Page 145 of The Stolen Throne
Eidolon. Reven. Goddess, both of them.
But…not.
Like the one who came to talk to me before, this specter isn’t solid, but he isn’t entirely see-through, either. He isn’t man or shadow but spirit. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that much. He’s also younger, physically more like Reven than the king, blue-green eyes bright, no gray at the temples.
I sigh. “King Eidolon.” I don’t bother to hide the resignation in my voice.
“You know who I am?”
Unfortunately. “One of the discarded shells of Eidolon.”
Clasping his hands behind his back, crooked mouth pulling into a smile this side of infuriating, like he’s laughing at me, he nods.
“Which one?”
He shrugs. “That is like asking a ray of light which part of the sun it comes from. We are all Eidolon, and we are ourselves at the same time. No one person is only one thing—only brave or only cowardly, only quarrelsome or friendly, industrious or lazy. We are all a lot of things, a version of ourselves for different people. Adjusting in different circumstances. More of this, less of that.”
I’m getting tired of the unhelpfully vague poetic description leading nowhere. “Yeah. So what are you more of?”
His smile grows at that. Becomes Reven’s smile. The real one. The rare one that always steals my breath and my heart a little bit more every time I see it. It throws me.
“If I must define myself, I was the…determined version of Eidolon.”
Determined doesn’t sound so bad, I guess. You could say that I’m determined, too, especially when my sister’s life is on the line. But what was he determined to do? I eye him up and down. He does the same to me.
“So what happens now?” I narrow my gaze. “Do you want to slit my throat?”
“I can’t physically harm you here.”
Not exactly an answer, but my eyebrows wing up at the admission. That’s a handy little fact Basalt could have passed on. Mental reminder to express my dissatisfaction with this entire process when I get out.
“I could possess you,” Eidolon’s ghost muses, sounding more like the king.
I scoff with more bravado than I’m feeling. “I’m pretty sure I’d vomit you back up.”
Eidolon, or whatever I should call him, tips his head back and laughs, and I stare at his delight, because it’s just…weird. Neither the king nor my Shadowraith are like this.
“You are a treat,” he says on a final chuckle. I can’t tell if he’s being condescending or truthful. “I can see why he fell in love with you.”
My heart stutters inside my chest.
“What? Why?”
“Because you make him laugh.”
That pulls me up short. “I do?”
Eidolon’s ghost smiles. A sincere smile, almost like he’s pleased for…himself? Except that doesn’t feel right. This shadow-shedding thing isn’t the easiest to grasp. “I’m glad,” he says. “I never found love in my lifetime.”
That’s… Should I be feeling sad for Eidolon of old?
“That he can love you means all of us could.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
He chuckles. “Get to know us first. We’re not all so bad.” His smile dims as he turns almost pensive. “If I’d met you while I lived, I wonder what choices I would have made differently.”
I blink. Would Eidolon have made different choices with love in his life? If I’d met him before all this, before he shed every good part of himself, would I have fallen in love with the whole man? Or is Reven the only piece of him destined for me?
