Page 17 of The Stolen Throne
“Who said I’m nervous?”
He huffs a laugh that I’m pretty sure is disbelief and speeds up again, muttering something under his breath.
I stumble, then have to trot to catch up again. “What?”
He doesn’t answer for a second, then says, “If Cain beats me back to where we left the horses, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
I’m pretty sure that’s not what he said, but I get that now’s not the time to have a chat about our relationship, so I leave it. Except he’s walking too fast again. And acting grim in a way that’s starting to make me as twitchy as he is.
“Hey.” I reach for his arm.
He stops entirely and steps away from my touch in a deliberate way that is impossible to misinterpret. That stings. “Okay. What is going on with you?”
His hands move to his hips, but he’s staring at the ground. Why won’t he look at me?
“Reven?” I don’t try to touch him again.
His jaw works. “That wasn’t me. That got us out of the palace. I wasn’t the one who controlled the shadows.”
8
If Not You,
Then…
I don’t understand. Reven didn’t make the shadows get us out of the palace? Sure as the sun rises, Eidolon didn’t do it. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” He looks at me finally, and I can see the worry etching lines around his eyes.
He doesn’t know. How is that possible? “Are you trying to confuse me?”
“No.”
“Scare me, then?”
He gives a little growl of frustration. “No. Although, as usual, you should be more afraid than you are.”
“I hide it better than most,” I quip. I’m not entirely being sarcastic, either. I have been flat-out terrified for months straight with none the wiser.
His snort is unamused. “I knew my control was shaky, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“How bad is bad?”
“I tried to get us away, but it didn’t work.”
That’s bad. “Did the Shadows stop you, or Eidolon?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the Shadows get us out of there?” It makes no sense, but I have to ask.
He runs an agitated hand through his hair, standing it up in spiky chunks. “Meren, I’m telling you I have no idea.”
I think he might be really shaken up about this.
Except why? Whatever happened, it got us safely away, right? “Maybe you did it on instinct?”
I’ve done that before, when I was first coming into my powers over sand.
