Page 89 of Cursed Shadows 5

I could speak a wish and he would fulfil it.

I know that.

I could use it. But the thirst for vengeance is too strong.

“I want, from the deepest parts of my soul, for you to find another love,” I say, and his face shutters, “and for her to sacrifice you to her god.”

My tongue is on fire.

It burns, it burns.

The lie is for Daxeel to find another love. I know that the moment I say it. The mere thought of it churns my insides.

“I never sacrificed you, Nari,” he breathes his words sheathed in pain. “I sacrificed the bond between us.”

My smile is ugly. “Was that a last-minute decision?”

His jaw tenses and, slowly, he shakes his head. “Nari, please understand… You were my evate, but I was never yours,” he says it with a touch of sorrow, then looks away. “You think you know how I felt every moment of every phase, awake or asleep. How you consumed me. What you felt then was love, yes. But what I felt…? Your moans were symphonies, your tears were water from the eternal fountain, your face was art, your body a sculpture, your words poetry. You were my only weakness. You were the target on my back. And you betrayed me.”

He turns his cheek to me. He watches the flames flicker in the hearth.

I watch him.

The guilt gathers in his cobalt eyes like an early storm’s mist. He knows what he has done to me is wretched, unforgivable.

I lift my chin and let the bitter smile settle on my face. “Bet you thought you could sever the bond, and you wouldn’t love me anymore. Bet you feel it now more than ever, the emptiness you will live with for the rest of your lonely life.”

His lashes lower, and I am staring at the profile of sorrow.

My whisper is nothing short of cruel, “I know because I hear you.”

A tear falls down his cheek.

I trace it with my gaze, all the way down to the curve of his jaw. There, it gathers for a moment, dangling, then it falls and lands on his sweater.

I smile.

But that smile is wiped off my face the moment he confesses, “I hear you, too. I hear you say my name, but you aren’t there when I look. You have haunted me since the summit—and all I wanted was to be rid of you. Now… the rage in me is gone with the bond.”

My smile might be lost, but the mockery in my voice is not, “You punished me enough and now you are content? I must have you back now, becauseyouwill it?”

His frown tugs down his face. “No, Nari. The rage was the bond.” He turns his anguished face to me. “The rage touched the bond—and infected it. I didn’t understand it at the time… I blamed you for so much. I fought for the control—but the bond was what controlled me. And it was poisoned. I am free of that now, but in the remnants of my own wrongdoings. Mother’s last laugh is that I suffer the consequences while free of the bond. Your soul calls to me. That is a haunting that will follow me to the grave. I thought I knew pain before…” He shakes his head. “Without the rage, it is misery that fills me. Misery is the curse.”

I stab my fork into the last potato chunk. “Then pray that it stays with you, because I will not.”

His smile is pained, his eyes wet.

For a while, he just sits there with that wretched look on his face. Then, a broken hitch to his gravelly voice, “The humour of fate, Nari, is that I still love you more than I love anything in this world. I love you to the gods and beyond. I love you to the pit of my soul.”

Silent, I watch a tear escape his glazed gaze and roll down his cheek.

I fight the ache that spreads through my chest.

I bite the potato with a bared-teeth grin. “You have no soul.”

His answer is a whisper, “Then why does it hear yours?”

My answer is a thought,We thought we could best Mother.

---