Page 74 of Cursed Shadows 4

The logic of it should… do something to me. It should sink into my bones the way it apparently does with all other light fae, that selflessness, the absolute allegiance to Licht.

I find my allegiance is to myself.

I don’t want to die for a cause.

Yet, the light lives in me, as it does all my kind. Ifeelit. It thrives within me, in my chest, my heart, my bones, my soul. A little hum of light, constant.

The desire to protect it, it’s in me. A natural adoration. A mother’s love. A daughter’s love.

I don’t want to live in a world where the light doesn’t exist—where I am partially responsible for its end, even if it is only the human realm that pays the price.

But I am utterly selfish.

I can’t die for it.

My mouth turns down at the corners.

The way the litalves fight for this…

It’s almost as though there is a lot more at stake than humans. More at stake than the human realm.

Licht needs humans enslaved in the Eternal Dance to power the magick of the High Court; the wild fae need humans sacrificed to fuel the magick of the woods. Souls must be offeredto the gods. It’s not just humans we use. All sorts of unseelie are offered up to the gods, to the woods, to nature, to the light.

We need them, sure. But we can always find other sacrifices if the humans are gone.

So for the litalves to be fighting to the bone…

It doesn’t sit in me like a firm truth, it rocks like a boat on uneven waters, it sways me with doubt.

There’s something just a bitoffabout it all. Milk that’s a day too old, cheese that’s been left out in the sun and gone all sweaty, water that has stagnated in a puddle—just slightly off.

If it is all about saving the humans and the light, wouldn’t recruiters—like Eamon—be sent into the realm in the masses to steal as many as possible? Perhaps even offer entire towns and villages sanctuary in the light realm, to live among us as many of them do? Because while we, the litalves, sacrifice humans, we adore them, too. We keep them. We love them, adopt them as our own, wed them and procreate with them.

I chew on the inside of my cheek.

There is more.

There is more to this outcome than I understand.

If Daxeel can take control of the Cursed Shadows, then hand over that power to the iilra, they will use it to spread darkness over the human lands… but what is to stop them from drowning out the light of Licht?

My lashes shut on the ugly realisation.

Ifeelit dawn on me.

My insides hollow out, like Daxeel has taken a carving knife and gutted me.

Daxeel kept me in slavery, confined to his house, not only so I couldn’t flee from the Sacrament, but to keep total control over what I learned.

He kept me fromthis.

The light ones aren’t fighting on the Mountain of Slumber to kill me, to stop Daxeel, to save the humans, or even for a proud victory in the Sacrament.

They fight because the light lands are at risk.

More than that, they are threatened.

Weare threatened.

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