Page 169 of The Stolen Throne
“As fine as you were earlier? Invincible should be your middle name.” He winks.
I glare.
Which only makes him grin.
A second later, Horus appears over the rise, Bene right behind him, still in dog form. His full-size form would attract the Reverie, he says. Both Cain and Horus walk right to the edge to peer down, and my stomach does flips at their nearness to a deadly plummet.
Cain whistles. “If that isn’t the gateway to the seventh hell, I don’t know what is.”
My thoughts exactly. And he didn’t see the Land of Eternal Death, which is serene by comparison.
The sound is monstrous, like pigs being slaughtered combined with Bene’s roar. Wind whips and tears at my clothes, trying to strip me bare. But what sends icy fingers of fear through me is the utter violence of the waters. It took only a single glance at the frothing, spinning maelstrom to know that nothing could survive if sucked in. A single slip of the foot and I’d be caught in the current and dragged down to a brutal watery grave.
Add violent drowning to heights and spiders on my growing list of bone-deep fears.
“Ready?” Cain yells.
I startle because I was too focused on icy cliffs and plummeting drops and whirling death at the bottom.
The Reverie hasn’t shown her face, but that doesn’t mean she won’t. Better to work fast and get out of here fast. Forcing my feet to move, I scoot toward the precipice until I can see the angry eye at the center of the Whirlpool. There, I stop, my own fear refusing to let me move even a pinkie toe closer. Cain moves back to stand beside me. Together, we lift our hands, our combined yellow lights glowing all around us.
Hopefully the Devourer around here doesn’t see it. Daylight would have been better to try this.
Cain has to start. At first, nothing happens, but I know he’s trying because his hands and arms are so tense, like he’s lifting a great weight.
“Cain?”
He shakes his head, sweat popping out over his upper lip, so I leave him alone and watch and wait. After a low grunt from him, I finally see a change. The swirling pit at the center of the water widens. Barely at first, then more and more until it reminds me of the large, deep well in the courtyard of the Oaesys palace, a hollow tube leading down.
Cain was right. Gateway to the seventh hell.
“Go!” he grinds out.
My turn. Rather than watch, I close my eyes and feel for the sand that lies at the bottom of that tunnel of water he’s carved out for me. I can’t feel the amulets, but I can feel the sand. Despite the freezing air and punishing winds, I’m already starting to sweat with the effort.
“Faster,” Cain calls.
I’d better pull the right hunk of sand up. Doing this more than once might be impossible for both of us.
With no warning, for the first time in a long while, my amulet warms against my skin, and the glow of my hands brightens.
Thank you, Aryd. Better late than never.
Hoping I’m doing this right, I lift. It’s heavy. I knew it would be, given it’s wet sand. I just didn’t expect to feel it so much, for my own muscles to strain. My arms are shuddering, like I’m actually holding the sand.
“Meren!” a familiar velvet-and-iron voice calls out sharply.
I jerk my hands away, dropping the sand as I open my eyes to find Reven standing right in front of me.
“Meren?” I am only vaguely aware that Cain is calling my name. “Meren? Where are you?”
Reven is teetering at the edge of the drop. Only I know it’s not Reven.
72
Maelstrom
Reven’s face isn’t right. His eyes. They aren’t usually that shade. I dream of his eyes. I know his eyes, his face, as if I’ve known him all my life. These eyes are…duller. Lifeless.
