Page 77 of Cursed Shadows 1

Happened so long ago, in training, when another warrior-to-be who was losing the fight against her tore them apart with his bare hands.

Daxeel mocks it, but I don’t feel the sting of the insult.

My mind is on his true meaning:What advantage do you have? What is your fae trait?

At first, I think he’s teasing me. Like he wants to remind me of my half blood, that I have no fae traits to boast, remind me of my inferiority in the fae realms. Every intention is to demean and devalue me, to pluck out my insecurities and inspect them in front of my very eyes.

But maybe he’s only trying to get me focused—to think up ways I can help myself in this mess I very much got myself into.

That’s always the way, isn’t it? I got myself into this pain and hatred with Daxeel, and into the bloody passages with the Sacrament. Yet I still can’t help but blame everyone else.

I lock my stare with his and lift my chin, “Glamour.”

A look of surprise flutters over his face. A swift slip of the mask he’s quick to pull back into place.

A blush steals my cheeks. “It’s only mild power,” I add, with a look I cut to the valerian loose between his fingers.

Not all fae have glamour.

I don’t mention anything about my other ability, the one to lie.

Really, I am not lying to him now. He asks after fae traits, and the dishonesty of my tongue is a human trait.

Silent and slumped, I watch him.

Like he doesn’t hate me, like he doesn’t want to punch his hand into my chest and tear out my heart all to watch me bleed and die, he frowns and tilts his head, as though curious, as though intrigued by me as he used to be. “Show me.”

I return his stare for a heartbeat, another, then a third, before I loosen a heavy sigh and push to sit upright on the cushion.

He watches me with those fierce eyes of his as I lift my hands to my mouth.

A mere touch of the fingers and—I bare my teeth at him.

His gaze drags over my teeth, each one of them—and not a sharp canine in sight. How human they must look. But he doesn’t look impressed, he only lifts his gaze to mine and stares. Waiting. More.

I turn my cheek to him and, brushing a lock of wet hair behind my ear, I let the sharp tip of my ear transform. It doesn’t really transform, this is not shapeshifting, but I manipulate the air andmagic around me to change what others see when they look at me.

It’s only temporary, lasts a few hours at most, but I don’t tell him that. Not when I turn back to look at him, and though he lingers his stare over the human appearance of my ear for a beat longer than my teeth, he doesn’t react.

Still not impressed.

So I go for my finale. The one that’s hardest for me to pull off when I visit the human lands and want to better disguise the fae of my appearance.

I comb my fingers through my loose waves.

He watches each strand shiver, the magic pulsing around me, then the chestnut brown lightens to a lovely golden blond.

He studies it for a moment. The frown between his brow tells me this change of hair colour isn’t too his liking. But since the whore he is clearly fucking in the harem has such icy hair, I think he lies with that look. He must like blondes.

I wipe my hand through the shudder of magic that I feel buzzing in front of my face. With that one gesture, all glamour is erased, and I look like me again.

His eyes snap to mine.

He looks at me with such intensity that my insides writhe.

“That is valuable,” he says.

And new.Somewhatnew.

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