Page 99 of The Stolen Throne
The queen goes up in my estimation when her only reaction is to stare, first at me, then at Bene, in a calm, assessing way. She’s heard Reven’s story already and knows what he is, who he is. As if she’d been through enough in her life that a shadowman shed from an ageless, rotten king wasn’t going to shake her, Istrella had taken that surprisingly in stride.
But it’s not every day you encounter a Devourer and live.
She studies him. “I thought he’d be bigger.”
He fluffs his sandy feathers. “I like this queen. She is honest and calm.”
“He’s travel size at the moment,” I say.
“I dislike that description.”
Istrella takes all this in with only a slight lift of her brows. “It seems you have much more to tell me.”
At her urging, Horus and Hakan sit. Reven, however, goes to a window on the other side of the room, his back to us. To me, so I can’t see his face. She spares him a glance but leaves it alone. Then she starts to ask questions. Even as we answer her, I wonder if Queen Istrella believes a single word—even with the book we can show her, and my amulet, and Bene as proof.
Eventually, she runs out of things to ask.
We wait for her to say something. Anything. But she continues to sit with her back straight as an arrow, hands folded within the material of her sleeves on her lap. She’s quiet so long, I glance at the others. Vos shrugs, but Horus gives me an encouraging nod.
“Oh dear,” the queen sort of sighs to herself.
Oh dear and off with our heads? Oh dear and she’ll help us? I’m not fluent in that kind of oh dear.
She glances down, fluffing her sleeves with a small lift of her arms, then lifts her gaze. “I, too, have a story to share.”
I blink. At least twice. An uneasy whisper of the shadows within my scar have me glancing to Reven, but his back is to the room still. Lately I only feel him like that when his control is slipping. Arms crossed, he’s staring out the window. He doesn’t look like he’s struggling.
I gesture for Istrella to continue.
“My king and I are bondmates.” Her smile is soft, wistful, and pained.
A sound of surprise squeaks out of me before I can stop it. Soul binding is serious magic. Rarely done. A vow and ritual well beyond simple marriage. One reserved for two people who trust each other implicitly. More than that, two people who don’t just want to be together but who have to. Through the rest of eternity. From this life into Allusian, the hells, or the next life.
A compulsion. Fate. No one is entirely sure.
“We met as children. I’ve adored him all my life. And we were happy. Blissful. He loved my hair so much, I promised never to cut it.” She lifts her arm like she might touch a lock but drops it back into her lap and clears her throat. “Years ago now, my king lost his dear mother in a sudden hunting accident. In his grief, Trysolde was befriended by Eidolon, who encouraged him to go to the burning lands.” She glances at me. “I believe you call it the Land of Eternal Death.”
There are two of us in the room from Aryd, and Horus and I both exchange a wary look. Our Sacred Tree, which never stops burning, sits at the top of the entrance of Muertum Canyon, which borders those lands. Guards them.
Not much is known beyond those lands being a gateway to souls in the afterlife.
The queen continues. “Trysolde went there seeking to commune with his mother’s soul, but he returned to me days later in a…state. He said a spirit in those lands told him where to find an amulet that could cure his sadness.”
Every single one of us sits forward at this, and Reven, still at the window, stiffens, then slowly turns.
The queen visibly has to gather herself. “Trysolde started digging throughout the Zirium Groves for this trinket.”
“Did he find it?” Reven demands, his voice missing its usual velvet.
Istrella nods, but a shaft of worry slices through my hope because her expression goes flat-lipped and desolate. “It’s similar to Meren’s, though his is made of a black glass. After he found it…he started to change.”
Change? That sounds ominous. And familiar. I’m thinking of Tabra. “How?”
“He started talking to it.”
Talking to it? I meet Reven’s hard gaze over Istrella’s head.
“Small ways at first,” Istrella says. “But then his thoughts, his words, turned darker, and he grew…” She shakes her head. “Distant. Not himself.”
