The Stolen Throne
by Abigail Owen

Copyright © 2023 by Abigail Owen. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

1

THE BROKEN
SHADOWRAITH

Reven

You’d think stealing a queen would be easy for a Shadowraith.

Considering I once kidnapped a princess from this very palace and no one stopped me, it should be. But that was before Eidolon, the king of Tyndra, moved in. He is why, instead of using my power over shadow to get to her unseen, I’m standing in a forgotten room at the top of a set of dark stairs that lead down into an underground cistern. He’d know if I used my shadows.

As my maker, he can use them, too.

“Goddess help me,” a voice whispers in the darkness, and for a heavy second, I think it’s her.

Meren.

My heart surges to life as I listen, waiting, straining to hear that voice again. To make sure it was actually her.

Nothing.

The breath of hope I’d been holding rattles out of my chest. Who am I kidding? I’m not that lucky. Besides, there are plenty of other things that whisper to me. Most aren’t good.

I don’t think it was one of Eidolon’s Shadows—the fractured, evil pieces of the king’s soul that I carry inside me. The voice would have sounded like my own because I’m one of those Shadows, too. The one to get away. To stand against him.

It could have been a desperate stranger crying out for help. I hear them every night, their voices coming from all over the six dominions of Nova—despairing people who whisper pleas into the dark that they think go unheard, but the shadows carry their words to me. I used to find them—the Vanished, people would call them—and take them to the safety of the Shadowood for a chance at a new life, but the Shadowood isn’t safe anymore. I can’t save anyone.

“Pathetic.” A new voice rings in my head. This one I recognize, because it comes from within. This is one of Eidolon’s Shadows. “If you can’t save them, why could you save her?”

“Shut up,” I mutter.

That sets the other Shadows off. Their voices in my head blend and blur as they talk over one another. The foul things I carry fight for control every second of every hour of every day. If my tenuous control slips, the Shadows will gleefully bury my consciousness down deep in a tomb made of my own body and take over. There’s no telling what they’d do after that.

Tightening my hands into fists, I force them back down.

It works—for now.

Luckily, Cain, who is with me down here, doesn’t seem to notice any of that. He’s too pissed off about what we’re about to do.

In the history of bad ideas, kidnapping the woman everyone believes to be the queen of the dominion of Aryd out from under the nose of the powerful king they think she’s married to, especially when I can’t use my powers to do it, ranks right at the top.

But it’s the best we could come up with.

I refuse to wait even a second longer to get Meren out of there. I’ve been hiding and waiting for what has felt like an eternity—every plodding, torturous minute spent healing after the wounds I sustained in the last battle with the king. The battle where I lost Meren.

We’ve been hunted the whole way, constantly having to evade Eidolon’s soldiers, keeping out of their grasp by moving all over the blasted dominion. Almost every single one of Aryd’s different deserts, in their varied colors and landscapes, has seen our ragtag band of misfits. The king’s men have been relentless.

Granted, I have Eidolon’s Shadows…and a few other things he needs. He wants them back.

But he has something I want back, too.

Standing beside me, Cain snorts an unamused laugh. “This is a joke, right?”

I grit my teeth.

After all this time in the desert, endless sand and heat are now my idea of what the seventh hell must be like. After three weeks traveling here together, just the two of us, having Cain’s ugly mug in my face every single day might be the eighth.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m not much of a joker.”

Cain grumbles something under his breath and stares at the inky water the stairs lead down into, expression dubious. “Let me get this straight. You want me to trust you to get us into the palace by swimming through an underground labyrinth—a dark underground labyrinth—that you’ve used once. Once. And that one time, you weren’t in control, and you couldn’t see anything in the pitch black, and Meren was the only one who actually knew the way. That about right?”

We’ve already discussed this. A lot. “Yes.”

“No.” He crosses his arms, jaw taking on a stubborn cast.

I train a hard gaze on Cain. In his early twenties, like me, he’s as tall as I am but lankier, leanly muscled thanks to growing up in the desert. Black hair. Nearly black eyes. The guy laughs a lot, when not among enemies. Which, to him, I mostly am.

He and I are…complicated.

Meren sent us to Cain for protection. As the son of Zariph Cainis, who leads a zariphate of Wanderers—proud, nomadic people who thrive in the desert—he could offer us a unique form of protection. This man is the entire reason why the people of the Vanished I try to protect, Meren’s twin sister, Tabra, who is technically the true queen of Aryd, and I aren’t dead yet. Cain has sheltered us all while putting his own people at risk.

I should respect the man. Feel grateful.

I can’t stand him.

I hate him because he’s known Meren most of her life and wants her for himself. I hate him because he’s had years with her, years when he could see her face or touch her, when all I had was her voice in the darkness, begging for a different life, and a few stolen weeks with her at my side. I hate him because I know he would be better for her than I am. He could protect her, cherish her, keep her safe. She could grow old as his heartmate.

I, on the other hand… I bring only death.

It also doesn’t help that all he’s done is doubt me and argue with me all the way here. He’s lucky I haven’t disappeared him yet. I could. I’ve done it before.

My control over shadows is a blessing and a curse. I can manipulate them to do my bidding. I hide in them, travel by them, wield them as weapons. I can also obliterate everything within leagues when I lose control.

Right now, though, I can’t do any of that well. I’m better than I was, but I’m still weak.

Something Cain knows.

Eidolon’s Shadows know it, too.

The dark corners of the room shift restlessly around us. Cain snaps his gaze to me, body tensed and ready to defend himself.

I force the darkness to still. He doesn’t relax, though.

He’s smart not to.

“What’s the real plan here?” Cain asks with narrow-eyed suspicion. “Get your shadows to drown me? Hide my body in darkness?”

Is that my plan? No. Tempting as it is.

Could it happen anyway? Maybe.

Hells, a few weeks ago I came a hair’s breadth from accidentally killing Cain’s father, the zariph, for refusing to let us leave to rescue Meren sooner.

If Cain knew that…

“Do you have a better way in?” I know he doesn’t.

A tic sets off in his jaw. He despises this plan, but we have no better option. We need to get into the castle grounds undetected, and I can’t use my power to do that.

We agreed—and by we, I mean Cain strongly pointed out and I eventually agreed—that I shouldn’t use my shadows to get us in and out of the palace. Not with the way it drains me. Not with Eidolon likely able to sense it, waiting like a spider in a web.

I’m saving my power for “in case this goes sideways” and I need to get us out quickly. And the likelihood of that happening is high. We haven’t been the only ones with time to plan.

Months. Meren’s been trapped with that monster for months. Who even knows what sort of protections he’s put in place? Or what he’s done to her.

Tabra was with Eidolon less than two weeks, and look at what shape she’s in. Wasting away. Prone to violent fits. With Meren’s face, it’s been very easy to picture the same happening to her, too.

Screw waiting.

I imagine stuffing the king’s Shadows into a box made of indestructible stone with a heavy lid. I shove all of what I feel in there with them. Every strong emotion. Emotions are dangerous for someone like me. “I’m going. Stay here and wait if you want.”

Cain flashes out a hand to stop me before I can do more than shift my weight forward. “Hold on.”

“What now?”

He straightens with a light in his eyes I don’t trust and a cocky grin I’ve seen way too often. “Actually…” He holds up his hands, palms glowing a cheerful yellow. I’m not the only Imperium—humans who were born with powers gifted to them by the goddesses—here, though he’s Hylorae while I’m Enfernae. Just another reason to hate each other. His light bounces off the water but doesn’t penetrate beyond a few feet into the tunnels.

I cross my arms. “Seeing won’t help all that much.” Breathing is the bigger issue if I get us lost down there.

He ignores me, focusing on the water, which begins to bubble like a current, pushing toward us from the sunken passages beyond. The level in the chamber where we stand rises, coming up the stairs until I have to back up to keep my shoes dry.

Then, suddenly, the water parts, clearing a small, walkable path for us down the stairs and into the exposed hallway beyond.

I glance at Cain, who shrugs. “Better than drowning.”

At least he’s handy for something. His power to draw water from the driest part of the desert saved our asses more than once these last weeks. Handy for the zariphate, too.

Together, Cain and I descend into the dark and now dripping tunnel only to encounter a wall of water before us. As we get closer, the water behind us moves, slipping across the walls and ceiling but not touching us until it fills in at our backs, locking us in a bubble of sorts.

Cain cocks his head at me with an air of expectation.

“What? You want a pat on the back for creativity?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

“Your ego doesn’t need any help.”

“What can I say? Self-confidence is part of my personality the same way asshole-ness is part of yours.” Then he sobers, the warrior in him focused. “Since I don’t know where I’m going and space is limited in here, I can’t move all of it. Just enough air so that we don’t immediately die if you get us lost, but it will only last so long.”

Between the two of us, we make it through the cistern—dry, I might add. Yes, thanks to Cain. It only took two wrong turns that would have killed us if we’d tried to swim it. Peering through the crack in the door that leads out of the cistern and up to the patrolled grounds between the outer and inner walls that surround the palace, we wait, timing the guards, like Meren taught the Shadow that was in control of me when she showed him this way into the palace.

Finally, we take our shot, running across the open land that protects the palace like a dry moat, softly lit by only the third moon, then up and over the inner wall to drop into the private royal gardens.

Which is when we hear it.

Music. Laughter. Talking. Far enough away that no one is near us, but still, a big problem.

Hells and damnation. “A party,” I whisper. Quite the occasion by the sounds of it.

Cain thinks for a moment, then grimaces. “Sandrats. It’s Meren’s name day.”

Wait. Her birthday is today? Perfect. Just perfect. “And you didn’t think to mention that?”

He throws his hand out, waving around us. “I’ve been a little busy to keep track of the day. And what about you? If you’re so arrow shot for her—”

“Arrow shot?”

“So taken you’ve lost your wits.”

Before I can blast him with shadow or at least punch him in the face for that one, a shout rises up nearby.

“Hey!”

On sheer instinct, without even blinking, I will the shadows behind the guard running at us to grab him and slam his head into the trunk of a tree. He falls to the ground in a heap. The purple glow of my palms douses immediately.

Cain and I both go silent, waiting for any other guards to pick up on the alarm, but the garden remains peaceful.

“I should have handled that,” Cain grumbles after a bit.

The glint of moonlight on his knife blade tells me he was ready. I’m not apologizing, though.

Scaling the side of the palace itself, we make our way up to the balcony. Instead of going left toward Meren and Tabra’s old rooms, we go the opposite direction, wrapping around to an even wider terrace. Every room in this wing opens onto the private balconies.

At least the queen’s name day celebration means the people in the palace are distracted—and probably gathered in the ballroom, which is in another building. Except that includes Meren. The thought of having to wait for her is already an itch under my skin.

“Let us out!”

The scream comes from within, exploding the metaphorical box I had locked the Shadows inside.

Fuck.

I put a shaking hand behind me and form a fist, the Wanderer signal to stop, while I wrestle for control. Damn it. I had the Shadows buried so deep that they shouldn’t have seen anything or known where we are.

But they do. They know the king is near. Our maker is near.

Their screams are like ragged blades shredding my insides as they try to claw their way out. If I look down, I know I’ll see their faces bulging out of my skin, even under my clothing. Seven hells. Eidolon doesn’t need to find me—the Shadows want to find him. Especially now, while I’m weakened. I went up against Eidolon once, when I was physically whole…and I lost.

There’s no way I can face him and live. Not tonight.

We need to get Meren out of the palace before Eidolon realizes I’m here. That’s the only way this works without us getting dead.

Cain taps my shoulder.

“Don’t.” The word comes out as a snarl that even I don’t recognize.

The sharp blade of a knife slides against the skin of my throat. “Just give the word,” Cain’s voice says in my ear. Not a threat. A mercy killing.

He means it, too.

I hold up a hand, and neither of us moves. I need to be in control before we take another step.

I slip a hand into my breast pocket and run a finger over the perfect, smooth glass of the flower, the one Meren made and gave me one night in a moonlit wood when we pretended we were the only two people in the world.

I’m so close. Damned if I’m going to let the Shadows win tonight.

I take a long, slow breath, stuff the grinding fear that I’m already too late to save her in the box with the Shadows, and pull the metaphorical lid back over it, containing the evil. “I’ve got it.”

Mostly.

The knife doesn’t move. “You sure?”

Meren probably wouldn’t like it if I pushed her best friend off this ledge. “Yes.”

The knife leaves my throat, but I don’t miss the way Cain releases a breath of his own. I’m pretty sure I scared the life out of him. These past months, he’s seen what happens when I lose it. More times than I like to acknowledge.

We continue on until we reach the biggest balcony with alabaster columns leading into the room beyond, rather than the usual black marble, reminding me of stripes on a banded alder vulture from home. The curtains are thrown wide open as if in direct defiance, daring anyone to try something with this queen.

This has to be Meren’s room.

It smells of her—fresh and subtle and clean.

Inside, beyond the columns, is a massive bed covered by a gauzy netting, empty. So is the rest of the ridiculously opulent room, one large enough that a small house could fit inside it. It feels hollow in here. Cold. Unfeeling. Not like Meren. She must hate it. Feel so alone.

That’s assuming she hasn’t succumbed to Eidolon the way her sister did.

“We’ll have to wait,” Cain whispers. “Somewhere no one will see us.”

We both look around. There aren’t many places to hide one of us in this breezy, wide-open space, let alone two of us. Not that I can see.

“Wait. The hidden room,” Cain says. “There’s got to be one, right?”

I know what he’s talking about. In the rooms Tabra lived in when she was princess, there was a secret chamber for Meren, the hidden twin. The queens of Aryd have been concealing their second-born twin sisters for centuries, generations. Makes sense the queen’s chambers would have a space like that, too.

We split up, pressing against the walls until I get to a section that looks as solid as the rest, but when I push against it, a hidden panel springs open silently.

“Here.” I wave him over.

Cain grabs a candle.

As if that’s going to protect him from the Shadows if they break free. Or me if I accidentally lose my temper. We’re about to lock ourselves in a small room together, though, so I decide not to point that out.

Before closing the door, I pause and look across the room toward the passage that leads deeper into the palace. To where Meren is celebrating. Now that I’m here, I don’t know if I can make myself wait. She’s so close.

I’ve waited months. Months I’ve been forced to exercise patience I don’t claim to have. Months of roiling terror for her as I waited and planned and prayed to the goddesses that she wasn’t dead or being tortured. Months of being drip fed news about her.

I’m not sure what I’ll do when I finally see her. Hopefully keep my head and get all three of us out of here safely. But the fact that I can hardly make myself wait in her room until she returns should be a warning.

I will do anything, kill anyone, sacrifice everyone—including myself—to get to her. To keep her safe.

Because she is mine.

“What are you doing?” Cain snaps.

I don’t answer. Instead, I close the door, and we wait.

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