Page 91 of The Stolen Throne
I gasp and look back up at Reven in time to see three faces cross his features in rapid succession—all furious and snarling. His gaze narrows on me, and he takes a halting step closer. Except it’s like he’s being held back, forcing himself forward against an unseeable thing. Is Reven fighting the Shadows?
That’s what it looks like. Shackles.
He manages another agonizing step forward, and Horus jumps in his way. “I can’t let you near her—”
In a wisp of misty shadow, Reven disappears only to reappear behind Horus in a crouch, one foot out as he sweeps Horus’s legs out from under him with a spinning maneuver.
Horus hasn’t even hit the ground when Reven disappears in another wisp of lingering shadow just before a blast of lightning torches the spot where he’d been.
On a gasp, we all look around, Horus rushing back to his feet. Our heads might as well be on swivels as we search for Reven, but he’s gone. Bene gives a low warning growl, the sand at the back of his neck raising like hackles on a wolf.
“Where is he?” I whisper.
Vos steps closer, a hand on my shoulder. “I won’t let him—”
Reven appears in front of us and lands a punch to Vos’s face hard enough that I hear the crack of bone. Then he’s gone, only fading shadow where he stood.
“Stop him!” Vos shouts.
A cloud of shadow suddenly seems to bubble up from the very ground. Moving impossibly fast, it surrounds us in a circle of undulating blackness so thick the winds that have been snatching at us all this time stop completely.
Bene takes off only for a whip of shadow to lash out, catching him by a hind leg. He dangles in the air like a fish on a hook.
What comes next happens so fast, I can hardly track the action. Hakan blasts another bolt at the shadow, but the bolt sizzles around the circle of it, lighting it up in flashes from the inside like lightning in a rolling thunderstorm. As the last flash of light dies, another whip of shadow shoots out and drags both Hakan and Horus into the cloud of darkness before spitting them back out in an unconscious heap. Vos blasts ice into the heart of the shadow only for the ice to go straight up before it touches the darkness, like it’s hit a wall. Then a fist of shadow punches through the ice to take him by the throat and throw him into the sky.
“Bene!” I yell.
Maybe Hakan’s lightning cut him loose. He shoots off in chase of Vos.
In another blink of wispy shadow, Reven appears again, this time crouched directly in front of me—too fast for anyone to stop him.
Pella throws herself over Cain’s body. “Don’t!” she yells and grabs for Reven. To what? Try to use her powers to force him to calm?
Between the faces still cycling across his features, I catch glimpses of Reven. He’s still in there, thank the goddesses. Maybe I can get to him. Pull him out. I’ve done it before.
When he reaches for me, I don’t scramble away.
Gaze locked with mine, he touches a single finger to my cheek where Cain struck me. I feel more than see the instant he regains control. The Shadows stop—no more faces, no more struggle. The cloud of darkness surrounding us sucks back inside him, leaving just us. Me and Reven.
A squeak comes out of me that I think is relief, or disbelief, or maybe shock.
A terrible fear flashes in his eyes a second before he lowers his gaze. Then Reven takes a shuddering breath as he forces himself shakily to his feet, then inches slowly back.
40
All the
Problems
“What the hells was that, Reven?” Pella demands, still hovering protectively over Cain, who is back to silently out cold.
Horus groans, lifting to his elbow right as Hakan gets to his feet and Bene arrives with Vos dangling from one talon. They aren’t trying to stop Reven anymore. They see it, too, that he’s fully in control.
For now.
Reven’s own disbelief disappears behind that wall of unemotional nothing he’s perfected so well. He looks away from me. “I don’t know.”
Vos strides across the ice to get right in his face, not touching but pissed. “No, you don’t get to say you don’t know. What the blazes was that?”
