Page 89 of The Stolen Throne
We all stand at the edge of the woods, winds whipping at our backs and snatching at our clothes as we watch, straining for any sign. I’m too numb for the weather to even penetrate. What is going on in there?
I close my eyes and focus on the shadows inside me. Once, when Reven lost control to Eidolon’s Shadows and was buried deep inside himself, I pulled him out through our connection. It anchors us to each other.
For the first time since I left the palace, I try to actively use that to feel him. To find him.
I press my hand to the scar in my side and slow my breathing, focusing the way I have to when I use my power over sand. The shadows inside me press against my hand like a snake twisting on itself. It gets worse when my own fear spikes, so I force myself to shove that aside.
He’s fighting, I think.
Which is when I hear it. Voices. Not close by but coming from the trees. Like before, but…more. Way more. Hundreds of voices. Furious voices. Almost familiar, but I’m too terrified to wrap my head around why.
A spike of Reven’s terror penetrates the nothing he’s put between us, flaying me, and burning fury erupts throughout my body.
“Let him go.” The words come out through clenched teeth. Guttural, commanding, and pissed. I don’t know who or what I’m talking to. Reven. Eidolon’s Shadows. The woods. The darkness itself.
I open my eyes, glaring at the trees. “Let. Him. Go!”
My scar flexes against my hand oddly, still twisting but different. Then, it suddenly eases.
In the same instant, Pella straightens. “Something changed.”
I squint at the forest, searching. What changed? She’s an empath, so that means emotions, but how? I open my mouth to ask—
“I’m…here.” Reven’s voice has us all whipping around to find him standing behind us. A swirl of shadow circling him quickly disappears, though it’s difficult to tell if the winds and snow blew it away. He’s bent over, hands on his knees, and shaking so hard the ice under his boots is crunching with it.
Cain is at his feet, already covered in icy flakes. Three bloodstained gouges rend through his clothes to the flesh of his chest. The hells? Did a wild animal get to him?
“Merciful goddess!” I try to run for them both.
Only Vos still has me wrapped up and doesn’t let me take so much as a step.
I push against his hold. “They need help.”
“Not until we know—”
Reven raises his head at that, shoulders still heaving. “It’s me.”
Vos doesn’t let go. Flat-lipped, Reven makes the signal with his hand, one he told the others about.
Vos doesn’t say a word, but his grip on me falls away, and I’m across the icy space between us and on my knees beside Cain even faster than Pella moves. Lifting his head onto my lap, I curl over him, trying to shield him from the weather. She pulls back his rent clothing to check the wounds, a hiss escaping her lips.
I raise my head and meet Reven’s gaze, my head full of a thousand questions, but I can see for myself that, beyond a few shallow-looking scratches on his arms, he is unharmed beyond being visibly exhausted.
“He hit his head on a tree, and it knocked him out,” Reven says with a nod at Cain. “The wounds aren’t deep. If we keep out infection, he’ll live.”
I drop my gaze again, smoothing Cain’s hair from his forehead. “What did you go and do?”
Pella starts ripping up a cloth that Tziah pulled out of one of our packs to bind Cain’s wounds.
“What happened?” Horus demands from somewhere above me.
I lift my head again to catch the pained grimace that flits across Reven’s features.
“The soldiers I disappeared the night we fought in the Shadowood—their souls are trapped in there. In the shadows. I think my presence has been waking them up.”
“Wait.” I want to get up, but Cain’s head is still in my lap, so all I can do is straighten. “The voices you couldn’t quite make out, the ones that were getting louder. Those were the soldiers? They attacked you as shadow?”
“You’ve been hearing goddess-damned voices?” Vos barks. “Not Vanished and not Eidolon but other voices?” He gets louder with every word.
