Page 147 of The Stolen Throne
Omma and Bene both get to their feet at the same time. “Thank the goddess,” she breathes. She rushes over and smooths the hair off my forehead, then, in a low voice just for me, says, “You made it out. I was worried, child.”
That may be the first time she’s ever said those words to me. It’s definitely the only way she’s ever touched me like that.
Did the world come to an end and I missed it? Maybe I’m still stuck in the burning lands?
She must see my disbelief, because she slowly drops her hand. “We were going to leave in the morning whether you showed up or not.”
“Meren?” That’s Tabra, but her voice sounds funny.
There’s a rustle inside the tent, and Omma hurries away to crawl inside, face pinched. That’s enough to have me running to the tent. I shove my head inside, then swallow a gasp, dropping to my knees, ignoring the way I land on sharp rocks that dig into my flesh.
Because Tabra… Mother goddess save us, she looks like death might pull her into the grave any second.
“What happened?” I demand in a voice gone tremulous.
“I’ll be fine,” Tabra assures me.
Over her head, Omma gives me a grim look and a shake of her head. “It came on fast. Almost as soon as you disappeared. She fainted.”
Tabra waves a hand. “I was tired. It’s fine.”
I share another look with Omma, who gives Tabra’s back an ineffectual pat. I can see the worry in the drawn lines of her face, the way her eyes won’t meet mine. Then she waves me out of the tent and off to the side.
She lowers her voice. “Basalt says that she doesn’t have long. Ten days at most.”
The blood drains from my head so fast that I sway. I glance over my shoulder to where Tabra’s bare feet are sticking out of the tent. “We should get her to a doctor, at least. Something. We can’t just let her…”
I refuse to say she’s going to die.
The question is, a doctor where? Given who we are, we can’t exactly wander around Aryd asking, and we don’t know where the zariphate is now.
“Tropikis still feels like our best option,” I decide. “The others should be there by the time we get there. We can ask King Panqui for access to his personal physician. Even better if he has an Imperium Healer.”
“If he’s on our side,” Omma grumbles.
I would love to throw something at her. Nothing lethal. My shoe, maybe. But Tabra would probably get upset with me and say something about attacking the elderly being not very princess-like behavior. “Do you see any better option?”
After a second, she shakes her head. “It’s where we were going to go if you didn’t return.”
Omma and me on the same side of a decision again? The entire burning lands I came from probably just froze solid for the first time since Nova created the world.
63
You Shall
Not Pass
This time, we don’t need to fly. Where we’re going, there are portals on the other side. I even manage to get mine created on the first try. If I wasn’t so blasted worried about my sister, I would’ve crowed with triumph.
“Bene, you’d better shrink down for this,” I tell him.
We need to be ready to move fast if this works and I manage to open the portal. Our plan is to go to Yolyn Zag first. Not to find the zariphate but to then use that portal to go to Tropikis.
Yolyn Zag’s portal is…safer. Ish. We have a better chance of someone not being in there and seeing us arriving from the desert—there are zero portals anywhere in a desert, and a witness seeing that behind us would find it more than strange. The risk of that happening is much higher if we go straight through the Tropikis portal, even at night, because they only have the one.
I wait until Bene’s the size of a raven again and Omma has brought Tabra out of the tent, though she’s visibly struggling to hold my sister up, let alone hobble her over to the portal, since she can’t walk on her own. This shouldn’t take long, though.
I pull my power forward, the yellow glow reflecting off the black glass I made from the Obsidian Desert sand all around us. Please, please, please let this work. Closing my eyes, I picture the room we’ve been through several times now. When I open my eyes, it’s to find the room in the temple of Yolyn Zag on the other side. We hustle through.
