Page 201 of The Stolen Throne
The amulet remains whole.
Tabra’s mouth works as if she’s trying to get words out. But it’s the ghost’s voice that speaks…wheezes… “She…can’t. It’s…not…working.”
“It has to work,” Eidolon growls, sounding more like Reven than I’ve ever heard. He draws a deep breath, then commands, “We’re almost out of time. Release my mother. Now.”
Reven’s shock is like a thunderbolt inside me.
Eidolon’s mother? That’s what he said. Not only his goddess but his mother. Reven’s, too, in a weird way.
The glow around the amulet spikes as the darkness around my sister tightens, winding like a snake, and she tosses their head back and shouts—both my sister and the ghost inside her. A drawn-out, guttural cry as her light turns blinding.
Eidolon is going to kill her.
I lunge toward the king. “Let her go!”
Only strong arms wrap around me and hold me back. My yelp is cut off as those arms tighten painfully. I jerk my gaze to the side. Holy horrors. Reven is no longer dangling in the air, held by Eidolon’s shadows. He is the one holding me prisoner now. Forced to by Eidolon?
A dark, grating laugh echoes through my head. Like Reven, but not.
“Can’t have that, love.” Shadow nuzzles the side of my hair. “You thought you could control us with some curse? We were biding our time.”
“You truly are pathetic.” A harsher version of Reven’s voice echoes in my ears, in my head, through me.
Another one, silkier but nastier, sounds next. “Played right into our hands.”
Reven’s arms convulse, his jaw tightening so hard I can hear his teeth grind. He’s fighting the king’s Shadows in control of his body. I can see it.
“No.” Reven’s voice is like a tear in the fabric of night.
But I felt it. Felt him. He was here with me for a heartbeat…and then gone.
Shadow chuckles. “All it took was a little song and dance to make you think we’ll help you. That we listen to her.”
Yet another of Shadow’s voices, a guttural version this time, joins the fray. “Now she is ours. Soulbound.”
“King Eidolon, you murdering bastard!” a new, harsh voice cries out.
Omma.
She prowls toward us through the melee, her fury-filled gaze pinned to the king. “You have many deaths of my kin to answer for.”
What is she doing, going up against him like this?
She shoots me a glance that I’m sure the king doesn’t catch, but I recognize it as Omma telling me to take advantage of the distraction she’s creating.
“Another twin.” Eidolon sneers.
And she’s right—the king’s focus is not on me. I close my eyes and, the way I do with sand, reach for the power I’m supposed to have over shadow, trying to ignore the doubts Shadow’s words lodged in me.
“Let me go,” I silently command.
Did his arms loosen? I’m not sure.
“Your desperation is showing, old king,” Omma taunts.
I focus harder. Maybe the power isn’t in me but in Eidolon. I’m just a tap into a well. I picture his light, the purple glow not in his hands but inside him, and reach for it with my mind.
“Let me go.”
