Page 68

Without Or Within

Fear curdles in my stomach. He doesn’t point out that if he hadn’t had to argue with the guards and then wait for them to notify me, we’d have longer. I already know that’s on me.

The Shadows are silent and still, even at the spoken name of the king. I hope they stay that way through what comes next.

“Where will he come from?” Reven demands.

Horus flicks him a glance. “He plans to shadow his army into the heart of the city and the palace itself.”

Damn them. We need to force them outside my walls. I look at Reven. “You said you had an idea for that.”

“What idea, exactly?” Vos asks.

Reven keeps his gaze on me as he says, “We block Eidolon out with shadow.”

“How is that supposed to work?” Cain asks. “The king is more powerful than either of you.”

Pella is also shaking her head. “Eidolon will take over Meren if she tries it.”

“Not if he’s in the middle of bringing his army here from Tyndra,” Reven points out. “It’s going to take his entire focus and a lot of his energy. He won’t have the ability to do both.”

In other words, we have a narrow window. Smart.

“We don’t have time to argue.”

I take Reven’s hand, then look at my sister. “Tabra?”

“Go,” she says. And maybe for the first time ever, I don’t see the softness in her. The woman standing before me is calm, ready, battle-tested even. “I’ll be here.”

“I love you,” I tell her.

Tabra’s smile is everything I used to miss when we were apart. “I love you, too.”

I nod and Reven shadows us to the top of the private royal tower so fast, the blink in and out is more like the flicker of a candle. He doesn’t let go of me as he raises his free hand, already glowing purple, though dimmer in the bright morning sunlight.

I draw on Eidolon’s power. The cold of it in my blood is a shock even though it’s only been a few days since I used it against the Devourers. It pours through me in a rush that edges on pain.

“I’ll start on the north side, you start on the south,” Reven says. “Build it starting from the wall, up and over, like a dome. We meet at the zenith.”

I close my eyes and get to work. My heart rattles around in the cage of my ribs, waiting for Eidolon to take control any second now. Or to appear here, drawn to us by my use of his power like a beacon, and stop us. Or something more horrible.

The cold intensifies until it’s a burn. As if Tyndra itself exists inside me.

“He’s coming,” a Shadow escapes long enough to hiss at me.

“I can’t do more,” I warn Reven. “They’re talking to me.”

He doesn’t ask who. He knows.

“Hold where you are,” Reven says. “I’ll bring mine up and over to meet yours.”

I open my eyes to see a dome of darkness stretched far overhead to the horizon of the city edge, just thin enough to see the details of the sky and desert beyond through it. Closing in on itself, the other half crests over the apex at the centerline and inches down toward my part like double doors being drawn together to close out a storm.

How long has it been since Horus arrived? Ten minutes? Fifteen? That was at most . Any second, I’m expecting them to appear like ants pouring from a disturbed mound.

Fear doesn’t stop rushing through my veins, even when the dome connects like a kiss, creating a seamless shadow drawn over the city, casting us in a dimmer light. No sooner do we lower our hands than something strikes our shield. All I see is the ripple of the hit, like tossing a rock into a pond, but I feel it. And still, the dome holds.

Try to shadow your army past that , asshole.

Out toward the south, trumpets blare to life—the signal for invasion.

“Come on.” Reven, still holding my hand, shadows us to a flat rooftop of one of the basic towers I made at points around my wall.

“Hells and damnation,” I mutter.

Eidolon’s army is amassed in the desert outside the city, thank the mother goddess. But it’s so many. Columns upon columns of soldiers in gleaming white armor, painfully brilliant even under Aryd’s slightly dimmer sun and with the shield of shadow between us.

I look at Reven. “What do you think he’s going to—”

There’s a small ripple in the packed sand in front of the troops. It picks up speed, growing larger as it barrels toward the city like a wave.

Only an Imperium could do that.

I throw my hands up, but the instant I try to stop the wave, an invisible force slams into me—like the power the Imperium is using to create it struck at my own power. It tosses me backward and I smack my head against the floor. It takes a second for the jagged pain to ebb.

“It’s not the sand,” I tell Reven, hand to my ringing head. “It’s the land itself, I think. I can’t stop it.”

I push myself to my feet just as the wave rams into the wall off to our left with an explosion of sand. The impact shakes through the foundation of the tower we’re on, even though we’re far from where it hit. I put my palms against the shadow dome, pressing my face against it, trying to see down the line of the wall. “Did it breach?”

“I don’t think so.” Reven steps closer. “If it had, the debris would have gone inward to the city, not back out toward the desert.”

Another ripple builds and comes at the city again.

Reven jerks forward, hands igniting.

“No, wait.” I grab his arm. “Eidolon will see. He might come for you.” If we’re supposed to conserve power for the Alignment, drawing his attention, having to fight him this early would be disastrous.

The muscles under my hand flex and bunch. He knows I’m right.

The strike is close enough that this time I see when it makes contact. Once again, my wall holds. A miracle. There’s no screaming inside the city, no movement, no rush to get away. Behind us is silent.

“Why is it so quiet?” I ask, looking back into the streets.

Reven’s coiled frustration shifts to a smile that is quiet satisfaction. “Evacuating the city was one of Vos’s better ideas.”

When did they evacuate? I want to ask, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. They’d kept me in the dark for a reason. I imagine they used the portal in the temple to send our people to other cities in Aryd, or to our allies. That bastard won’t be able to use innocent bystanders against us this time. A city can be rebuilt but lives lost are lost forever.

Reven looks out toward the army. “Eidolon’s mistake was giving us time to prepare.”

The waves of sand come faster. The ground looks like water on a stormy day.

I flinch with every strike.

Where is the king? Has he been able to get through the shadow barrier we built? Is he trying to bring it down?

I check the Shadows, but they’re contained. Even the one who rose up only minutes ago.

A blast hits extremely close and Reven throws himself over and around me, taking the brunt of the debris that shoots inward on this side of the wall and pelts us. I bury my head against his chest. How we both stay upright as the tower threatens to collapse under the impact, I don’t know. We both right ourselves, and I stare at the massive hole in the fallen wall directly beside the tower.

I don’t see the signal, but as if they have been unleashed, Eidolon’s army breaks formation to sprint for the city. An instant later, horses appear from around the bend and charge straight at the backside of Eidolon’s army.

The Wanderers.

No doubt in my mind that Cain is leading the charge with Pella at his side.

“Why aren’t they screaming?” Reven mutters under his breath.

The war cry of the Wanderers is famous, a bloodcurdling sound guaranteed to put the fear of the goddesses into any enemy.

“They’re waiting until they get closer,” I say. I can practically hear Cain in my head telling me this. “They want the element of surprise.”

Sure enough, the Tyndrans haven’t turned around yet.

I wait to close the wall, not even drawing on my power yet. If I plug up the hole now, they might go looking for the next threat. They’ll see Cain’s people.

I find myself holding my breath as the Wanderers close the distance.

“Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.” I chant the words softly. Tension crawls over me like spiders.

Beside me, Reven lets out a growl of frustration. “I’m not sitting by and doing nothing.”

He flicks both his hands like he’s shooing away a gnat, and suddenly the entire front line of soldiers goes down, like they were tripped.

And they were. By their own shadows. Something not obvious to anyone watching. I only know because I’m standing by Reven, who grins. “That’ll distract them.”

And then the Wanderers scream.

“Scourge!”