Page 45

The Curse

“Here!” Achlys’s voice rings out, bouncing off the stone walls of the dry, dark hall we’re searching.

The labyrinth of our dungeons runs not only under the palace, but out under parts of the city itself. Omma used to whisper that a secret exit existed somewhere down here that twins of old used to use but warned me that Eidolon had taken one of the twins he’d killed from there and not to go looking for it. Or else.

One of the few warnings of hers I bothered to heed.

Reven is holding his hand up, palm glowing to light our way, but I outrun that light, plunging into the dimness as I sprint toward the sound of Achlys’s voice, followed by Tabra calling out, “We’re going to need Trysolde!”

Please let that mean we need his ability to manipulate metal to unlock something. The nymph must be held in a cell, which only makes sense.

I’m barely through the door when I’m swept up off my feet, spun, and deposited behind Reven, his back already to me, an arm stuck out to keep me from going around him again.

“Hey!” I protest immediately. “Tabra’s in there!”

“I’ve never seen someone so determined to run blindly into danger,” he grumbles. “I’m beginning to understand Cain better.”

Ignoring my offended squeak, he heads into the room. I march right in after him.

A series of five cells line the long, narrow room, formed by floor-to-ceiling bars. Reven’s broad shoulders are blocking my view of the center cell, and the other cells are all empty.

He’s standing with his feet set, back squared, staring at whoever is caged. “I know you,” he says in a voice that tells me he’s not entirely sure about that.

A soft snort sounds before a delicate, hushed voice answers. “You should, Shadow of Eidolon. I’ve been with him, and you, since the beginning.”

“I don’t remember you,” he insists, “but I know you. Your name is Hesperia. I saw you in his memory.”

What ? I take a step away, staring at the back of his head. When was this?

Even Vos jerks around to stare at Reven. “The hells you say.”

“She blessed the coronation of Meren and Tabra’s twin ancestresses. The ones who trapped the goddesses in those amulets,” Reven says. But there’s doubt in his voice. “I don’t remember much after that.”

“It only got worse from there,” Hesperia says in a voice full of bitterness.

Reven is still blocking my view, so I squeeze between him and Vos.

Behind the bars, a woman sits on the ground, back straight, legs folded neatly before her, and her hands resting on her knees. Her head is regal, made more so by her long slender neck, and the beauty of her lush features is breathtaking. Thick black hair is braided, swept up on top of her head, but it’s her skin that I find fascinating. She is formed from all the sands of Aryd, which leaves uneven stripes and swirls of glittering color across her, as if someone filled her up like a vessel, a layer at time.

The nymph’s gaze lands on me. “You,” she says.

Except Tabra is crouched at the cell door in front of her. Did she whisper the same thing to my sister? “You’re the one, aren’t you?” I ask. “The nymph who cursed me at birth.”

Hesperia’s eyes widen as she shakes her head. “It wasn’t a curse. It was—”

“It wasn’t a blessing,” I snap. Reven’s sudden grip on my wrist keeps me by his side. I hadn’t even realized I’d moved. “I carry his evil inside me.” I point an accusing finger at Reven. “And now it’s taking over my life.”

Horror, even obscured by the colorful stripes over her face, widens her dark eyes. “You weren’t supposed to do that,” she whispers.

I’m scowling at her so hard, I feel the stirrings of a headache. “What, exactly, was I supposed to do? It’s not like you left instructions.”

“You were supposed to kill Eidolon,” she says.

“She’s tried,” Vos says. “We all have. Multiple times.”

Without saying anything, a tendril of shadow trails out from Reven’s fingertips and slips into the lock of the cell, which gives easily with a rusted sounding click . Then he swings the door open and waits.

“I could have done that if you asked,” Trysolde points out.

We all ignore him.

Hesperia doesn’t move at first, studying Reven closely. Then her gaze snaps between him and me, back and forth as she gets to her feet. “Why in the name of Nova did you give the other Shadows to her ?”

“Because Eidolon swallowed him, and he had to keep the Shadows out of the king’s hands.” Breaking his grip on my wrist, I crowd past him to get in her face. “I managed to pull Reven back out of the king—minus his memories by the way, and minus our bond—only now I can’t seem to give the Shadows back.”

The things inside me manage to ooze past my hold on them and press outward at my words, and I guess they get visibly close to the surface because Hesperia flinches. Behind me, Reven sighs, but I bind them back down.

The nymph doesn’t apologize, though, or explain. Instead, her eyes narrow on me with a sting of suspicion. “Can’t give them back? Or won’t?”

“You’re the one throwing around curses. You tell me!”

She glances away. “I’m not sure how that is possible, but it does complicate the situation.”

Understatement.

“What were you supposed to do the day we were born?” Tabra asks from where she’s still safely on the other side of the bars, standing now with Achlys beside her.

Hesperia considers her for a long moment before her gaze slides back to me. “I gave to you what he wanted for himself, the ability to siphon power.”

I nod. “Yes. I tap into it, into him , and draw his power inside me.”

“No. I mean continuously.”

I blink, then frown. Continuously?

She sighs. “I was supposed to give Eidolon that kind of access to Tabra’s power—the child who would be the soul Enfernae—so that he could use that ability himself to free the goddesses.”

Continuous control. That’s what my curse is doing? I only use it when I need it because I know he can feel me then, but…is it possible Eidolon is always accessing me through that link?

“He already tried to control my sister,” I tell her. “By infesting her with a ghost of his own past self.”

Hesperia visibly startles at that. “What happened?”

“It didn’t work.”

“Fool,” she mutters, then gives a grim shake of her head. “He needs the Celestial Alignment. He’s tried, through the years of previous Alignments, and nothing ever worked, so he ruled it out as impactful a long time ago. But he was wrong.”

I am over this game of not having all the answers, so I grab her by the arm, her sandy skin rough against my palm the way Bene is, only less coarse. “Stop talking in cryptic fits and spurts. Tell me everything I need to know. Starting with why the Celestial Alignment is so important.”

She frowns at me in a way that seems confused, but it clears an instant later. “The Alignment enhances an Imperium’s powers.”

We already know that. Scoria told us. I give her a tiny shake. “And?” Why can’t people just spit out the important stuff?

“ And I suspect that’s how your ancestresses were able to put the goddesses in the amulets that day.” She tips her head, considering me more closely. “And they had help, from the other sovereigns. Only all those sovereigns, all except one of the Arydian queens, died. I was there. I saw it.”

Cold filters through my veins.

Her expression shifts. Darkens. “But I had a vision the day I held Tabra as a newborn—a nightmare, really. There is sudden darkness. There are Imperium—I can see their yellow and purple lights. And…blue? It snaps all around me. And there is so much death. So much pain. Anger, too. I can feel it clawing at me. Swirling around me like smoke until I choke on it. If I had used my magic on Tabra, I saw Eidolon succeed in releasing his mother, and in her rage, she destroys the world. Together with her son, they would create an eternal night. But Mereneith…” She hesitates, her eyes going glassy as if she’s replaying whatever she saw in her head. “I can feel them . The goddesses.” Her eyes flicker open and she looks directly at me. “This might help.”

She reaches a hand into her body, and the sands that make up her form shift and swirl and eddy until she’s drawing something out. Something that looks like…

A book.

It can’t be.

Eidolon’s book. The one that Reven once saw when he was still a mere Shadow inside the king. The book in which each incarnation has written their history, their deeds, their thoughts, passed down from Shadow to Shadow. We’ve been searching for it, thinking it might give us insights and answers into everything—the king’s reasons as well as his plans.

“ You have it?” I whisper to the nymph.

“I took it from him,” she says. “Hid it inside me.”

“Mother goddess,” I hear Reven say from behind me.

Seeing that thing, and the way the writing changed, the way it recorded Eidolon’s descent into evil, is what convinced Reven to take control when he did, to go against his maker.

“Do you remember it?” I ask him.

“Meren?” Reven’s voice seems to come from farther off.

Hesperia pulls back sharply, straining against my grip. “No. Don’t—”

A wall of darkness slams up around us, circling us and cutting us off from the others, so thick I can’t see anyone outside of it. In the same instant, a flash of purple light on something shiny has me looking down, shock crawling over my insides at the sight of one of my own knives now clutched in my free hand. When did I unsheathe it? Why?

I’m not that mad right now. Irritated, yes, but…

The stupidity of even thinking that question hits me in the next blink.

Oh, goddess it’s happening again. This is not me. I’m not doing this.

“Meren!” I hear Reven’s shout. Even more muffled thanks to the wall of darkness keeping him back. I know he’s trying to get to me. To stop me.

“You’ve been holding back, Hesperia. Leaving you as bait turned out exactly as I’d planned. Now I have the last piece.” The voice, sinister and grating, comes from me. But it’s not me. It’s—

“Reven!” I cry out. His name bounces around the insides of my skull, but I don’t think it comes out of my mouth.

Too late, anyway.

“And now you’ll die,” the voice says.

Against my will, my hand plunges the knife into Hesperia’s sternum and then drags down, slicing her belly open, spilling sand and black blood onto my hand, slick and warm and gritty.

Immediately the book, not fully pulled from her body yet, disintegrates into sand.

No. Goddess no!

I think I hear Tabra scream. I know chaos erupts in the room behind me as they pound and stab and try to force their way inside the barrier between us, but they still can’t get to me through the darkness.

Hesperia’s hands go up over her wound, but it’s mortal. Nothing is going to save her. She lifts her head with visibly trembling effort, eyes focusing on my face. “You.” Her voice is a hiss like sand spilling. But she’s not talking to me.

“Who?” I ask, but I think only I hear it. “Who is doing this? A ghost? The Shadows?”

Her eyes start to go glassy, her lids blinking slower and slower over them.

“I know you well.” Her voice is thready now, scratchy. “Eidolon of Tyndra.”

What ? I want to shake my head. Deny it. He’s not here. He can sense me but he’s not inside me. “It’s his Shadows,” I try to tell her.

She doesn’t hear. “How do you control this child?” she demands in a voice that breaks over each word.

“Down the same line you connected her to me with,” my mouth snarls in that voice that’s not mine, even as I fight it with all my mind and heart.

And I realize she’s right, that it’s true.

Every other time I’ve lost control, every time my friends have seen the Shadows cross my features, even what happened to Mimick—it’s all been him.

It’s always been him.

She takes a shuddering, horrible breath, more hissing of sand coming from her, and seems to focus not on my face, but on the me trapped inside myself. “ You are the key. Take his power from him,” she says.

Is she talking to me?

“Take it all until he has none left, or until you have enough to kill him.” Her jerking smile is filled with the kind of relief only centuries of fear could produce when staring death in the face. “I trusted you with this for a reason, Mereneith Evangeline the Twelfth.”

Then her entire being tenses, like she’s drawing in on herself before she dissolves, draining out of my hold with a hiss, falling to the ground no longer formed as a human but as a pile of multicolored sand.

“You don’t have the strength to take anything from me,” Eidolon’s voice sounds in my head, supremely satisfied. “Time to kill the others.”

Before I can respond, the darkness holding the others back is ripped away, torn like fabric only to explode outward in a concussive wave. Everyone goes flying, crashing into the walls and skidding across the floor. I don’t see them get up.

Only Reven still stands with me, darkness misting around him telling me he shadowed to avoid the hit. In an instant, he has me by the shoulders and slams me against the stone wall hard enough that my ears ring and my breath deserts me for a second, just as he wraps a hand around my neck.

I claw at his grip even as my feet dangle and kick.

“Don’t make me do this, Meren,” he warns through clenched teeth. “Don’t make me hurt you.”