Page 129 of The Stolen Throne
He pulls harder, shaking with the effort of it like he did with Trysolde, and there’s a shift of movement under his own clothes. Then another. And another, and my scars buzz with awareness. The Shadows inside Reven. Sandrat opportunists.
He doesn’t stop.
An eerie wail pours from Tabra’s lips, and her body starts to convulse, the thrashing of her arms and legs pulling at the chains with metallic clanks.
“He’s killing her!” Achlys cries out, straining against Omma’s hold, and my great aunt drags her over to us.
“Horus!” I point without taking my eyes from what Reven is doing.
Horus wraps his arms around Achlys, not letting her loose as Reven fights the thing inside Tabra and she screams and screams and screams. Achlys claps her hands over her ears.
My blood runs cold despite the desert heat. What if he is killing her? What if he loses himself in the process?
But she’s dead if we don’t try.
I tell myself that over and over as sweat breaks out over Reven’s exposed skin and soaks the back of his shirt. The shadow inside her is too dug in. Too strong.
No. I’m not losing either of them tonight. We’ve dealt with too many blows, and I’m not doing this. Not another blow. The burn of anger flares inside me.
“Get out of her!” I shout, willing the darkness to weaken.
Reven suddenly gains ground, and for a painfully hopeful moment I think he’s got it by the tail. Then, with an abruptness that grates at me, Tabra goes silent, leaving the room still, all of us holding our breath.
Her eyes snap open, and she smiles at Reven. A foul expression crosses her face—an exact copy of my face—and twists it into something unrecognizable. “I’m no Shadow. I’m the dead.”
I should have known. A ghost. Another one of Eidolon’s? Like the one who told me about the king taking souls out of the burning lands. Is this what the king is doing with them? Possessing people?
The ghost sneers. “Your maker pulled me from the depths of the hells. You, young Shadowraith, are not strong enough to do the same.”
That’s not Tabra speaking. That’s Eidolon—or, rather, an old layer of him. And not a Shadow that Reven missed. This is another ghost.
Like the one I talked to.
The thing inside Tabra chuckles at our stunned expressions. “He promised he’d give me another lifetime in another body if I did his bidding inside this one.”
My skin goes tight everywhere, the shock like bugs crawling all over me. Eidolon did that? Holy terror. Did Reven know that was possible?
“I know you can’t put me back where he found me,” the ghost taunts Reven with a sneer. “And you can’t let me go. You don’t want one of us walking the lands, loosed from the hells, even in the form of darkness.”
Reven rears back like the thing hit him but then centers. “You can’t have her.”
“Even if you could get me out, you have nowhere to put me.”
Reven glances at me, and my heart drops to the soles of my feet, because I know. I know what he’s thinking.
He says nothing as he faces my sister. The shadows inside me pull in tight, as though readying themselves for something big.
Then Reven smiles. “You’re wrong.”
Then he puts his mouth over Tabra’s—not touching, just hovering—and draws in sharply. The thing inside her sets to screaming again, and Tabra’s eyes go wide, bulging from her skull before they roll back, her body going limp. But the screaming goes on and on and on as Reven tries to swallow the evil from inside her into himself.
I drop to my knees, my hand over my mouth as I watch in horror.
Tabra gives one final wail, and Reven snarls, pressing his mouth to hers hard.
Darkness bleeds into the room, tendrils stretching up the tent walls and across the floor all around us.
Then, with jarring abruptness, the darkness dissolves and everything stops. Reven drops to the ground and rolls to his back, chest heaving.
