Page 189 of The Stolen Throne
I look eagerly around for my sister, but other than us, no one else is in the room. “Where’s Tabra?”
“We split up. Omma insisted that if all the other sick, injured, and dying were in the streets, Tabra should be, too. Tziah and I were at the pub and came back right away.” Vos glances out the window. “They’ve been out there a while. I imagine they’ll be back any second.”
I hate waiting.
But still, seeing the change in Vos, knowing what the king’s power tried to do to me, I buzz with the anticipation of finally seeing Tabra well. Tziah is grinning ear to ear, and I have to join her. This is something to celebrate.
“This is good,” Reven says to Vos.
That’s his version of celebration.
I can’t help but chuckle, because behind that stoic countenance is a deep well of relief. I always suspected my Shadowraith was like the icebergs that surround Tyndra—only the summit showing, and an entire mountain hidden under still waters.
“That’s all you’re going to say?” I tease.
Vos holds out a hand, eye twinkling, and Reven grasps it forearm to forearm. They both draw each other in for a hug, slapping each other’s backs. That’s when Reven’s lips finally tip up. Tziah bounces on her toes, hands clasped together, and Vos opens one arm to her so that she can burrow into his side.
“Holy hells and—” Pella’s exclamation as she enters is cut off by Hakan’s, who is right behind her: “Crone’s eyes.”
Savanahan slang, I’m guessing, and I laugh out loud because the man hardly ever speaks. Color rises in his cheeks, all the way up into the shaved parts of his hair. “My apologies, domina.”
Omma comes in right behind them, slowing as she catches sight of Vos. But unlike the others, she doesn’t comment. Instead, she looks straight at me, and my stomach drops like a cannon ball.
Because I know.
This isn’t Omma being Omma. This is…
No. I swallow. “Where is she?”
The others fall quiet. A second later, Horus comes through the door, Tabra clutched in his arms, and my heart shrinks like a dried prune in the sun.
She looks exactly the same.
Vos was sick but mobile, and he looks like he could move mountains. But Tabra…why isn’t she healed? Hells, the Rites even tried to take my shadows from me, and I was perfectly fine otherwise.
But Tabra is still dying.
She doesn’t even lift her head from Horus’s shoulder as she looks at me. “Don’t worry, sissy.”
I have to put my grief somewhere, so I tuck my hand behind my back and worry at the signet ring, turning it round and round. “We’ll find another way.”
Vos drops his head forward like he can’t stand to look. Even Omma turns her back to Tabra, though I can see her face just fine. She looks the way I feel.
Like I’m dying inside along with my sister. Rotting with it.
“What’s going on in—” Cain’s scowl as he enters the room clears the instant he sets eyes on Vos. “What the hells happened to you, brother? You look terrible.” He can’t even hold it in for more than a beat before he grins. Then Horus turns and Cain catches sight of Tabra.
That familiar grin fades. “Ah hells, Meren.” His hands go to his hips, and he takes a big breath. He doesn’t take his pained gaze from my sister when he quietly says, “That makes what I have to share even worse.”
Cain steps out of the doorway, and Ledenon moves into view, eyeing us gravely.
Reven goes cold beside me, inside me. Everyone else goes as still as an oasis on a windless day, because they know the same thing I do.
No way would the Mighty Zariph Cainis send us his best warrior unless something went terribly wrong.
81
Closing In
