Page 138 of Cursed Shadows 5

That has changed.

Ifeelthat, a crushing weight of different emotions coming down on me, a conflict that has my face twisting.

For so long, I shoved the thought of Daxeel out there in battle, in war, from my mind. I dodged lingering thoughts of him and his delayed return, what was supposed to be three months becoming three months and more phases and more phases—until an extra two weeks passed. Those added two weeks came with distractions in the form of Lief and the tavern.

But now, I stand here with the letter in hand, and I feel it. I do not dodge it.

Relief, like the spread of bathwater all over my cold, prickled flesh after a trek in the rain; like the first gulp of water after a long, hot Warmth; like that hot cup of coffee after a fulfilled night of sleep… It is relief that unwinds all the tension throughout my body.

And the ache that throbs, the anger etched into it, that he doesn’t offer me a place to go, the place to meet him.

It’s now that I realise I would have gone to the stronghold… I would have gone to see him.

Rune backsteps for the tavern doors. “Let’s get inside. I am thirsty—and I have much to tell you.”

“Like what?” I mumble, my frown fixed on the parchment. I fold it, then tuck it into my pocket. “How many humans you took down?”

His eyes roll. “Small things. I have a slave,” he mentions, casual. “Her name is Adrianna.”

I follow him to the doors. “A… A slave? Human?”

“Kuri, specifically.”

A human descendent of the fae, but so far removed that they are never seen as one of us. Hell, I am half fae and there have been so many times in my life that even I am not accepted as one of the fullbreeds.

“Did you juststeala human?”

“No, we collected them across the human realm. All the units were ordered to take as many as possible.”

“To keep?”

His smile is suddenly proud. “General Caspan gifted her to me—after I aided in protecting his evate from Bracken, and we ended a revolt, and after…” His mouth quirks up at the side. “I was promoted to his second.”

I blink. “You…what?”

A grin splits his face. “I’ll tell you everything—over a hundred ales, if you please. It has been the longest three months of my life.”

34

††††††

My fingers still on the edges of the tray; stagnant, somewhere between hovering and gripping the brass handles.

I sense him, that ghost of Daxeel’s soul that haunts me, that has haunted me since the summit.

I am motionless, muscles cringed to bone, and I wait…

I wait for the whisper of my name, that eerie echo of his voice, to come from behind me, as it does each time the ghost visits to torture me.

It has been almost five months since the Mountain of Slumber spat us from its summit and flung us back into our realm, and in those months, every single week, that ghost finds me for just a moment, a handful of seconds, and still, it cringes me.

It creeps around me, prickles my flesh, bares my teeth with that unnatural sense warping the air—and it’s getting harder to ignore.

This First Wind, that essence of Daxeel’s soul finds me in the kitchen at the back of the tavern.

I am frozen at the island bench, hands stiff at the handles of the tray, not quite gripping, and my breath keeps to my chest.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

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