Page 50 of The Stolen Throne
I reach out a hand only to drop it to my side as more emotions follow.
Despair. Refusal… Determination.
I swallow hard around the lump in my throat that might be my heart dying.
He lifts his head, and the walls are back, higher and thicker than before. He’s decided. “Do you really think it would make me happy to watch you get hurt because of me? Or see you lose everything because of me?” His expression hardens. Uncrackable. “It won’t. Don’t be selfish, Meren.”
He might as well have punched me in the stomach.
“I will stay. We can’t let Eidolon get to me, and I’ll do everything in my power to help you. But this…us…” Another step away. “Cain’s right. You have to let me go.”
Then he walks away, leaving me there, staring after him. At the edge of the camp, he pauses like he might turn back. He doesn’t. He keeps going until he’s out of sight.
Part 3
Critical Position
22
Like Before
I wait awhile before I bother to move, mostly because I can’t make myself. And when I do, Reven’s footprints in the sand mock me almost the entire way back to the zariphate camp, more and more obvious as the dawn breaks. I only diverge from the path he took earlier when I get close enough to go to the back of Tabra’s tent.
I don’t enter immediately, taking time to try to get myself together.
The thing is, I have only a few people I have ever gone to when I’m upset. I didn’t even share all my problems with Cain all these years. But my sister…she’s the one I seek when I need comfort. When I crave the kind of touch that helps me know I’m not as alone as I feel.
Dropping to my belly, I roll under the siding and into the room. Immediately, Achlys sits up from where she was lying on a pallet beside Tabra, but she cuts off her squeak of alarm as soon as she recognizes me.
I don’t move from where I am in case I upset Tabra and need to leave quickly. “How is she?”
“Meren?” Tabra’s thready voice hurts to hear. If only I could make her sound stronger. I know I can’t, and that’s what hurts. I can’t will her better.
“I’m here.” I move closer. At a quick nod from Achlys, I dare to drop to my knees on Tabra’s other side, and I smile. “Hi.”
“It wasn’t a dream?” She looks from my face to Achlys’s.
Achlys links her pinkie finger with my sister’s. “No, tesara. Not a dream.”
Tears leak out of Tabra’s eyes, running down her temples, and all I can think is that she can’t afford to lose even that much water from her frail body. “I wasn’t sure.” She looks toward the doorway that is letting in a sliver of sunlight.
I wait. I give her time and hold back the hoard of questions that I want to ask.
Eventually, she looks at me. “What happened?”
I know what she’s asking. I make a face.
“What? You don’t think I can handle it?”
Pretty much. “It’s not that. It’s just…a lot.”
Her cracked lips twitch. We’ve had these conversations before. Often. We would sometimes go months without seeing each other. In those days, when I said it was a lot, I was joking. Our lives were unremarkable in how nothing changed, especially when we were apart. She did princess things. I did the things I did, mostly listening to Omma’s lessons. I used to babble when I’d get nervous, but in general I’m not much of a sharer.
Probably comes from having to keep secrets since infancy.
“Tell me one good thing and one bad thing.” Which is how Tabra always used to get me talking.
“I can leave,” Achlys offers.
