Page 21 of Cursed Shadows 1

He never did get over those gnomes biting his ankles when he was young (so Pandora tells me), long before I was born. Gnomes do like blood, it’s like a wine to them.

“So,” I start and fall onto my bottom directly in the rays of sunlight, “what did my sister’s letter say?”

Eamon reaches up to guide Rya onto his hand, then lifts his fingers in a gesture.Fly away. And the crow does just that, glides over the last hill, the field, and onto the roof of my home.

“It said enough.” Eamon takes up a spot to sit in the shade of a midnight willow tree, just opposite me, but safe from the light. Again, I wonder if it hurts him sometimes, or it feels uncomfortable maybe?

“About Comlar?” I press.

He just nods once. There’s a darkness in his bronzed gaze, a steady look he gives me that I sense secrets in.

I sigh. “What? There can’t possibly be more bad news.”

His frown pinches his face.

There can’t possibly be more bad news…

A lie, spoken too freely. Even in front of my closest friend, that’s a risk I shouldn’t have taken. Maybe I’m too raw from the past day and night, too worn down to be as smart as I should be.

He just runs me over with his gaze, and my mind is scrambling to fix my words—I find none.

Eamon turns his cheek to me and looks over at my village. It’s still brown, dank and damp in the daylight.

“I received a letter early this morning from Dax.” Eamon’s voice is soft, as soft as a dark one can manage, even a hybrid.

I blink at his sharp profile. His cheekbones could cut diamonds.

I steel myself against the swarm of moths that explode in my gut, then manage a whispered word, “And?”

It’s not an unusual thing for him and Daxeel to write each other. They are around the same age, they are cousins, and their mothers are still somewhat close.

When Eamon’s mother, Morticia, left Dorcha for Licht to marry his father, cracks appeared in the sisters’ relationships, but not enough to destroy all connection apparently.

So Daxeel and Eamon are familiar.

I’m not entirely sure how close they are. I don’t ask.

“He extended an invite to my mother and I,” Eamon says and turns to look at me. His eyes are sharp in the shade, watching me closely. “Dax’s father will be with Dorcha’s royals for the season, so he won’t be at Comlar until the end of the Sacrament to watch the final passage. His mother will be there, though.”

I nod.

Daxeel’s mother, a female I caught a glimpse of here and there through the Fae Eclipse season, but never spoken to. Eamon is warning me—giving me a clear indication of what I’m heading into.

I pick at blades of grass and crush any ants I find. “Did you accept the invite? Will you come to Comlar for the season?”

The Sacrament isn’t to Eamon’s tastes. The centurial deadly and brutal competition between light and dark. The light ones fight to keep the dark ones at bay, to stop them from reaching Mother. It comes in two passages, trials if you like. A quest, then a battle. And I find it all so utterly boring and bloody.

Eamon couldn’t care less about it either, so I have doubts he will come to the Midlands until—

“Like I’d let you get into trouble without me.” He winks. “Besides, you’ll need something of a minder.”

I make a face at him, at his patronisation, but I quickly find my smile.

I’m glad he’ll be there with me. It eases my cold dread some, and even soothes the flurries of silly hope I’m nurturing in my chest. He steadies me, that’s what Eamon does—he keeps me grounded.

But I’m a fool, I know that, so I ask, “How is he?”

Eamon’s lashes flutter. He blinks at me, once, twice, and each time his stare turns more severe. His face hardens and the look he gives me is one not to be taken lightly.

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