Page 139 of Cursed Shadows 5

The clock above the stove sounds so distant, so far away, but it is an intrusion as I wait for that whisper; the sound of my name wrought from anguish, low and suffered, a plea—

But it doesn’t come.

My face crumples with a frown.

An edge of disappointment nips at me.

I sigh, soft, and slide my fingers around the brass handles of the tray. My grip firms—and just as I make to turn around for the swing door, the whisper comes.

“Vicious one.”

I still.

My lashes flutter on my view, but I don’t really see the kitchen in front of me.

I have focus only for the whisper.

It once sounded like Daxeel.

Now, it is different. It is deeper, gravellier.

I peel my grip away from the handles.

My heart stops in my chest as, slow, I turn my chin to my shoulder. I should see the swing door behind me. The door that pushes open to the tavern.

But it is blocked from my view.

Blocked by a tall, muscular frame sheathed in leathers.

I blink on him, once, twice, stunned. Too stunned to utter a word, to move, to weep, to sneer.

This isn’t the whisper of his soul reaching out to mine, lost beyond the veil, searching for its other half. This is him.

Daxeel.

He is really here.

And… I am just rooted to the spot.

I lift my stare from a strong chest, glistening leathers winking at me in the dim light, and I find a familiar neck. The softest caramel complexion, inked with tattoos—but marred with a fresh marking.

A scar about two inches wide, slashed across his throat. I stare at it so long that Daxeel answers an unspoken, tangled question thrumming through me.

His hand lifts, inked and calloused, and his fingertips touch to the wrinkled scar. “Ateralum.”

I blink.

Then my heart drops to my gut.

The blade I used, the one I plunged into that very neck, was ateralum. The scar—it will never fade. It will reach all the way into his throat, as deep as I stabbed, and that is why his voice is changed.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t consider it.

The blade that the litalf used on Eamon, that is the one I used on Daxeel. Ateralum isn’t anything that makes sense to consider.

But these weren’t litalf officials.

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