Page 49 of Cursed Shadows 5

Daxeel turns a frown on Rune. “What?”

“The bloodline,” Rune says, as though it’s obvious. “Without Aleana and Caius, there is only you and Eamon to continue the line.”

Again, he blinks.

Rune considers him for a beat. “Should we call for the healer?”

He shakes his head, but he says nothing.

Rune just observes him, his mouth pinched, a frown furrowing above his cat eyes.

Then, without a word, Daxeel pushes from the barrier and abandons the balcony.

Morticia and Melantha both flick their gazes up at him as he stalks down the length of the table. He leaves the food untouched, does not spare his mother or Morticia a glancebefore he’s out in the hallway, and turning for the descending staircase.

“Dare!” is all he says, a shout that thrums through the house, the soles of his feet padding on the steps, all the way down to the foyer.

He plants himself on the velvet cushioned stool and snags out a pair of spare boots from under it.

Dare appears from the landing above before Daxeel has tied the laces.

Golden eyes flare in the dimness. “Finishing up old business, are we?”

“And relieving stress,” Daxeel murmurs before he pushes up from the stool and moves for the door.

Dare follows in silence, a smirk snaking onto his lips.

10

††††††

Whatever belongings I didn’t sell, I either kept or traded at the markets. And now, a week in, I wear cotton overalls whose olive-green tone is stained with smears of red and purple and yellow—and so I suspect, before I traded for these, the overalls were used for gardening.

Now, they are used for the decrepit tavern.

I’m on my way there now, and though it is close to the markets of Cheapside, I don’t consider it close enough. Not when I’m carting two hefty tins of paint through windy streets.

The boots that clomp beneath me are blue suede, beloved boots that have adorned flimsy, lovely outfits in the past. My life is different now, and so are the boots with toes darkened by the wet cobblestone I trek, and heels scuffed up the edges.

A week and some phases into my independent life—a life that still feels foreign to me, distant almost, like I have not yet joined my reality to my body—and the remainder of my clothes are on the verge of ruin.

Those ruined suede boots skim the surface of a puddle as I turn onto the street that, in a few paces, opens to the Square.

I’m not on the street for a heartbeat before a squeaking sound chases me.

“Nari! Miss Nari!”

I startle at the sound of my name in a child’s voice, then, slow, turn my chin to my shoulder.

I watch the sticky thing scramble down the cobblestone street towards me, his mother chasing after him.

But the boy is ahead of her, gaining on me.

Litalf. That much I can tell by his blunt front teeth bared in an ear-to-ear grin; the softer edges of his pointed ears; and there’s always that added aura when around a dokkalf, an instinct in my bones that crawls, and I don’t get that now.

The flesh of my hands tugs under the slipping weight of the paint-tin handles.

My face twists, uncomfortable, and I shift my weight from boot to boot as the child draws nearer, his little shoes scuffing and skidding now to stop himself from tumbling down the sloped street he came from.

---