Page 20

The Only Way To Contain Him

I blink my eyes open, the fuzzy haze of sleep still clinging to me, making me sluggish. The air on my skin is the first thing I notice—dry and hot. I frown. Last I remember I was in Tyndra. It takes a second to realize I’m in a tent in the desert. The space surrounding me is lit by fire in a single brazier, and the sound is crackling at me in pops and hisses.

How did I get here?

“Back in the doomed desert,” a Shadow’s voice mutters.

That familiar sound is all the trigger I need.

Reven.

His name, my memories, finally penetrates the fog of confusion weighing me down.

The Shadows are murmuring unintelligibly as I force myself to sit up, wincing at the pull to the reopened wound in my side, which I ignore. Vos, Cain, Pella, and Tziah are here with me, watching me carefully. “Where is—”

Reven.

He’s lying on a blanket not far from me, eyes closed.

Reven.

Alive. Whole. Breathing. Here with me.

He’s here with me. Mother goddess. I go lightheaded and breathless, and my ribs can hardly contain my heart, which wants to fly to him.

Before I consciously decide to, I’m on my hands and knees crawling to his side. “Reven?” I wrap my arms around him, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Reven?”

Only his arms don’t come up around me. He doesn’t turn his head to capture my kiss. I sit back slightly. The turquoise of his eyes is still hidden from me.

I toss questions over my shoulder. “What happened? Has he been out this entire time? Is he hurt?”

Before anyone can answer, I’m shaking his shoulders. “Reven. Wake up.”

He doesn’t move. I grab his hand in both of mine, holding it to my cheek, rocking a little. Out of control, I know, but I’ve been so horribly desperate for this moment and I never quite believed it was possible. “Reven, I got you out. You’re safe now. The king doesn’t have you anymore.”

“Looks like you don’t have him, either,” the Shadows taunt.

One offers a satisfied murmur. “Maybe he’s dead.”

“Maybe you broke him,” another slides in.

Scoria’s not here to silence them, so I drop them back into that deep well inside me, mentally bricking over the top. In the subsequent silence, I look at the others and lock gazes with Cain, who is standing at the back of the tent in wary silence. “Is he hurt?”

Vos is the one to shake his head. “As far as we can tell, he’s sleeping.”

Sleeping. The part of me that loves him fiercely wants to let him sleep as long as he needs to recover from whatever happened to him when he was trapped in there. But the part of me that is a princess commanding too many to count tells me we need him with us now.

I give him another shake, with no effect.

I try to find him through our bond, search in darkness, but it’s still quiet and empty at the other end.

Oh hells. What if I didn’t get all of him out? Or he’s trapped in his own mind by Eidolon somehow?

“Where is Scoria?” I ask. “Has she tried to help him?”

The gaping silence that seems to fill the tent tells me all I need to know. “What happened?”

Vos is the one to answer again. “The fight with Eidolon hurt her. She’s returned to the Land of Eternal Death to recover.”

“For how long?” I need her here for Reven.

Goddess, when did I become so selfish? The others must be thinking the same thing because no one answers.

“Are Bene and Horus…”

“Right as rubies,” Vos says.

At least there’s that.

Not sure what else to do, I put my hands on Reven’s face and draw on the king’s power, eyes closed, and search for any sign of darkness within him.

Nothing.

I don’t know if I should be relieved or more worried. I sit back, feeling helpless, and look at the others. “What do we do?”

Vos and Cain both shake their heads. Pella looks away. Tziah’s expression is all sympathy.

I lean down and press my lips to his again, fully this time. I’m here, I think at him. Maybe he’ll feel our connection. I’m here.

He stirs slightly.

Finally . A small sob of relief wells up as I wrap my arms tight around his neck.

Only he forces his hands between us and pushes me off him.

We stare at each other for a silent, stunned beat.

“Reven?” I whisper. “Thank the goddesses.”

Going up on his elbows, he swivels around, looking for something.

I frown. “What—”

He snaps his gaze back to me. Not relieved. Not happy. Not elated to have been freed from his prison.

His eyes narrow, glittering in anger and growing suspicion.

I reach for him, and he lurches back. I pause, hands in the air, not touching him. “What’s happening? Talk to me. Are you okay?”

He stares at me for forever, and then his gaze shifts a beat before a purple light penetrates the dim of the room, and I know it’s coming from him.

“No. Wait—”

Reven disappears. I squeak my shock only to yelp again when he reappears.

My shadowraith looms over me.

“Give them back!” Reven growls in a voice that he’s never used with me before, not even when he kidnapped me. This is pure Eidolon.

Cain is at my side in an instant. “Something’s wrong.” He grabs me by the arm, tugging me to my feet and behind him.

Reven doesn’t even acknowledge him, jaw clenched, glowing hands raised, eyes hard. “You stole the Shadows. Give them back.”

Wait. I stole the Shadows?

I stare at his face. At the face of my bondmate who is supposed to know me above all others, love me above all others. My giving him myself worked, making him whole again, but in those turquoise eyes all I see is…

Suspicion.

Blame.

And not one single ounce of recognition.

I lick my dry lips. “Reven, it’s me. Meren.”

His brows snap lower over his eyes with a wrath that storms at me. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

My heart cracks open like a precious porcelain vase hit with a hammer, and I gasp.

“This is bad,” Vos mutters.

Reven doesn’t even pause. “If you don’t know the evil you’re dealing with, you’re in grave danger. If you do…”

The implication hangs in the air. If I do, he’ll think I’m just as evil, taking the power for myself. What in the seven hells happened to him?

Reven clenches his teeth. “Give. Them. Back.”

A rope of darkness lashes out and around my waist, jerking me from behind Cain and across the large tent space to his side. He wraps one arm around my ribs in a bruising grip and grabs me by the jaw with his other hand, not gently. I wince as tears spring to my eyes.

He’s my bondmate. Even if he doesn’t remember, shouldn’t he feel that?

Cain starts toward us. “Let her go—”

“Don’t!” I call to him, then say to Reven, “You can have the Shadows.” He’s going to take them anyway. Maybe if I give them to him, offer them up, it’ll help?

“Are you sure?” Thanks to my own riot of emotions, I’m losing my grip on them already.

“You’re better at controlling Shadows than he ever was,” they say.

I know something is off about their words, but I have more dire things to deal with.

“Shut up,” I mutter.

Reven’s face hardens, eyes going flinty with determination. “This is nothing personal,” he says, then presses his mouth to mine.

His body is rigid against me, every sinew tight with anger as his lips force my mouth open wider. Then something pours down my throat and I can’t breathe.

I cling to him, trying not to panic, even as my heart withers and dies. This will be over in a second. I know what he’s doing. He’s dragging the Shadows out of me and into himself, the same way I dragged him out of Eidolon.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to help him, try to shove the Shadows up to him. Except they aren’t moving. More than that, it’s like they’ve grown claws and are digging into my insides to hold on. To not let him take them.

Agony lances through me. I’d scream, except the darkness shoved down my throat won’t let me. The lack of air kicks in hard, my body cramping with the need to breathe, and I thrash in his arms.

I’m hitting him. Battling against him. He’s going to kill me, but the Shadows won’t come out.

A wall of water slams into us, between us, and the force of it throws Reven off me. I land in the sand on my hands and knees, dripping and sucking in air, trying not to pass out again.

“No!” Vos’s yell has me jerking my head up in time to see Reven wielding another rope of darkness, fury-filled gaze still trained on me. He whips it forward, only ice hits him in the chest hard enough to knock him to the ground.

I shove up to my feet, but in a blink, Reven shadows away from where he landed to appear directly in front of me. Darkness reaches for me, but I jerk Eidolon’s power through me so fast the ache of the cold spears through my head like an ice pick. Hand glowing, I knock back Reven’s darkness.

A gurgle of water nearby, reminding me of a slowly rolling river, tells me Cain is going to drown Reven if he keeps this up. “Stop!”

My yell is for both men. But I stay focused on Reven, trying to quiet my voice. “We’re your friends—”

“Lies!” he snarls, and tries again with the shadow, and again I knock it back.

I can’t believe it works. Based on the shock that widens his eyes before his face pinches with anger, I think he can’t, either. His time inside Eidolon must have weakened him or… I think the Shadows are helping me. I can feel them. They don’t want to go back to him. Probably because they think I’m easier to control.

Reven tries again, but ice and water come at him from either side.

He slams up a wall of shadow around the two of us, cutting the others off, and for the first time it sinks in…

I might have to hurt him.

I definitely have to stop him before he does something he’ll regret.

I let go of Eidolon’s power and my own surges through me, hot and tingling, and I wrap a bubble of sand around him, trapping him inside. His darkness falls away instantly, but I don’t stop. My power is painful, I’m forcing this so fast, but I have to, or it won’t work. I flash-heat the sand and it turns molten red.

Something punches at the barrier I’ve created from the inside, but the malleable bubble only bulges with the impact. I need to cool it fast.

“Cain!” I yell.

Vos’s ice will be too much and crack it. I need water. Cain must figure out that’s what I want, because instantly, a gush of liquid douses the bubble, which hisses and steams so hard that, for a second, it’s obscured from sight.

Goddess don’t let me have hurt him.

I tried to make the bubble big enough that it wouldn’t touch him, even anchoring the bottom of it under the sand in such a way that his feet wouldn’t be near the actual glass.

The steam clears and a warped monstrosity of glass remains—one filled with shadow like billowing smoke. As I watch, the darkness rears back and pounds at the inside, and a telltale snick tells me it’s cracking already.

There needs to be more to hold him.

I swallow.

He’s going to hate me for this.

Dropping my own power, I draw on Eidolon’s once again and close my eyes, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. Centering myself, I picture the veil Reven used to protect the Shadowood. I imagine the walls of shadow that Eidolon used to trap me in the palace when I was there with him for months, so thin they were invisible. I remember those and surround the bubble of glass with them. An added layer of protection. If the glass fails, the shadows will hold.

The Shadows feed me more of their power. Suspiciously obliging bastards, but I’ll take the needed boost for now.

Hopefully just long enough to get through to Reven.

“Merciful hells, Meren,” Cain whispers from somewhere to my right.

I open my eyes, and I know it worked. I know because the smokey shadow from inside my glass cage isn’t gone, but has settled around Reven’s feet, swirling like a brew in a cauldron.

Reven prowls back and forth inside the glass like a caged predator, face all things wild violence, sparking eyes promising terrible retribution.

I swallow, trying to hold the disintegrating pieces of my heart together. I got him out. We were supposed to be together again. Nothing about this is right.

Taking a shaky breath, I approach the glass. He stops prowling to stand before me, glaring.

“I will let you go when I have your promise to stop fighting us,” I tell him. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

His gaze narrows. “Then give me the Shadows, and I’ll be on my way.”

“I tried.”

“You fought me.”

I shake my head. “ They fought you. I don’t want them.” Is that true, though? Was a part of me holding onto them? Why would I do that?

“More lies.” He slices a hand through the air in agitation.

“Reven—”

“ Stop calling me that. My name is…” He trails off, then puts a hand to his temple, wincing hard. “My name is…”

Wanting to soothe him, help him, I place my hand against the glass, but he lances me with a look laced with warning, so I drop it back to my side.

“I won’t take my maker’s name,” he says. “I don’t have a name yet.”

Goddess, he truly remembers nothing. “His name is Eidolon. Yours is Reven.”

He cocks his head, that intense searching thing he does so familiar I have to brace against the impact of it. “How do you know I come from Eidolon? Did you see me escape him just now when he shed us?”

I barely contain my gasp. He thinks he was only just shed?

“Where is the mortal husk of the king?” Reven finally looks away, searching all around us only to scowl, thick brows practically meeting over his eyes. “This isn’t Tyndra. Where the hells did you take me?” He whips his gaze back to me. “And how did you interrupt the shedding to steal his Shadows?”

Oh my goddess, I can’t. How do I explain everything that…? I just can’t. I glance at Vos, then at Cain, and neither will meet my gaze.

Cowards.

Tziah stands, hand over her heart, tears turning her black eyes glassy.

Swallowing, I open my mouth, only I don’t even know where to start. I close it and think, then try again. “You were shed from Eidolon over twenty years ago. At that time, you successfully took his Shadows and ran from him. Hid. You called yourself Reven, became the Shadowraith.”

I can see from the stubborn set of his jaw and the skepticism searing his eyes that he’s not believing a word I say.

“You saved my life using a shadow rite.” I lift my shirt to show him the now-seeping wound in my side. Seeping because I gave him some of those scars back, enough to reopen the wound partially. “My scars are like the ones on your wrists—”

He glances down. His expression goes blank, then lifts his hands to show me. No scars. “Try again.”

Goddess damn it. “They must have healed when Eidolon took you back.”

His lip lifts in a sneer. “If Eidolon managed to take me back, he’d have all his Shadows, too. Instead, you have them. I can feel them inside you.”

“ You gave them to me,” I insist. My voice is rising, desperation turning it high-pitched.

“I wouldn’t. I have to destroy them. I saw the king’s book, the way his soul has become more and more evil over time—” He stops, then leans closer, forehead almost to the glass. “I do remember you.”

I scoot closer, too, hope a pinpoint bright in the darkness of despair inside me. We are separated only by glass and shadow, eye to eye.

Except his gaze turns predatory. “I saw a memory of Eidolon’s, only it’s…” He gives his head a shake, though his gaze never leaves me. “It’s hazy. Your name is Esha. I can see you on the day of your coronation with your twin sister, Lillnya. You did this to him, to us. Both of you together. You took something from us that wounded Eidolon so badly it shattered his soul. He’s evil… we are evil…because of you.”

“No! That wasn’t me. Or not…” How do I explain any of this? He already doesn’t believe me. “It was my ancestress. That was centuries ago.”

“More lies.” Reven pounds a fist against the glass, which snicks again, weakening more.

The Shadows inside me cackle in delight. “He doesn’t remember you,” one crows. “How delightful.”