Page 62 of Cursed Shadows 1

It’s a funny thing, the darkness. How it plays with our ailments, makes my kind sick, apparently. It’s something new, something I didn’t know about the dark.

It springs a question to mind, “Is it like the dark in the Wastelands?”

The darkness there is different. It changes time. Maybe it’s because of all the time pockets peppered throughout the Wastelands, but unusual things happen there often.

Pregnancies are pushed into their third trimesters too quickly, humans age a decade within a single phase. The Wastelands are to be passed through in a hurry for anyone not of fae blood, or even dark blood. The dark fae are the only ones who are completely unaffected by the strangeness there.

So if Pandora’s ailment is made worse by the darkness here, she can recover better if returned to the light.

Father hums on the question. “It has an unusual effect,” he concedes. “The healer says the dark here is fighting her ailment, but that it is also fighting her body’s response. That could be what is worsening her symptoms.”

I nod like I understand, and to some degree I do, but no matter how much I read about these time shifts in the Midlands and Wastelands, I can’t quite seem to get a grasp on it.

The study of time pockets and time winds is better left to the scholars, the scribes, and the iilra.

“Fret not, child.” Father’s smile is reassuring. “When Pandora returns, I’ll call for you—and we’ll meet as a family.”

It eases me, so I smile and nod against the bones of my hands.

I meet Eamon by the battle blocks come the start of the Breeze. Samick sits with him, hunched over on a stack of crates, his hands clasped between his thighs.

Samick’s icy blond hair looks freshly cropped, made starker with the cool touch of his gleaming pale green eyes and the marble-like pallor of his complexion.

Something about Samick unnerves me more than usual around the dark ones. Something otherworldly, like he’s not entirely one of us, one of them—and when he throws his gaze to me, like he reads my thoughts, I visibly shudder, like my body senses something different in his, not even an instinctual hiss escapes me.

Such little friendliness to be found in Samick, he doesn’t offer a mere smile of reassurance or utter a laugh at my expense. He just looks at me, an unnatural stillness to him, a chilling gleam in his eyes, the green so pale yet glowing that I think of the morning sun rays bouncing off the surface of a shallow pond.

Then he looks away, back to the range.

I trace his gaze, but there’s nothing of interest down there. Orno oneof interest, really. Just rows of fae pitching dagger after knife after silver-star into the wooden targets.

My steps are careful as I wander to come up behind Eamon. He’s watching Aleana talk to Caius down the hill, but my natural cowardice has me using him as a shield between myself and Samick.

For too long, I stand here and watch all the violence turn to blood and broken bones on the battle blocks. The closer we get tothe first passage, the more feral they all seem to become—even my kind.

Now, all the contenders have figured out which opponents are worthy. By now, they have sniffed out matched opponents, those who give them a good spar, a challenge, and now they fight, and fight, and fight—all preparing for the passages where they will fight again, but to the death.

It’s strategy, I know that as I study them from my safe spot up by the courtyard wall. Light ones must know which dark warriors need stronger opponents, and the dark ones need to find any weaknesses they can exploit.

Pandora’s ailment is such a disadvantage, and I worry for her. She’ll be thrown into the passages blind. And she had such little time to build up alliance among her own people, so I hope she keeps her head down for the Sacrament, and just makes it out alive. None of the litalves will hurt her, but alliances mean she’ll be better protected.

But getting so close to the first passage means that not all contenders are bleeding themselves on the mats, or exhausting their bodies on the ranges, or even breaking their bones on the assault courses.

Some of them, the smarter ones, are up here by the courtyard. Like Samick, they are perched on crates, some are sharpening their arrow tips, others polish their blades, and some are just standing around in small groups of friends. But around a hundred of the fae just… hang out.

From up here, some watch the battle block. But others pass around valerian (or the black Dorcha version of it that looks somewhat poisonous to one like me) or drink homemade wine straight from bottles.

Daxeel is one of them.

With Rune, and other dokkalves I don’t recognize, he has the butt of a black smoke pinched between his fingers. There’s so much I notice in that one snapshot of an image. Not just the uneasy gloss of the inky paper wrapped around some sort of dokkalf version of valerian—something that looks more venomous than Daxeel’s occasional glances at me.

I notice his fingers.

Not just the thinner lines of his tattoo that winds around his fingers, buthis nails.

I remember so much about him back then, and all of it to the detail. I cling to the details. So I don’t doubt my memory of his fingernails all that time ago. They were something like humans, regular and plain and filed short, even if they were black. Mine are translucent, like a human’s, a tad longer and sharper than a human’s, but nowhere near as predatory as that of a fae.

Now, Daxeel’s nails aren’t cropped anymore. They are sharp and black, like many other dokkalves around me, and they remind me something of short claws.

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