Page 122 of The Stolen Throne
Oh no.
Cain grabs my wrist and jerks me away before I have a chance to brace myself for what I know is coming.
Shadow explodes from Reven. The familiarity of the silence, the nothingness that takes me over for several heartbeats, strikes a chord of horror, because I know what he’s doing.
This is the same as the night in the Shadowood when he obliterated the soldiers and barbarians bearing down on us. The same night he trapped their souls there, turning that safe haven into something evil.
I exist in that emptiness long enough to whisper his name, not that the sound penetrates the nothingness around me. Then my vision returns abruptly, the sensation like running into a wall. I barely have time to see that not a soul stands on the other side of the portal, every soldier gone as if they’d never existed.
Only Eidolon still stands there, untouched, his face etched in shock.
Then his lips stretch into a wide, crooked smile, turquoise eyes glittering with unholy delight. “Look at what you did.” His gaze slides to me. “Even you can be corrupted. If it’s for her.”
Reven’s eyes roll back in his head, and he collapses, hitting the ground with a heavy thud.
Movement from the other side of the portal has me tearing my gaze from him as Eidolon raises his glowing hands.
On a guttural cry, I throw my hands up with only one thought, and the glass of Istrella’s magical portal shatters.
51
Letting Go
A breathless silence hangs over the room. Shards of glass are suspended in the air like raindrops that froze in time. On a shriek, I shut off the power and drop my hands, and all the glass falls to the stone floor with a tinkling hiss.
Tziah makes it to Reven’s side first. She looks up, signing that he’s okay, just out cold.
Shock is starting to take over. I’m vaguely aware of the others talking as I’m staring at Reven and going back over what happened.
Mother goddess, what he did…how fast he went so dark. He’s going to add that to his heaping plate of guilt. And I shattered a portal. Istrella’s secret portal. And what if Reven can’t come back? Eidolon’s Shadows are in charge, and I can’t…
Cain is in my face, giving my shoulders a tiny shake. “We have to get out of here. Meren.” Another shake. “Can you do it?”
Do it? I blink at him.
“Make a portal,” he says. His dark brown eyes are imploring and frustrated at the same time.
A portal? Reality whips through me. Eidolon saw where we were. He can’t make a portal, but the bastard can shadow. We can’t stay here.
I glance at the ground. The remnants of the other portal are scattered all around me.
Please, goddess, let this work again. I just need incentive, right? Not having Eidolon show up while Reven is unconscious should do the trick.
Lifting shaking hands, I pull my power forward again in a tingling rush of warmth. It happens at the pace of a sand slug, but the glass forms little dunes that merge until I have one pile. When I will the mass to change form, it does, turning golden and glowing with the heat, melting and molding together until new glass begins to form into a solid piece.
Relief is a stomach-clenching twist when, on the first try, I make something usable that doesn’t shatter or fall over. Thank the goddess.
Black dots dance across my vision. I pushed myself too hard, too fast. I might pass out, but at least we’ll be able to get away from here.
As soon as it stops glowing, I put my hand to it and picture the portal I want to go through on the other side. I grab Cain’s arm to steady myself. “Go,” I tell the others. “Fast.”
We’re through the portal to Yolyn Zag, Reven dragged by Horus and Vos together, Cain practically carrying me despite his own injuries, and trying not to draw attention to ourselves—which is pretty damn impossible, given our various modes of dress, all for colder weather, the bloody state of some of us, and the unconscious Shadowraith who looks like King Eidolon in our midst.
Cain and Pella leave the rest of us hunkered down in the temple with Reven and return fairly quickly with clothes and horses for all of us. I don’t bother asking how. They manage to throw Reven over one horse’s back and disguise him as a sack of supplies. By some miracle, we make our way out through the city and beyond into the desert without incident.
Which means Eidolon, Quinten, and their men haven’t tracked us down.
Or they have but decided not to attack. Yet.
