Page 19 of Cursed Shadows 4

But my boots are planted, firm.

If I could have fled, if I could have run into the dark, then of course I would no longer be in the Midlands. But Daxeel gave me to Mother, and she owns me now.

In a way, she always has.

I don’t fight it, because I can’t fight it.

Reluctance weighs me down, but I step forward all the same. The soles of my boots are the loudest of all remaining light contenders. They scuff and drag over the stone ground.

Each agonising step I take towards the portal brings me closer to a wretchedachingsensation—it spreads through me; it threatens to consume me whole and bring me to my knees.

For too long a moment, I think it is my own fear. Like ice spilled inside of my chest, then spreading over to frost everything in its path.

Then I sense it.

I sensehim.

The urge to lift my gaze and look across the portal, across the courtyard, is strong. Too strong.

I fist my hands at my sides as though it helps me fight the temptation. It must help, because I don’t look up—I don’t meet Daxeel’s stare.

And I don’t have to look to know he watches me.

I can imagine it perfectly, as clearly as a painting in front of me. The gleam of his eyes through the thick darkness, the coiling shadows curving over his shoulders, licking at his heels, and a frown on his mouth.

I am too close to the edge of the portal now to let myself break. If I look at him, I will.

So I lock my gaze onto the portal instead, just as a contender from the light side steps onto it, then drops into tarry nothingness.

I still for a heartbeat—then I double over.

My hands slap onto my knees as an ill sensation barrels through me. The retch comes first, loud and grated, then the flow of sick falls out from between my parted lips.

It splashes on the stone between my boots.

Murky brown.

Coffee and water.

Distantly, I feel a bud of gratitude for myself, that I didn’t eat the breakfast that Tris delivered to my bedchamber.

Laughter erupts from across the portal.

Dark warriors find humour in me. The mockery of their laughs, the chuckles, the murmurs, it makes me want to turn around and run—and never come back.

My own kind don’t tease me. I hear no laughs from this side of the portal, not from the contenders or the spectators.

Before I can linger too long on the sick at my boots, or the sudden swell of something ugly in my chest from Daxeel, I wipe the back of my gloved hand over my mouth, then stagger those final two steps.

I ignore the aching swell of pity that courses so strongly through Daxeel that it lashes at me through the bond.

I ignore the laughs that fade to chuckles.

I ignore the stares of the fae on me.

And, with a sharp inhale, a breath that pins to my throat, a face flushed red hot, I lift my boot from the stone—then step onto the tarry window.

I fall.

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