Page 46 of The Stolen Throne
My mind is spinning like the toy top that goes with that Sur game.
Eidolon doesn’t wait for me to speak. “With a thirst for human blood, the Devourers went on a rampage through the lands, decimating Imperium and Vexillium alike. Despite the humans rising against them causing all of this, the goddesses still loved their people, especially the Imperium, who were their own descendants. The goddesses attempted to kill their bloodthirsty consorts, but, in the end, they couldn’t do that to their heartmates. So, instead, they cast the monsters into the seas and created protections for the dominions against them.”
This part is sounding more familiar. Not the casting out, but the protections at every dominion’s borders to keep out the Devourers. That’s well-known.
“Aryd raised her glass walls. Tyndra formed unmelting icebergs in the channels around her dominion. Tropikis sank the center of her lands, creating massive stone walls keeping the waters out, the fall from which would kill even a Devourer. Wildernyss lifted her mountains high in the sky and pulled her people into the heart of the lands, away from the edges. Savanah protected the seaward side of her dominion with massive rocks and showed her people how to build their watchtowers and walls. The dominion of Mariana has always had their large bay, but their goddess put the great whirlpool at the entrance to keep the Devourers out, though the Reverie now lurks there.”
I think of my one encounter with a Devourer—the Hollow, a massive octopus-like creature that sucks out his victims’ insides. I thought he came for me because his voice had sounded in my head. I’d never known of anyone hearing a Devourer talk to them.
But if that monster is basically a demigod…
Eidolon isn’t done. “But now the people blamed the goddesses for the Devourers, growing angry as well as greedy, cursing their makers. Until finally two twin princesses of Aryd…”
He may as well have reached out a ghostly hand and slapped me hard. The mention of the twins—of the women who had to be my ancestors—this can’t be a mere bedtime story or a fairytale this spirit is spinning. Is this his truth?
I manage not to flinch or move or even blink, and he keeps going.
“These Imperium princesses laid a trap. On their coronation day to become queens and rule Aryd together, they invited the goddesses to come and bless their reign and to establish a new peace with their people. Only the princesses lied.”
Anger curls through Eidolon’s voice like a lick of flame.
I think I’m going to be sick.
“The morning of the coronation was auspicious. The princesses were to ascend on the day of the Celestial Alignment, when the sun and all three moons in full fill our skies together. It happens every one hundred years.”
That deep voice descends to a snarl. “The goddesses, all six of them, took that timing as a sign and arrived in good faith, but the sisters were waiting. From each of the different deserts of their dominion, the twin who was Hylorae with a power over sand formed unbreakable glass amulets.”
My entire world narrows to what this spirit is saying, my heart thudding.
My power.
Wait… My amulet?
It lies nestled under my clothing, where I keep it hidden. I haven’t even told Reven about it yet. Wrapped in a thin metal filigree, the jagged glass the size of a small scarab beetle is unexpectedly smooth to the touch. I know from holding it.
“Into each of these amulets, the twin who was Enfernae bound the goddesses’ souls, trapping them inside. The process killed the soul wielder, leaving only one queen of Aryd to reign.”
Can he hear my heart slamming against my rib cage, pounding so hard it hurts? It will be a bloody pulp inside my chest at this rate.
“The goddesses weren’t inherently evil like the queens believed,” he assures me in a voice gone gruffer now, almost…shattered. An emotion I never once saw in the king I was trapped with all those months. Emotion that seems real as I study his hazy features with wide eyes.
“The goddesses were heartbroken and lonely, and, like the humans modeled after them, they were equal parts good and evil, selfishness and selflessness, right and wrong.” Eidolon takes a deep breath. “The man who shed me was a young king of Tyndra, newly crowned at the time. He was there that day and watched in horror as his goddess was imprisoned in one of those amulets.”
Eidolon was there?
“He grabbed the amulet with Tyndra inside and shadowed away before the remaining Arydian queen could kill him, too.”
He raises his gaze to mine, turquoise eyes paler than I’m used to thanks to his ghostly form, and I swear his eyes soften as he reaches out to cup my cheek. Not that I can feel his touch beyond an odd sense of cold. “So you see, young queen of Aryd, not everything is as it seems.”
I curl my hands into my clothes, trying not to let him see. If he’s telling the truth, the amulet I’ve been carrying around has a goddess trapped inside it. My goddess?
One put there by my own ancestresses.
I’m trying to control my breathing so he won’t know how I’m about to lose it, reaching for any way to calm myself down. “Is this why the goddesses have been silent? Why they haven’t heard our prayers?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you telling me this? Do you think we should help…errr…current you?”
