Page 53 of The Stolen Throne
Then I remember. What the ghost of Eidolon said. Something bigger. “What?”
His expression darkens. “The Elimination.”
Bile hits my throat so fast the sting of it is almost too much, but I swallow it and my shock back down as I stare at Cain.
The Elimination…the Devourer who swims the oceans surrounding Aryd. A Devourer is here? Here? In the center of the desert. How is that remotely possible? All of those monsters live in the oceans. And our walls…
Goddess above. Our glass walls that keep us safe. Did they fall?
A roar rattles the sand again, and the tents all around me shudder, one toppling over.
Seven hells, this is going to be a bloodbath.
We sprint through the camp in the direction of the sound. “Are the legends true?” I ask. “Is the Elimination made of sand?”
Cain says nothing. I shoot him a glance. His jaw is so hard he could be made of glass.
“Cain? Is it?”
“Reven is right,” he bites out. “You have to stay safe.”
That’s not an answer but tells me a lot all the same. He knows me—I’ll try to stop it if it’s made of sand. Fear churns so hard in my belly it creates waves. What good am I against a Devourer? Maybe I should listen to him. Let the warriors of the Wanderers and any Imperium from both them and the Vanished deal with this.
And I would…except my power is over sand. I can try to do something if the Elimination is made of the stuff.
The amulet against my skin warms. Assuming that story wasn’t lies and my goddess is inside, is she urging me to move? I’m still turned upside down after the conversation with the ghost. There’s still so much to unpack, but I don’t have time.
A thick plume of sand bursts into the night sky with that same thundering, strange boom, somewhere between a crack and a sizzle. In the same instant, over the tops of the tents, a massive figure rears back only to crash forward.
Holy terror straight out of the hells.
Cain sprints ahead of me and slows us both with a hand raised behind him. Together, not needing to be silent because the Elimination is making so much noise on its own, we use the cover of a few tents still standing near where it is and creep as close as we can. Sand hits us in a spray of pellets as the Devourer thrashes and roars.
Cain peeks around the edge, then waves me forward.
I peek around the tent, too. Or try to. Cain has a grip on the back of my top and is holding on tight, which makes it harder. Straining against him, I get my first good look at the creature. I’ve seen a Devourer before. I feel like I’m prepared.
Holy. Heavens. On. Fire.
I was wrong.
I’ve never seen anything like it. When I came across the Hollow, all I saw of it were tentacles. I didn’t get a look at the rest. The sheer size of it.
The Elimination, though, is different.
The thing is a butcher’s nightmare concoction of all different beasts melded into one. Based on pictures Omma showed me of animals from all the dominions, I can pick out some. A man’s face—a beautiful man’s face—sits awkwardly within the head of a ram with its horns curling backward, but the jaw and mane are of a lion, and tusks like a wild boar protrude from between its lips. It has the arms and claws and torso of some kind of massive, fur-covered animal I can’t identify, but its legs and tail look like those of a wolf.
All carved from sand.
I suck in a gasp on a desperate bid of hope.
The legends were right.
Every inch of him is made, very definitely, of sand. The different colored sands of my dominion, even, blended together in a way that reminds me of the time Tabra and I got into Grandmother’s makeup as children and smeared it all over our faces.
The monster is surrounded by a hundred Wanderers at least. Warriors all, defending their homes and families with spears and bows and arrows. Those are weapons for distance. Closer-range weapons like their curved knives or their urumi belts wouldn’t help for this. It could crush them with a stomp of a foot or a whack of a paw. Regardless, none of their attempts to stop that thing make a dent. If anything, they only manage to piss it off more.
Its terrible roar echoes that thought, and I clamp my hands over my ringing ears.
