Page 62 of The Stolen Throne
“Tziah’s family were miners by trade,” Vos starts slowly. “From Mariana originally, but when King Eidolon reopened the mines in Tyndra, he needed skilled workers, so they came. They didn’t know what they were mining for until they found a source inside the mountain. Even then, like the rest of us, they thought possession of jedite could only be used to amplify an Imperium’s power. I was sent to the mine along with Eidolon’s newest general at that time, Quinten.”
Vos shakes his head, jaw working, and Tziah sneaks her hand into his. “Quinten wanted to test a theory.” He glances at Bene. “He made the workers in the mine each consume a piece of jedite, and they developed Imperium powers when they’d had none before. Each and every one, though they couldn’t control them well. Then…he forced them all to eat a second piece.” His jaw works again, like he’s having to force the words out. “They turned into monstrosities.”
Tziah whimpers—an eerie sound, given her voice. A heartbreaking sound. Vos pulls Tziah into his side, his arm around her shoulders, the sorrow plain as a bright desert day written over her features. “All except her. Though she changed, too, she was still lucid. Like your Devourer, there. When the others started ripping into one another and anyone else down there, Quinten ordered them all killed, but I got her out. Barely.”
My stomach sinks. That’s why Vos left Eidolon’s service? He threw away his position with the king and became a wanted man to save her, eventually hiding with Reven in the Shadowood?
And Tziah…mother goddess almighty…her family all slaughtered after watching them become terrible things.
“Why do they become monsters?” Pella asks.
“Maybe it’s the same reason Tabra and I are twins.” I work through the thought slowly. “Maybe the body can’t handle more than one power.”
“You’re telling me Eidolon is sitting on a new supply of jedite—which is actually pieces of the mother goddess’s heart—that can make him more Imperium or, if they attempt to get a second power by eating more, it can make him more beasts?” Cainis demands in a voice gone cruelly cold. Then his gaze cuts to me. “You’ve brought death to my zariphate, Mereneith.”
A year ago, I would have taken those words like a fist to the stomach. I would have hung my head and probably even exiled myself. He’s right, but I have too many people depending on me to cower now. I stare right back at him.
“Seven hells,” Vos mutters under his breath. “Every greedy, grasping, power-mad person will come out of the woodworks to get their hands on the stuff if this information gets out. It’ll be chaos. Anarchy.”
Even more monsters to deal with. No one speaks it out loud, but we’re all thinking it.
Cain is the one to ask the obvious. “Why would the mother goddess’s heart be buried inside Mt. Ynferno?”
“That is her resting place, I was informed,” Bene answers. I translate.
The zariph sneers. “By the same goddesses who fed you Aura and let you become what you are?”
Bene looses a growl. Ledenon whacks a telescoping spear into full length, taking a stance to fight so fast, I didn’t see him actually move. And Cainis, a man I’ve never seen back down from anything, leans away. It’s infinitesimal, but we all see it. Turns out a Devourer, even a relatively well-mannered one the size of a pony, can still strike fear into the bravest of hearts.
But there’s still so much we don’t know. Where the other amulets are, to start with. But more besides. Like everyone else in Nova, I’ve always assumed the goddesses—even silent in the Allusian heavens, as we believed they were all this time—were benevolent. But if that was true, then why were they put in the amulets in the first place?
“If everything else the ghost told me, or hinted at, was true,” I say, “then Eidolon is running out of time faster than we thought. He will try everything—no matter how depraved—to get what he wants.”
I just wish we knew exactly what that was. Reven returned to him. My sister. Now these amulets. Or do they all go together in a way we can’t see yet?
“You’re saying we need to get ahead of him.” Reven sits forward.
“I’m saying we need more answers.” I very deliberately look straight at Reven. “And I can think of only one place we might find them.”
You know where we have to go.
Reven leans forward abruptly, almost like he heard me. “It was burned to the ground.”
“Not everything.” That I do know. I walked through the remains myself. “We need to return to the Shadowood.”
27
My Last Secret
“Go back to the Shadowood? In Tyndra, where Eidolon is king? Not if I have anything to say about it.” Cain’s barking the words now. “What we need to do is gather all the zariphates we have allegiances with and force that bastard out of the palace and out of the dominion.”
His option sounds like the right move, but he hasn’t gone against the king. I have. Reven has. It almost killed him. I know we can’t face Eidolon yet. We need to know more, and not from a ghost and a monster.
I glance around at the faces in the room, wondering how much I can trust them. I’m well aware we have a possible traitor in our midst, but I know I’m right about the Shadowood, and I can only think of one more thing that might convince them.
It’s time to show them.
Heart pounding, I pull my necklace out and show them what’s at the end of it.
