Page 135 of Cursed Shadows 5

I can make out a brushstroke of yellow down a black canvas. I blink on the yellow, braided hair pulled into a topknot; gleaming cat eyes fixed on me; beige skin, coated with dark leathers.

A sound escapes me, a guttural noise blended with a squeal, and I shove myself into a run.

The run is curt, two steps to reach him, but the urgency slams me into his solid chest, hard enough that he staggers back with a laugh.

Rune’s arms come around me.

His scent floods me, soapy cloths run over his leathers, the faintest hint of salty tears; and a hot touch to his coffee-scented breath brushing through my hair.

I cling to him.

And for a long while, he lets me.

Into my hair, his words are muffled, “Melantha said I would find you all here.”

Something thrums through me, a struck cord.

Find youallhere.

Whether he has come here to see Forranach or myself, or us both, that is not my thought. He might expect to find Eamon here, too. And they are friends,werefriends, and Rune left before it happened…

I must tell him.

My throat bobs as, slowly, I peel myself away from him.

Rune’s hold slips away.

His eyes gleam down at me. That curious glint pins me.

My weight shifts, boot to boot, and my hands have found each other at my front, fingers tangled. “There’s something you should know… before you… before you come inside.”

Rune spares me from this hell. “I know.”

My gaze swerves up at him, to the grim twist setting his mouth into a stroked line and the sudden dimness of his eyes.

“You know?” I echo in a faint a whisper. “H-how?”

“Melantha wrote to me. The letter came a phase before our departure.” The grim twist to his mouth is creased with unease. “I am sorry I was not there.”

“They wouldn’t have attacked if you were,” I confess with a flinch. Almost four months and I still flinch as though the memory of it strikes me across the face. “It was only Eamon and Daxeel in that lane—it was the opportunity those litalves were waiting for.”

“But you were there,” Rune states the fact delicately, and he doesn’t chase it up with a question, he simply leaves it open for me to take.

I do.

With a faint nod, I cast a look down at his boots, the only part of his gear he didn’t take the time to wipe down before coming here, and so they are caked with dirt around the edges and scuffed all over the toes and heels.

“I was in the parade when I saw them, the litalves, going into the lane. I tried to call out, but the noise was…” My sigh sags me. “I… I killed one of them, the assassins, but… it wasn’t enough.”

And I killed the one I wasn’t aiming for.

I aimed at the other, to save Eamon. That was my choice. But instinct swerved my throw—and took out the one going after Daxeel.

I ponder that sometimes.

I can’t decide between Mother and evate.

Residue of the bond soaked into my muscles, an instinct I cannot override, one that swerved to protect Daxeel at the last moment; or Mother reaching into me, changing my position,just to deliver me to that fateful moment I plunged a blade into Daxeel to save Eamon.

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