Page 210 of The Stolen Throne
“Let’s never do that again,” he groans.
“Agreed,” I manage between harsh breaths.
With a trumpet of sound, Bene lands in the courtyard, wings spread wide, standing between where I am and where the Tropikan soldiers who survived what Cain and I did are being gathered in a group with the wall at their back.
As if that call wakes her up, Achlys gives a small, helpless sound. “Tabra.” The way my head is angled, I can see how she drops to her knees and pulls my sister’s head into her lap.
“Is she…?” Cain can’t even finish the question.
“She’s alive,” Achlys says without lifting her gaze. “I think she’s…”
She doesn’t say healed, but that’s what she is. Because Eidolon fixed her insides. Eidolon still needs her. I can’t work up the will to tell them right now.
Pella arrives next, crouching beside Cain, Hakan standing right behind her. Crossing his arms like a watchful bodyguard, he gives me a single silent nod. Pella puts a flattened hand over her brother’s heart—a gesture among the Wanderers of the truest caring. I expect something like “What the hells were you thinking?” to come out of her mouth. Instead, she takes a shuddering breath. Is she…crying? “Are you okay?” she asks him softly.
Cain pats her hand. “I’ll need to rest for a month after that. But…yeah.”
Not moving away from him, she looks at me, deep brown eyes not hard but soft for once as she scans me from head to toe. Another breath punches from her like she’s actually relieved I’m in one piece. Then she ruins the moment. “You know, for a pampered princess, you have a certain gift for violence.”
“I’m not the one dripping in blood,” I point out. She glances down, eyebrows flying up likes she’s surprised that I’m right.
Zariph Cainis, held up between Ledenon and a now freed Magda, hobbles over to stare down at us. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
The way he’s looking around us, the satisfaction and pride on his face, makes me lift my head only to blanch at the sight of hundreds of bodies piled at the main gates of the palace, where the water must’ve pushed them.
“I killed them.” I don’t realize I said it out loud until Cain’s hand lands on my booted foot.
“No.” Cain’s voice is hard, full of conviction. “King Panqui sent them into battle for an ally he should never have trusted. It was us or them. You did what you had to.”
The thing is, I know he’s right. Knowing doesn’t lift the awful weight of guilt—more guilt. I have so many forms of it—trying to crush me to dust. I’m also horribly aware that under the guilt and horror, the pain of losing Reven and everything else hovers at my edges, waiting for the right moment to take my legs out from under me. To shatter me. Hells…the Shadows I now carry could bury my soul inside my own body and take control at any second.
Only, they’re still quiet.
So why do I hear screaming—not inside but outside—as if the battle is still raging? I frown, then realize what those gruesome sounds are. The Flesh Reapers are still tearing the city apart.
Which means…Vos.
I spin around and search for where I saw him last. Sure enough, he’s still frozen in a tomb of his own making, standing like a statue erected to Tyndra at the other end of the courtyard. Tziah is standing beside him, arms crossed. I don’t have to be close to tell she’s ready to fight anyone who even tries to come near him.
Nova help us. Tonight is like a nightmare that will never end.
I’m tired. So tired. I drop my chin to my knees, my head too heavy to keep up. I don’t want to do this anymore. Be this anymore. I close my eyes. Maybe someone else will make all the decisions and deal with this aftermath.
“Domina?” Horus’s voice is hushed, and I open my eyes to find him standing at my side. In a sweeping movement, he drops to one knee, a fist over his heart. “My queen.”
I open my mouth on a protest. I am not the queen. Tabra is.
Except…
The zariph suddenly shakily drops to one knee with the same gesture. “My queen.”
What is happening?
Magda and Ledenon drop next. Same gesture. Same words. Then Pella and Hakan.
The surviving Wanderers and Vanished surrounding us follow suit in a wave that ripples outward from where I still sit in a heap.
Cain pushes to his knees to do the same.
