Page 24

The Crux

“You want Meren to do what ?” The snarled question, coming from the Shadowraith with no memory that he should trust anyone here, drops into a silence that stretches across the rest of us. I almost expect to see the red sands ripple in the wake of his voice.

There wasn’t a tent big enough to hold all the leaders of our allies. Not just the zariphs and zariphas of multiple zariphates—the five biggest from each desert in Aryd—but Istrella and Trysolde are here, too, along with their most trusted advisor and general. So instead, we’ve gathered away from the camp in a side canyon, sitting, spread out on and among the rocks. We provided food, figuring we’d be here a while.

We were right about that. Night has claimed the skies.

Above us in the cliffs is a perimeter of guards provided by the zariphate that lives here. Their only job is to make sure no outsiders come anywhere near the canyon where we are, let alone overhears.

Especially overhears.

With this many, the possibility of a traitor walking among us is increased. Whoever that woman was in the portal doesn’t help. And taking back Aryd is already complicated enough, involving a coordinated attack from multiple points. If a single group fails…

Omma taught me about warfare, strategy, and working together with my advisors and military leaders, but only as much as a queen would need to know. Not enough to make me an expert. Still, I can see from the faces of the warriors here who are experts that I’m right to worry.

In order to be sure that no one group is stopped or sacrificed, our timing must be flawless. And that depends entirely on me.

“I think this Reven does not listen so well,” Bene comments.

I glance up to the top of the canyon where I know he’s watching but can only make out the shadow of his full-sized form against the starry night sky.

“I don’t like it,” Reven says.

Vos, surprisingly, speaks up from my right where he’s leaning back against a time-smoothed rock with one elbow. “None of us like it, my friend. But taking back the dominion is critical, and that will go best if we keep the elements of surprise and speed on our side.”

Vos wasn’t any more thrilled when I broached this idea than Reven is now, which is why I lift my eyebrows at him. He winks, acknowledging our earlier arguments.

Reven leans forward, only slightly, and at least half of the people watching him lean back. “You think the best way of accomplishing what you need is to send one of the two—or I guess three, if you count me—people who Eidolon is most interested in getting his hands on? More specifically, the one who carries evil inside her?”

Vos straightens off his rock.

Before he can lay into Reven, Tabra steps in spreading her hands wide. “There is no other way to get everybody where we need them, when we need them there. No one else does what she does.”

Today she has taken the lead, Grandmother’s training showing in how she’s handled this group of powerful people and strong personalities.

Reven’s jaw tightens, but he softens his voice. “It’s too risky.”

Tabra steeples her fingers before her, nodding with her eyes wide and serious. “We agree. Do you have a different solution?”

She says this so reasonably, as if she truly hopes he does, that Reven doesn’t glower back but, after a second, shakes his head. He slides his gaze to Cain. “You also agreed to this?”

“Hey!” Without thinking, I hurl the hunk of bread I’ve been nibbling on at Reven’s head. “I make my own decisions.”

Shadow barely even twitches to knock the bread aside. It lands on a nearby rock.

“Feel better?” he asks.

“Not really,” I mumble.

Then his brows lower in a dawning frown. “Did you throw a knife at me once before?”

Someone to my right covers a laugh.

A spark of hope has me curling my hands into fists at my side. “Do you remember?” I ask slowly. “Or do you just think that’s something I’d do?”

“Both.”

“Well, he’s got that right,” Vos murmurs.

I’m too busy trying to keep the spark inside me from blazing to a fire to glare at Vos. Does Reven really remember something? His remembering, even the tiniest bit, would change everything. I swallow. “The night you kidnapped me instead of Tabra, I chucked a knife at you.” I shrug, trying for nonchalance I don’t feel. “I was aiming that time.”

“I see.”

I frown. That’s it? I can’t help but push a little harder. “You deserved it. I promise.”

Tabra gives a small groan, and I can practically hear her saying, “You should be trying to win him over.”

Well, this is how I did it the first time. So…

Horus brings us back to the topic in his quiet way. “I will be with Meren in Oaesys.”

Cain, meanwhile, says nothing. Not a single word.

“For once, I agree with the Shadowraith,” Cainis speaks out. The man gets to his feet to turn in a circle, assessing reactions. “We should keep both our queens safe.”

A small rumbling of agreement starts to stir among the people, and that uneasy sense I’ve been having about the zariph wriggles through me more insistently.

“That is a…kind thought,” Tabra starts to say.

Unlike him, I do not get to my feet. “I know that city better than anyone here,” I point out. “I’ve spent eighteen years of my life sneaking through the streets and in and out of that palace without being noticed or recognized, despite who I am. No one else here can say that.”

Not even the others from Aryd. Not even Tabra. Maybe, just maybe, Achlys could, but she’s not here yet.

“I’m also the only one who can make portals.” That’s my biggest point. If they don’t let me go, our allies will have only two portals to get armies of fighters into the city with—the one in the temple and the one I made in the palace tombs. That means taking turns using them and funneling a lot of people through two locations.

It’s too dangerous.

Reven’s eyes glitter as he considers me in that intense way he does. Always has. And just like always, my belly turns squishy. Is he remembering anything else? Or maybe he’s still thinking about me throwing that knife.

“But you’re also one of only two people here who can say that they’re the intended ruler of this dominion,” he points out.

“Well…technically, I’m the—”

“If you say expendable one even one more time,” Tabra snaps at me, “I swear to the goddesses, Meren, I don’t know what I will do. But it will not be nice.”

I blink at my sister, who never snaps, especially when in queen mode the way she has been all day. “But I am—”

“Tabra?” a faint call comes from the mouth of the canyon.

Achlys, with Pella on her heels, stops as soon as she’s in sight of all of us and searches until she finds my sister’s face in the crowd.

Forget keeping her queenly dignity—Tabra breaks rank entirely. With a small cry, she runs for Achlys, who doesn’t wait, running, too. They collide into each other, and I think both whimper. Arms wrapped around waists and heads buried in each other’s necks, they both stand there tightly entwined and breathing each other in.

The way I imagined Reven and I would be the day he returned to me.

I very deliberately keep from glancing his way.

Because Ishaf is near me, I catch the way his eyebrows slowly lift in what I consider a mild expression of shock. “I didn’t know they were so…close.” He glances at me. “How close—”

Before he can finish that thought, Tabra pulls back to frame Achlys’s face with her hands—hands I can see now are trembling. “Thank the goddesses,” she whispers, then crushes her lips to Achlys’s in a kiss not just of reunion, but of visible relief, saying more with that one anxious touch than most communicate to a lover in a lifetime.

Everyone else looks away or lowers their gaze to give the two women privacy.

But I don’t.

It’s another one of those moments of joy to hold onto. For Achlys and Tabra. But it is for me, too, seeing my sister reunited with the woman that makes her happier than I’ve ever seen.

Finally, they break apart, murmuring soft assurances to each other. That’s when I glance away, over my shoulder, because I can’t help myself. The first person I see is Cain, who is looking away. Then my gaze snags on Reven, who is standing so still he could be a sphinx turned to stone.

He’s watching me again.

The Shadows twitch restlessly in my belly…or maybe that’s my own restlessness.

Do something, Meren. Say fucking something.

I should flirt with him. I should beguile him, tell him that what I see between my sister and Achlys is how he and I love each other. Hells in a handbasket, anything.

But I don’t know how, or what to say.

Flirting and beguiling aren’t me. Not before and not now. I wasn’t even trying then. I was just me, and he was just him…and together we were just us before I even had an inkling that I wanted or needed to be part of an us.

My gaze skitters away from his to land on my sandaled feet, my toes peeping out from under my black clothing.

Achlys abruptly steps back from my sister. “Where is he?”

We all glance around.

“Who?” Cain asks.

She’s not listening as her gaze moves rapidly from face to face, from ally to ally.

“You.” She points an accusing finger directly at Horus, and her face, trained over the years as a servant in the royal house of Aryd, curdles to something near hatred. Her next word is like throwing a match into a field of dried grasses.

“ Traitor .”