Page 74 of Cursed Shadows 1

I almost start floating again in that nothingness.

But the fear is an ice-sword speared through me, and it somehow keeps me grounded in my reality. So I have one last resort. One option that I pin the last of my hopes on—even though he won’t help me, and even if he wanted to, can he?

Daxeel is all I have in my fight against the Sacrament. Not because he loved me once, but because he’s an ancient bloodline ancestor. Maybe that’s something. Maybe it’s nothing.

But I won’t find out until I get him to at least acknowledge me.

His hands on my body in the shadows of the corridor a week ago have done nothing to thaw the ice between us. Often, in my ghostly daze, I see him around the common areas or in passing. If he even looks my way at all, he only ever spares me a cold and unreadable glance.

“—forge an alliance with some of your kind,” Aleana offers up her umpteenth strand of weak advice.

I’m hardly listening, tuning in and out as I sink deeper into the armchair she’s tucked up in again. This time, our shared space seems even smaller, since our laps are blanketed in scrolls that she fished out from the scripture halls or stole from the iilra’s private rooms, all so she can find something—anything—that will help me get out of the Sacrament.

These scrolls have been read to death, and there’s no secret to be found in them. Still, she tries, she reads and rereads, and if I felt much more than a dreaded fear, then I might be grateful for her. Eamon, too.

He’s no different, sat on the sofa that faces our preferred fireplace in the Hall. He should be buried in bottles, but he’s buried in tomes instead.

None of us look up as the familiar harem worker brings us some freshly bottled drinks. I don’t even look up as she walks a honeywine right over to me and pushes it into my hand.

If I did look at her, I might see that she watches me again, always with that blush, or maybe I would notice how she steals a strand of my hair from the arm of the chair and pockets it, how Aleana watches the theft with narrowed eyes.

But I’m only faintly aware of such things happening around me; they are distant echoes that whisper all around me, never quite able to draw in my focus.

“Alliances with the litalves only helps her in the second passage,” Eamon sighs, tossing a thick tome from his lap. It slams down on the coffee table with enough force to stir a cloud of dust from the other read-then-abandoned tomes.

With a huff, he falls back on the couch.

I drink.

“The first passage…” he starts, threading his fingers through his hair, and this phase, he wears them down as tight curls, not in the narrow braids he sometimes prefers. “That’s an individual trial. Always the same. Each contender needs to find their own dragon eye.”

Not a literal eye of a dragon. It’s a gemstone of sorts, one with a hole naturally carved out from its centre—and only ever found in dragon caves where they lay their eggs and protect them with so much ferocity that I wouldn’t make it a step before being burnt alive.

Many contenders die in that passage.

The dragon eye is the only way to balance between the veil of the worlds. Without one, the contenders in the second passage wouldn’t be able to harness themselves to this world when leaning into Mother’s ear. Without one, Mother would snatch the contenders up in her slumber and devour their souls whole.

The dragon eye is an anchor—but I need a fucking miracle.

I’ve finished off the wine by the time the First Wind brings with it both the chill in the air and the fae pouring into the Hall.

I hardly notice either and just lean my head back on the tall spine of the chair. I watch the candles flicker on the metal chandeliers and wonder if it will hurt when a dragon incinerates me, or will the force of it kill me instantly?

Bet I don’t even make it that far…

It’s a bloodbath between the light and dark before they even reach the caves, never mind the nests—and me being such a weakling among warriors, I’ve got ‘easy target’ painted all over me.

It’s all that rules my thoughts as more and more fae come into the Hall, even when the atmosphere lights up all around me. If I cared, I might notice that it’s something like the jovial mood of a public house in the Royal City, or even those more boisterous ones near the sea. Good spirits.

Unity.

That’s the whole point of it all.

In this Hall, with rows of long wooden tables and firm benches, and armchairs and fireplaces, and sofas and bar stools—light and dark come together. They mingle over heavy glasses of ale and laugh over pitchers of wine, like I don’t watch them kill each other on the battle blocks.

Liars, all of them.

Even Rune gets the judgement from me as he wanders into the Hall. My glare is cutting, and all he does is arch a brow before he falls into the other armchair.

---