Page 59 of The Stolen Throne
The problem is, I can’t let everyone know that I might have a goddess strapped around my neck. Not when the current Eidolon has one, too. Not when there could be spies among us.
Not when a lot of things…
I open my eyes. “I want a new promise from you.”
The Elimination gives another of those full-body shivers. “To see her at last? Anything.”
“No more killing.”
“I harmed no one.”
I rear back at that, then look at Cain. His father has joined him, not exactly slack-jawed but as close as I’ve seen him get to it even as he holds himself in stance ready to attack. “Is anyone harmed?” I ask them.
“That thing…” The Mighty Cainis stabs an accusing spear toward the Devourer. “Trampled our tents, our belongings. It did untold damage.”
“Is anyone hurt or dead?” I repeat my question, enunciating extra clearly.
His jaw works as he glances to Ledenon, who shakes his head. “No.”
I scrutinize the Devourer. “I want your promise to…” What? Protect me? Protect my people? Help me figure out this amulet thing? I shake my head. Forget promises. “You may stay,” I say instead. “No promises needed.”
“Not in my zariphate,” the zariph snarls behind me.
Is he going to stamp his foot, too?
I ignore him. A trick I’ve learned from Reven, actually. “We should speak more in private, and I’ll show you.”
I check on Reven again. “It’s okay.”
“None of this is okay.”
The Elimination’s massive eye positioned in front of me blinks long and slow, and I’m mesmerized by the way the sand that makes up his body shifts and eddies and works together. One organism, and yet made up of individual tiny particles.
“Are you certain?”
“No attacking anyone,” I say drily. Then tack on, “Unless I say so.”
Let Mighty Cainis and the Wanderers chew on that.
A little fear never hurt anyone, Grandmother used to say. But it’s quite useful to maintain authority from time to time.
If anyone had told me before all this that I would agree with, let alone put into use, anything that woman ever said to me, I would have laughed and then probably spit in their face. Or maybe something less gross, but still something.
I wrinkle my nose as I study the Elimination’s form. He’s massive, almost as tall as the Tomb of the Sovereigns where the kings and queens of antiquity, from before my first twin ancestors, lie in state. The tomb can be seen for leagues before you get to it. We’re trying to hide from Eidolon out here. What am I supposed to do with a giant creature?
“Are you able to hide yourself at all?” I ask him. He’s a shapeshifter. Maybe he can shapeshift into a sand dune? Moving around with something so large and easily spotted from far away would put the zariphate at even more risk than it already is.
Those terrifying teeth glint at me in a thousand sparkles of sunlight striking sand as he draws his lips back in what I guess is supposed to be a grin. “I possess a better way.”
Nothing happens at first, and my eyebrows creep up as I wait. Until a slight hiss sounds nearby. Peering closer, I eventually see it—sand falling away from his body like he’s leaking. Then more and more, like when wind moves the dunes around. Quickly, he shrinks. Smaller and smaller and smaller.
Once it becomes obvious to others what’s happening, murmurs of astonishment rise up from all those around us. The shocked buzz reminds me of a swarm of locusts, but I remain focused on the Elimination. Its body keeps the same dimensions, the same features, just smaller. Behind him, sand piles up in dunes of discarded…um…flesh? Finally, he stands in the circle of trodden belongings, the size of a massive wolf or a small pony.
Slowly, he prowls to where I stand and, with a regal flourish of one paw, bows to me. “Display to me my goddess, and I will become yours to command, Princess Mereneith of Aryd.”
“Give me strength,” Cain mutters. “That thing bowed to you.”
Goddess bless. I have a Devourer as a pet? A friend? An ally? Also, this makes the Hollow—the Devourer that usually lurks in the waters around Savanah—and what it did to me and Reven on that ladder between Wildernyss and Tyndra…what? A big dog just trying to play?
