26

What He Knows

Fear is something I try not to give into. It’s paralyzing—both for the body and the mind—and a good way to get yourself killed. But I can’t help the fact that screams are trying to claw out of my throat like the damned trying to escape the seventh hell.

I’m trying to keep them inside, to take deep, calming breaths, and to work my way toward an answer that makes any damn sense.

Reven saved the people here. That’s the only thought keeping a lid on my terror.

“The power he wields—I wield—is very complex, and I left before he could teach me.” Seeing my quick frown, he expands. “Every Imperium has to learn their power over time, me included. I’m still figuring mine out, but without him around to show me, it’s going slower than I’d like. Believe me, I’d love to get rid of these things inside me.”

He stops, fisting his hands, seeming to fight with himself. He even pushes his chair back, putting more distance between us.

That’s not scary at all.

I wrap my arms around myself. “How do I believe any of this?”

Another flicker of disappointment over his features tugs at my own guilt.

“He has a book,” he says. “Leather-bound, tattered, and very, very old. I tried to take it when I ran.” His mouth twists. “But the Shadows stopped me.”

“What’s in it?”

“It’s a diary. A history of Eidolon’s different reigns,” he says. “Written in his own hand.”

Mother— “Why would he do that?”

“So that when the old version is dead, the new version doesn’t forget what we’ve done before and what we’re trying to do in the future. This book is seen only by Eid—” He cuts off with a grunt. “I only got a glimpse of it here and there.” His brow furrows. “I don’t remember anything specific. Just the handwriting and word choices. As you get deeper into the book, as time is passing and he sheds more of himself, the writing gets more corrupt, fouler, sinister.”

I have no idea if I’m relieved or disappointed not to be able to learn more about this book and what, exactly, the king knows about the queens of Aryd. The Hag’s words the night I met Reven suddenly echo in my head.

“There have been Shadowraiths before you, right?”

Reven frowns. “Why would you say that?”

“I was told this isn’t the first time people have disappeared. That a Shadowraith has roamed Aryd before.”

I think maybe he doesn’t like that news much, judging from the way the darkness twitches around him.

“Not that I know of.” Reven clears his throat. “Not that I know much. Yet another reason that book would be helpful to have. I think we’d find a lot of answers in it. Maybe a way to stop him.”

“But it’s too dangerous to go after.”

His nod is grim agreement. “The king is aging now, with no way to maintain his immortality. That makes him even more unpredictable. After I got away, I tried to kill myself—kill what is left of…us.” He says this the same way he’d state any cold, uninteresting fact, but my heart clenches so hard at the thought I rub a hand against my breastbone, trying to ease the tightness.

“They wouldn’t let me.” His voice is bitter now. “Every day is a battle to hold them back.” His flat-lipped smile is as grim as a reaper. “I’ll do it, though. Until I age and die and take them with me to the grave.”

I cannot imagine living an entire lifetime trying to contain that kind of evil. “I’m glad they didn’t let you do it.”

He stares at me.

It’s unexplainable but there all the same, the desire for him to live pushing through every deeply embedded fear I have. “If you’d died, the people of the Shadowood would have been truly lost.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he searches my gaze, his eyes trailing over my face. “For a princess raised in the courts, you are…sweetly naive.”

“For a man shed from evil, I guess I see why you’d be jaded.”

Only his expression isn’t irritated—it’s exhausted.

I blow out a long breath and glance around us, trying to center myself on something, anything. “Given who you are, why the need for all these other books?”

“To try to figure out those secrets, for one. But mostly…proof.”

Forget breathing. My entire body jolts at the word. Proof.

“For everyone else,” he grits through clenched teeth. Then rolls his shoulders again. I guess those shadows really don’t want him talking about any of this.

“I still don’t see what this has to do with me.” Or Tabra, for that matter. Because he doesn’t know our part in the scheme of things. No one does. As usual.

“He’s vulnerable now. Even before, when he had us, he didn’t go outside the borders of Tyndra. He wouldn’t ever leave this dominion unless it was for something vitally important.”

And Eidolon left to visit Aryd to ask for my sister’s hand in marriage. To send her that amulet—one that might be doing unexplainable things, the same way mine is.

My blood turns to ice. The fear for her that I’ve been burying since he took me—because there was nothing I could do about it—turns to cold fury.

I’ve got to get back to Aryd. Now. Get her away from the king. Put myself between them.

I jerk my gaze to the man standing before me. Should I tell Reven? Tell him about the amulet? Show him mine? Maybe he knows what they are. But that would mean revealing who I truly am. My life isn’t in danger now. Not based on this place, at least. In fact, I’d probably be offered a permanent home, if I wanted it.

The most important secret in the history of Aryd—the existence of twins and the sacrifices we make—offered up to save my sister, which is kind of the point.

Logic slows me down. That and years of experience in courts with men and women who lie the same way they breathe, without thought or concern. What if he’s trying to gain my trust to learn my secrets? Or deliberately keep me from interfering with Eidolon and Tabra? Maybe he really is Eidolon and is spinning me some crazy story. Even if he’s not, this man, who I was starting to hope might be an ally, is Eidolon incarnate…but not? And he’s carrying the king’s sinister shadows around inside him? Are they listening now?

My head is starting to hurt. “You said I should be afraid of you. Why?”

“Most of my energy goes into keeping the other Shadows leashed inside me. The rest into protecting the Shadowood. It leaves me with little control.”

I think of what I saw in the woods that night. The faces trying to get out. I definitely can’t tell him who I am. Not yet. Maybe not ever. There’s got to be another way.

“Why not approach me sooner?”

His jaw works. “No time,” he says. “I got word of his plans and had to hurry to beat him to your palace and get you out.”

Which means Eidolon is definitely there with Tabra now. Think, Meren. “Why do you think he wants me?”

Reven hands curl into fists. “Your power.”

My…oh no.

My legs go shaky, and I sink down onto the rickety chair at a lonely desk behind me, completely unable to hide my reaction. Because no one knows about my power. Grandmother made certain of that.

The queen was not pleased when my power manifested so young. Not that I asked for this blood right from my family line of Imperium—sand and souls, Hylorae and Enfernae—supposedly gifted from the goddess Aryd herself to the first twin queens, my ancestors. Maybe the power was strong back then, but it definitely diluted by the time it got to me.

Tabra’s hasn’t even come yet.

Other than Achlys and my sister, no one knows what I can do. Not even Cain.

“I don’t have one yet.” I try not to wince at how unconvincing I sound, mostly because I know I already gave myself away. I shut off the portal that night he took me. Only Imperium can do that.

Reven sinks to his haunches in front of me, gaze a smolder of frustration. He reaches his hands out as if to put them on my knees but stops, balling them into fists and pulling back. “Now is not the time to start lying to me, princess.”

Shit.

“You’re a sand Hylorae.” He tosses the truth between us quietly. It’s not a question but a statement. He knows.

Double shit.

“Aren’t you?” he presses when I don’t speak.

“How do you know?” I whisper, voice cracking.

“I saw your glass flowers.”