celebrate,” Mikael told her, as if everything were perfectly normal. Was drinking blood normal? “Then we’ll begin preparations for a wedding that will happen in a few weeks’ time.”
Wedding? Right. She peeled her eyes from the commander. Another topic that threatened to empty her stomach: she was to be married.
Norah drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “When will I be able to return to Mercia?” If she could just get home, she could… pretend, perhaps, that this was not as terrible as it seemed.
The king paused in lifting his chalice, stilling for a moment as he looked at her. “You won’t.”
What? Her pulse quickened. “Not even to visit?”
“You’ll be salara,” he said, and then took a drink of wine. “Your place is in Kharav.”
Norah’s chest tightened. She couldn’t breathe. She hadn’t expected to return right away to Mercia, but she’d hoped at some point she would. Even in going to Aleon, she would have traveled back and forth between the two kingdoms.
His words made everything real for the first time. This was her home now. She might never see Mercia again. Or her grandmother. Or Alexander. The weight of everything threatened to crush her. She needed out. She rose abruptly, gripping the edge of the table for support.
“Excuse me,” she managed to utter before she made her escape from the room. She didn’t wait for acknowledgment. Her mind was a haze as she wound through the maze of halls, toward her room. Her panic grew with each step, and she was desperate to find her chamber before she fell apart. But each hall, each door, looked the same. The sound of a guard so close behind, following her disoriented course, further overwhelmed her. She couldn’t hold herself together anymore. She stopped, backing against a wall to catch her breath, and covered her face with her hands. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, which only fueled her emotion.
A soft touch on her elbow startled her, and she looked up to see one of her guardsmen. He moved his hand, motioning her back the way they had come. She wiped her cheeks and stepped forward slowly, allowing him to lead. They wound back through the halls, and she tried to regain her composure. Relief filled her when he stopped at the door of her chamber.
“Thank you,” she whispered through her shaking breaths, and then slipped inside.
Chapter thirty-eight
Norah sat at the small table in her chamber in the fading darkness of morning, a heavy weight in her chest. The king had issued an announcement of their marriage, and tonight there would be a celebration, but she didn’t feel like celebrating. She should, she told herself. She was avoiding war. Her kingdom was safe. Alexander was safe.
A small knock rattled her door, and a servant entered, carrying a gown over her arm and a small tray of bread and fruit. The young woman was the same one from the dining hall—fair skinned with soft hazel eyes and brown hair. Norah wanted to ask if she was a free woman, but that seemed rude. So she didn’t. The maid avoided Norah’s eyes as she set the tray on the table and then draped the gown over the side chair. She gave a small bow and left the chamber without a word.
Norah stared at the tray, then picked up a strawberry half the size of her palm. She closed her eyes as she bit into it, letting its sweetness fill her senses, and imagined herself somewhere very far from the kingdom of Shadows.
But she only gave herself a moment. She needed to dress. Gods only knew what was in store for her today. Quickly, she rose and shucked off her nightgown before pulling on the dress that lay over the side chair. She breathed a few words of thanks that it had front lacing. Salara-Mae hadn’t offered her a maid, and she wasn’t going to ask for one. She’d manage herself. She pulled her hair back into a braid and washed her face in the basin. The cold water made her shiver.
Dressed, she waited. She wasn’t sure what for. Was she expected to stay in her chamber, or—
A hard knock on the door startled her. She wasn’t expecting anyone so soon. In fact, she wasn’t expecting anyone at all. She opened the door slowly to find the lord commander looking back at her.
“I would speak with you in the hall,” he said shortly.
“No, thank you,” she replied and moved to close the door, but he caught it with his hand. “Please,” he said between his teeth, with more bite than request.
Norah sighed. He wouldn’t leave until he accomplished whatever he was burdened to do. Reluctantly, she stepped into the hall and was surprised to find a group of soldiers with him.
The commander turned his gaze on the closest man. “This is Captain Artem. He leads the Crest, the protectors of the royal family, and now apparently you.”
Apparently. The ring of distaste in his words wasn’t lost on her. She drew her eyes over the captain, who didn’t bow at his presentation and didn’t speak. His mouth was a hard line as he stared back at her.
He was different from the other Kharavian soldiers, and different from the lord commander. He wore armor, something she hadn’t seen much of in the Shadowlands, aside from the king. Older than the commander, in his fifties perhaps, he wore no wrap on his head. Gray touched the temples of his black hair above his angular face that held a peppered shadow of a short beard. But it was his eyes—his eyes told her of an evil within. She shuddered.
“You’ll have at least two men with you at all times, four if you step outside the castle walls,” the commander said.
“That’s really unnecessary,” she said.
“It’s not negotiable,” he growled back, and her face flushed with the heat of anger. “You’ll always have at least one guardsman who speaks the Northern tongue.” He held his hand out, and four of the dozen men stepped forward. With their faces covered, they all looked the same, except she thought she recognized one’s eyes as the soldier who’d helped her find her chamber the day before. She gave a nod back, with a small sense of comfort that at least one of her guardsmen could be kind.
“You’ll never be without your guard,” he said. “Am I clear?”
Norah pursed her lips together. “Perfectly.” Just like at home.
But this wasn’t home.
The morning passed slowly, and Norah felt awkwardly confined to her room. Not that it mattered, she told herself. She didn’t have an appetite to see the castle right now. So she waited and tried to pretend, if only for a moment, she wasn’t trapped in the darkness of the Shadowlands. Kharav, she reminded herself.