Page 14 of The Stolen Throne
Finally, he sighs. “Do you think you can get all four of us out?” he asks Reven.
“Only if I don’t use my powers until that moment. And I won’t be able to get us very far.”
I frown. Given his appearance and the fact that he didn’t shadow me out of here to start with, I’m guessing he’s still pretty weak. Is this why he couldn’t come sooner? Just how bad was he when we got separated?
“I’ll go get Achlys and bring her back here,” Cain says. “Meren stays in her room in case Eidolon checks, and you hide in here. When we get back, Reven gets us all out. Agreed?”
I blow out a silent breath. I hate this plan, but I refuse to leave her behind. Eidolon will kill her, or use her as bait, or something unfathomably worse. “Best guess is she’s in the prisons. Do you need me to describe the way?”
His lips quirk, a gleam entering his eyes that I’ve missed seeing so much. “Who taught you to sneak around? I’ll find it.”
I roll my eyes. “Knowing a few details wouldn’t hurt, though.”
He sobers. “Tell me.”
In a lowered voice, I explain the easiest way to get there and back safely. When I finish, Cain shoots me a wink, then leaves, striding out of the little room, across my chamber, then out the door with a confidence I’m far from feeling. I follow and sit on my bed and make myself count to a hundred. Then do it again.
No Eidolon.
Maybe he only detects me?
I glance toward the wall that hides my Shadowraith behind it. What I want to do is talk to Reven, just in case something goes wrong getting away from here. Just in case this is the last moment we have together. It’s a risk, but I go back to the hidden room, closing the panel door behind me. He doesn’t bother acting surprised.
Looking at Reven, an ache blooms in my chest. So little time. “I could see you.”
His expression flickers with confusion, his only reaction.
“The glass flower I gave you is a tiny portal, remember? The glass is too warped and layered for me to send anything through. But I could see you sometimes—distorted parts of you. And I could…listen.” At first. Before my powers lessened.
He blows out a long breath.
“Did you ever hear me?” I have to know. “I called to you at night.” Every single night.
That tic at the side of his eye sets off again. “Once.”
My heart leaps. He could hear me. I don’t know why that means so much, but it does. But…only once?
“For a long time, I was too weak, and all I could hear were Ei—” He breaks off, grimacing like he’s in pain. I guess the Shadows still don’t like him talking about Eidolon. “I thought I was conjuring you in my head or maybe hearing one of the people in trouble.”
He’s talking about the Vanished. They are refugees now. They need him. More than they need me, even. “If we run into trouble getting away, I want you to leave me—”
He crosses to me in two strides, hands on either side of my face, fingers slipping into my hair, expression as intense as I’ve ever seen, which is saying a lot. “I’m not leaving you again.”
The dull knife of separation that has been cutting away at me all these months—I see it in his eyes, too, the determination flattening his lips, feel it in the urgent squeeze of his grip. Being away from him like that…it hurt. Because of our new, untried feelings for each other, or because of the shadow rite we performed to heal me and the connection it formed—I’m not sure which. Our scars bind us, I think. Though we haven’t had time to explore this…this bond between us.
Still don’t.
The shadows gutter, flickering in the dim light of the single candle, and a glimmer of a face—another face—crosses his. One of the Shadows. Reven’s ocean eyes take on an unrelenting glitter, sharp as obsidian glass.
No. Not Reven’s eyes.
I wrap my hands around his wrists, brushing my thumbs over the silvery, puckered scars there, so similar to mine, made the same way but a long time ago. A shudder passes through him and into me and grounds both of us, and Reven returns to me, the Shadow gone.
“He needs me too much to kill me,” he manages. The “yet” hangs in the air between us. “But he can’t have you. He can’t—”
“I’m not who he wants.” Not really. My ability to make portals would be handy for him, but that’s about it. “You’re who he wants. You and…” Oh goddess, how selfish am I? I haven’t asked about my sister. I bite my lip. “How is Tabra?”
His stillness says all I need to know. She was in bad shape last time I saw her. I’d been hoping distance from Eidolon would help. I guess not.
