Page 82 of Cursed Shadows 5

That is the only word thrumming in Dare’s mind.

A whisper of fate.

Because that is the land his unit is assigned to.

Dare turns his gaze from the map to the parchment still crinkled in his grip. He sweeps his gaze over the top line. Three words only, but words that he doesn’t recognise to read.

“Chances are,” Eamon speaks into his hands, now firm against his flustered face, “she’s dead. Between the humans and their panic, the disease, the famine—and lost on another land…” His words fade to a shake of the head. He mumbles, barely audible, “It’s my fault.”

Dare’s grip on the paper tightens. The parchment crinkles and, for a long moment, he reads that top line again, still not understanding it.

He doesn’t say it, but part of him knows she’s not yet fallen. Like he can feel her life somewhere in the distance, flickering like a single flame from the weakest candle in the thickest darkness.

Out there, somewhere.

“Sun—An… der…soh-n,” he sounds out the letters as best as he can.

Eamon murmurs. “Sunni Anderson.”

Dare stills.

A sudden uncomfortable sensation brings a frown to his brow. “Who is Sunni Anderson?”

Eamon drops his hands to his lap and turns up a grim look at Dare. “Sunni-BeeAnderson.”

Dare stares at him, hard.

The paper starts to crumple in his tightening grip, until it fists at the corner, and Dare exhales a rushed breath. “What?”

Eamon watches him fluster, the red that burns at his cheeks, the hardening sheets of gold that his eye sharpens into, the pallor of his porcelain complexion washing out to something greyish and… panicked.

Sunni.

Sun.

“Everyone calls her Bee,” Eamon’s voice becomes something of a background echo, a bass to the darkness that Dare can’t quite focus on. “There was another Sunny, a male halfling, who worked at the same bar around the same time, and so she became Bee. It stuck.”

“Sun,” Dare mutters the word with a whisper. The parchment flitters to the floor as he turns his wrist up and peels back his brace.

Eamon blinks a dull, disappointed look at the fresh ink smearing his marble skin. A small sun, arrowheads for rays.

Dare considers the sun tattoo marring his skin. “I am to invade that very land she is stuck on.”

Panic rises up in Eamon. He stifles it and, with as much calm as he can muster, he speaks, “I need you to do something for me. Find her. Bring her back.”

Dare flicks his gaze to the side, a weary look. “I plan on it.”

“No.” Eamon turns, a desperate rush to his breath. “I need you to promise me. Promise me that you will track her if you can. That you will capture her,you will not kill her, and you will bring her back to the Midlands.”

Dare runs him over, from the thin braids atop his head, spattered with paint, down to the smeared and scuffed toes of his boots.

“I always wondered some.”

Eamon just blinks.

“About you and Nari. You love her, and maybe you love the kinta.”

“Yes. But not in the way you mean,” Eamon sighs. “Bee is… I’ve known her since she was small. She played in the mud pools around my home. I taught her the dances of the High Court during a time she might have wanted to stay in our lands. I defended her against the meaner youth of the village. She is a friend. And I would have warned her, saved her, if I hadn’t been so consumed with myself.”

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