28

Lies…and Damn Lies

I have two options to choose between as I stare at these men, one of whom could kill me with a thought. Maybe they both could.

I can tell Reven my secrets, who I truly am…or keep up the lies.

I’m tempted to tell him. After all, I just said I would stay. But my sister is on the other end of it, and I would never risk her. Not with another man who both is and isn’t Eidolon, no matter how much I want to trust him.

I choose lies.

Drawing myself up to my full, if unintimidating, height, I step around Reven, channel pure Omma with a disdainful smile, and add a dash of Grandmother with a regal tilt to my head. “Of course a woman who looks like me sits on the throne.”

Both men pull up short at that, Vos frowning and Reven scowling, suddenly looking as threatening as the day he snatched me.

“Why?” Reven demands, voice a roll of thunder.

“I have a body double.” I wave a languid hand in the air as if this is the done thing for royalty these days and am proud of myself that it doesn’t shake.

Reven’s gaze narrows, but he says nothing.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Vos mutters.

“I’m not.” I pretend to misunderstand the sarcasm. “She stands in for me on those occasions when I can’t attend a function. She is also trained, with the help of my closest advisers, to step in for me in the event of an assassination or”—I level a pointed look at Reven—“kidnapping.”

Vos crosses his arms, not bothering to hide his suspicion, amusement skirting it with the kind of disbelief that says he won’t be convinced easily. “I got close before I left.”

I almost vomit in my mouth. This man got close? To Tabra? Mother goddess.

“She looks exactly like you. I dare say identical down to each fleck of gold in your eyes,” Vos casually accuses in a slow, deliberate cadence that is both unfamiliar and immediately puts me in mind of the genteel authoritate way of speaking, at odds with the iron in his gaze.

Reven is a mountain, still and unemotional in a way that might be scarier than visible anger.

I focus on the easier of the two men and dredge up a condescending smile that has Vos’s cold amusement dimming. “That’s her gift,” I explain in an over-patient voice. “She’s a mimic. Although I will say she already looks much like me in the first place—same height and coloring and so forth—so it doesn’t take her much effort to hold the illusion.”

Or no effort at all.

“They’re not even looking for you,” Vos points out next.

I flick him a dismissive glance. “Are you so sure about that?”

He opens his mouth but hesitates.

“They can’t make a big show of it,” I say. “Soldiers will have been sent from one of the other cities instead. Most likely Syphmem. Maybe Enora or Polieh.”

Lies. All of these words. But I’m pretty proud of myself for sounding convincing. I bet even Omma would lift an impressed eyebrow.

Reven hasn’t moved, all broody, intense kidnapper again, and he studies me for long enough that I have to keep from shifting uncomfortably.

“What happens when you don’t return?” he finally asks.

I glance away because what I’m about to say is definitely made up. “She can’t stay on the throne indefinitely. We’ll have to figure something out before they fake my death and put a new ruler on the throne.”

I’ll have to tell him the truth soon, though. Otherwise, he’ll expect me to do something about it. Telling him means Tabra can stay on her throne and I can stay here. Maybe go back and forth. That could work, couldn’t it? I could finally be Meren…to one other person, at least.

A new hope surges to life inside me. I’ve been so focused on saving everyone else, on this sanctuary being about keeping me out of Eidolon’s hands, I hadn’t considered what it actually means for me. Could the Shadowood become my own salvation?

“What’s her name?” Reven’s soft voice pops the growing bubble of excitement building in my chest. I catch the tautness to his voice, like a bow pulled back before letting loose.

“Meren.” I hand over my own name without hesitation. “She’s been with me as long as I can remember.” Since the womb, in fact.

“Meren.” He says my name slowly, as if tasting each syllable, and a delicious quiver tiptoes down my spine. One that throws me off balance. Then he looks up, pinning me with those bright eyes, tilting my world even more sideways. “Whose idea was this body-double thing?”

I clear my throat. “My grandmother’s.”

“Did she have one?”

“Yes.” So easy, the sharing of secrets when I turn them into a different version of the truth. “It is a…err…tradition in our royal line.”

Reven’s expression doesn’t ease. I glance toward Vos to find him watching with an almost bored expression. I’m not fooled. He’s as alert as his leader.

“Tell me,” I say. “Did anyone notice my absence?”

Vos glances to Reven, who nods. “No. Your body double”—I don’t miss the intonation that bleeds with doubt—“arrived at the pre-coronation ball in a new dress, laughing about how she couldn’t decide what to wear and changed.”

“Well, finding the right pre-coronation outfit on such short notice is difficult these days.”

Vos stares, but Reven crosses his arms, eyes narrowing.

Too much? Maybe this wasn’t the right time to be flippant. “What about Eidolon? Had he arrived by then?”

Surprise flickers in Vos’s eyes, and I can’t mistake the glance he casts in Reven’s direction. The one that tells me he knows at least something of Reven’s relationship to the king.

Reven shakes his head, a barely noticeable movement, and Vos returns his focus to me. “The king arrived late that night, and your…” He pauses. “…other half did you proud in welcoming him to the palace.”

Dammit, Tabra.

“Worried she’ll take your place forever?” Vos asks with a speculative stare, apparently catching at least a hint of my real reaction.

Mental note to punch this man in the face the first chance I get. “If what Reven has told me is true, even the small amount he’s hinted at, then Meren”—thank the goddess I don’t stumble over my own name—“is in trouble. I need to help her.”

“How?” This from Reven.

“Let’s start by sending a message.” It’s the best I can do, even after he knows the truth. Aryd still needs its queen.

“You know that proof I promised?” Reven might as well have been carved from the hard rock of the cliffs surrounding Tropikis, he’s so tense.

Again, I try not to shift warily on my feet. “Yes.”

“Now I need some from you.” The words cut, a demand from the Shadowraith.

Proof.

An idea comes to me, like a flash of dying starlight. Maybe the Goddess Aryd is silent like all the others, or perhaps she guides her people with deft, subtle hands, because she’s given me the answer.

The amulet against my skin pulses strangely at the thought.

I step back again. “Fine.”

Reaching for that shimmering kernel of power inside me, I will it forward, already picturing in my mind what I will create.

With fizzy, bubbling warmth coursing through my blood, my hands start to glow. In the dim of the trees and the additional odd sort of presence created by Reven’s protective shadows, the yellow light is unusually radiant. Brighter than I’ve ever seen, and I have to swallow back my own gasp of surprise at the intensity. I force myself to focus on the ground between my feet, where particles of sand lift into the air.

It takes more effort in this dominion because sand is not the main makeup of the soil. I have to concentrate hard, yanking and tugging and sifting until I have enough in the air, swirling and floating, to manipulate. I think about what I can make and swallow a smile.

Because Reven gave me the answer earlier.

At the urging of my will, those fire sprite–like embers, brilliant with each burst, spark from my hands as I add heat to the mix. The sand comes together, melting into a shimmering orange mass as I force it to bubble and gel. Through will alone, my fingers dancing through the air as I manipulate my magic, the glass before me forms into a cohesive mass, which I mold with my memories of the ones I’ve made for my sister.

I create the simple, trumpet shape of the moonflowers that grow inside the palace walls and only bloom at night. Appropriate for a man who lives in darkness.

I expect a wave of homesickness to hit with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to rock, but none comes, and a frown tugs at my brow. Once we convince Eidolon that Tabra isn’t the one he wants, and she’s safe—well, that’s assuming he doesn’t kill her. Still, is it possible that I could have found a new life here? One of my choosing?

An ache blooms inside, loss already building, because having freedom and a life of my own would mean leaving Tabra and Cain and my desert home—my people—forever. Is that what I want?

Yes. It is.

Shock reverberates through me so hard that I lose my focus and the flower disintegrates, dropping to the ground with a hiss in a scattered pool of pale granules.

Clearing my throat, I tip my head and meet Reven’s gaze head-on. “I didn’t say I was very good at it.” Neither man says anything, but it’s Reven I look at. “Satisfied?”

“Yes.” He pauses and glances to Vos. “You?”

An unamused snicker is his answer. “Not in years.”

“How sad for you,” I murmur sweetly.

Vos’s eyebrows shoot up, and then he barks a laugh. “I thought she was supposed to be sweet and easily frightened.”

Reven spears the man with a chilling stare even a demon would envy, but Vos doesn’t even blink, turning back to me. Although I don’t know why. Reven said pretty much the same thing when we first met.

After a moment, Vos bows formally, even adding a click of his heels, which could either be a gesture from Wildernyss or Tyndra. “My name is Voserian,” he says with a nod. Then winks. “Everyone calls me Vos. I am from Tyndra, before you ask.”

That answers that. And also the calculated looks. The Goddess Tyndra, after all, blessed her people with the gift of strategy.

He doesn’t straighten, waiting. Appropriate when greeting a domina. “Rise,” I say quietly, not thrilled about a ritual that immediately puts us on opposite sides of an invisible line.

Too many lines in my life wall me off from others, and I’m swiftly coming to realize that I need help, and uncrossable lines make asking for it difficult.

Vos lifts his head. “Welcome to the Shadowood, domina.”

“I’d say it’s a pleasure, but you did try to choke me to death.” I leave off the questioning-my-identity part. I can spell hypocrite in several languages.

“I expected an imposter to be kicking and screaming by the time I arrived.” Vos shoots a sly grin in Reven’s direction.

“You missed that part,” Reven says in dry tones that make me want to laugh.

“You kidnapped me,” I shoot back instead. “What did you expect? A hug?”

“I expected you to be afraid.”

And therefore pliable? Tabra probably would have been, but I can’t go back and fix my reactions now.

“I was terrified.” Something inside me wants him to know the reality of that. “I thought you were taking me away to cut me into pieces and send only a finger or a toe home as proof of my death.”

Vos whistled. “That would take a special kind of depravity.”

“Let’s just say that it wouldn’t be the first time for my family,” I murmur.

Vos frowns at that, but Reven… Reven goes all chilly again.

Too much. I’m definitely giving away too much, so I don’t elaborate. No one knows about those dead queens for the simple fact that each remaining twin had taken her sister’s place with none the wiser. Except Eidolon, of course. I wish I could get into that man’s thoughts.

Which is funny, since a version of him is standing in front of me, none the wiser.

Vos tips his head. “Your double makes an excellent queen, by the way.”

The implications in the words could go so many different directions. I decide to ignore them all. “Often a better one than I’ll ever be.”

Truth. A more willing one, as well. Tabra’s never acted anything but happy to be what she is, except the times I would tell her about my desert escapes. Then her face would turn wistful and the questions would come.

Finally, Reven seems to snap back to himself, though not in a good way. Studiously blank. “I’m afraid now that Vos has arrived…”

The message is clear. They have things to discuss without me around.

“Trust,” I mouth at Reven, who turns away, though his lips hitch to one side. I’m able to pull that much from him at least.

If I’m honest, I need time to process what I’ve learned today, anyway, and have a more solid plan for what to do about Tabra before I approach him. “I’ll find a way to amuse myself.”

With a dip of my chin for both men, a gesture a queen would make out of respect rather than deference, I walk away. Only a fool would imagine the Shadowraith’s gaze trailing after her or picture concern in his eyes.

A tiny sound has me glancing over my shoulder in time to see the girl from the night before—the one with navy-hued skin and white hair—throw herself into Vos’s arms, peppering his cheek with kisses.

So she was real. I’ve never seen anyone with that coloring. Maybe she’s a water sprite? Or an ice sprite, if such a thing exists? Vos laughingly tickles her, so she jumps back, and then they’re walking in the opposite direction with Reven.

Who, by the way, isn’t watching me at all.