Page 111 of Cursed Shadows 5

My body knows to act before my mind can order it to do so. They are separated now, body and soul.

It’s a strange thing, five silhouettes in a damp alley moving with such slowed determination.

Both Eamon and Daxeel sense the intrusion, smell the scents in the lane drawing closer, closer.

Eamon drops the rolled stalk and the ember flickers on the stone ground; he fumbles for his sleeve.

I watch him, moving as slowly as I do, as the litalves do, as Daxeel does as his hand reaches around to his waistband—and time is moving so, so slow that I can’t even hear the blasts above anymore, it is silent.

Their boots remain planted as their bodies start to twist around; both litalves stand with their backs to me, their own throwing knives firming in their grips; and me, alone, unnoticed, at the end of the alley, shrouded in the shadows of dark, my hand clasping around the hilt of a throwing knife I have strapped to my thigh.

I call out—but whose name I call is indecipherable. It is a strangled sound, perhaps a blend of Daxeel and Eamon, or perhaps a plea to the litalves who each raise their blades.

But like each time before, it does nothing.

Instinct charges through me.

The knife spindles through my fingers as I fall my weight back onto one leg and raise my arm, and arch it back—

I have only one.

But there are two threats.

I can only save one.

Without a beat of hesitation, I make a choice. I aim.

But then something takes over my mind, my muscles, like the hand of a god reaching into me, a puppet—and I pitch the knife at theotherlitalf.

It sinks into the spine of his neck, a perfect strike that has him crumbling, and I realise who I have chosen to save.

Instinct chose him.

Love chose the other.

The other…

His eyes flash—before a knife slams into his throat. He wobbles once before his legs give out under him, and his knees hit the ground with a sickening crunch.

The other stands as motionless as a stunned statue… just as I do… but his cousin bleeds out, choking on it, on the dewy and dirty ground of an alleyway.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

My throat bobs.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

The litalf turns on me, a wild flare in his eyes—and his mouth curls into a snarl. The litalf who threw a knife… into the neck of my beloved Eamon.

A flutter of lashes disturbs my suddenly watery view.

Bodies crumpled, one litalf… and him.

Eamon…

My Eamon.

My brother.

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