Page 12 of The Stolen Throne
“The wide-open window.” The harsh, slightly accusatory grumble has me leaning to the side to look over Reven’s shoulder and straight into the deep brown eyes of my best friend.
Cain.
His expression is a sandstorm, but we have bigger problems than whatever crawled up his ass.
The window… Oh goddess.
Eidolon will have felt someone come into my room with those blasted shadow wards of his. He’s going to show up any second. Fear wraps around my heart and squeezes until I think it might pop.
With frantic hands, I push at Reven to let me go. At first, he tightens his grip, but then he finally gets the message and sets me down. I put a finger over my lips, then, as fast as I can, shove both him and Cain across the room.
I open the hidden panel in the wall. Swinging the door wider, I usher them both inside. Eidolon doesn’t know about this space. I don’t think so, at least, though clearly I have no idea what the king does and doesn’t know. Maybe his shadow alarm is only at the windows and doors?
I shove them in there. “Don’t make a sound,” I whisper.
But before I can shut the door on two sets of thundering scowls, Reven slams a hand out, stopping me. “We were hiding in this room when you and the king came in.”
I stop at that, staring at him, trying to reset my thinking and my rushing pulse at the same time. If they were already here before the wards went up…
I guess that buys us a reprieve, but better safe than dead, and we shouldn’t take our time.
Without a word, I rush back out into my room and reach under the mattress to grasp the amulet hidden there and slip it into the breastband under my fancy ball gown.
My amulet, not Eidolon’s.
This one was passed down from hidden twin to hidden twin. I thought it had been helping me, amplifying my powers, but it’s been cold and unresponsive since I got stuck here. Afraid he’d take it, I hid it months ago because it’s so similar to Eidolon’s, though mine is made of white lightning glass instead of blue.
I return to the room to find Reven standing in the doorway, watching. He steps aside to let me in, closing the door behind me.
Which is when I get a better look at him. He looks awful—the sharpness of his features now gaunt, skin tanner than before but somehow still more wan underneath, dark circles under his eyes that look almost like bruises. What have the king’s Shadows been doing to him? Or is this the result of his wound? Is this why it took him so long to rescue me?
“You came.” The words are a whisper.
He gives me a solemn nod, gaze searching my face. “You doubted I would?”
Did I hurt him with that question?
“No.” I’ve been so alone…so afraid. “More like, what took so long?”
Cain clears his throat, a sound that might be a cough or a laugh.
I look over at my best friend, who wants to make me his heartmate. Who wanted me to leave Aryd and Eidolon and all our problems behind for my sister to deal with alone and disappear into the desert with him. The same man I sent away because I was hells-bent on taking down the king.
Much good that did me.
I glance between him and Reven. Wait. They came together?
I would have paid good money to be there for that.
Cain watches me, his expression not warm and smiling, like he normally is with me, but instead lined with a stiff sort of betrayal that penetrates my heart like a knife slipping slowly between my ribs.
But the threat of Eidolon turning back up means I can’t deal with him right now. With either of them.
I cross my arms. “I can’t leave.”
Eidolon will know if I do.
And I’m not leaving Achlys behind.
