Page 7 of Cursed Shadows 1

I follow the path to my village, but now upon leaving the city, it’s no longer shining with its pearlescent glow. All I have for light is the moon above. How big and bright she is tonight. A small grace.

I stick to the grey stones beneath my sandals for the hour walk home. I might be litalf, halfling or not, but I don’t ever step off path at night, especially not when I’m alone.

Too many wild fae out at night, and I’m a meal to them, my flesh or even my soul, it depends on the unseelie.

A fool I am, but an imbecile? Never.

So I keep to the path.

Lucky me, the walk is quiet, and I only spot one white wolf up on a faraway hill to my right, and only two wild goats on the mountains to my left. The wolf is hunting them, not me.

Most of the wolves live in our lands now. Once, they lived in both Licht and Dorcha, but the dark ones hunted and killed them—the ones who managed to flee came here, but some scattered into the human lands. Those ones can’t speak… ordon’t… I’m not too sure.

My village is quiet by the time I’m treading through its muddy lane. Most folk are asleep already, or they’re at the court. Far at the end of the lane, tucked onto some modest grounds and surrounded by black metal fencing, is my father’s home. It’s humble, small and… maybe a touch decrepit. Black paint peels away from the old, weathered wood. The black door is chipped and streaked with old scratch marks. But it’s the largest in the village, and once it used to be quite something.

Now, it’s an old house falling apart.

I push through the front door and cringe. The hinges groan like a beast disturbed from slumber, louder than a door has any right to be. I’ve definitely woken all the servants with that, but no matter.

I take the creaky staircase to the third level and find myself down the other corridor, the one to my sister’s room.

Pandora should be awake, she often is in the late hours, since she has so much study to do before the Sacrament begins next month, and she spends so much of her time training that she can only keep the reading time to night. But as I raise my hand to the brassy handle that’s in dire need of a thousand polishes, ready to let myself in, I hear it.

A gravelly whisper, much too deep to be Pandora’s.

Then, a laugh, one like a feather drifting on the wings of the breeze.

My mouth sets into a hard line.

I wanted—needed—to talk to her about Taroh, to ask if she knew what father had told me in the carriage on the way to the court, and of course to cry on her lap about it. But tonight, Pandora is with her husband. He must’ve just gotten back from the base to spend time with her at the solstice.

I’m soft-footed as I peel away from the door then head down the carpeted corridor to my own one. It always feels colder in this part of the house, but that’s because I broke a window when I was just seventeen, high on valerian stalk, trying to sneak back into my bedchamber from a field party. I never quite fixed it properly, so there’s an eternal draught.

The servants have prepped my room for me. They have been and gone, left my jug of springwater on the nightstand (a mossy tree trunk that father cut up for me when I took a fancy to it in the woods), set out a cheap cotton chemise on the foot of my featherbed, and left a plate of honeyed ham strips and a small slice of milky cake. Something of a habit of mine, or a tradition now—I snack before bed. Every night, whether I’m full-bellied or not, bed would feel so wrong without this snack.

Gluttonous, father calls me sometimes.

I go about my ritual anyway.

Snatching the chemise from the bed, I drag it to the dressing table by the wall of long, panelled windows—including the one with cracks that I smeared clay over to ‘fix’—and plop down on the stump I use for a seat.

Before I change dresses for bed, I wash my feet, then work on this intricate bun of wound braids and twirled hair, and it takestoo long before all my chestnut hair falls into place. The relief is instant, but still, I lift my hands to my scalp and massage out all the aches from the braids.

Soon after, I finger comb my hair until it loses the curls and loosened back into the waves that come naturally to it; then I dab some rosemary into some drops of oil before I massage it into my skin to clean off the makeup.

Pandora doesn’t silly herself with any of this. She would sleep with the makeup still on, and I can think of few things that would be worse than the feeling of her skin come dawn. Though, she wears little more than a smear of paint across her lips. Her smooth, brown complexion needs no powder like I do, needs no rogue, like I do. And she’s more for swords and blood than makeup.

My complexion is sunkissed, but still, I’m paler than my bronzed sister. Father says that’s because my mother hadskin like milk. There’s a peachy undertone to my complexion that I think is very human, and sometimes in the hotter seasons I get a deeper honeyed complexion that I’m fond of. That doesn’t happen to the fullblood litalves. Their skin tones don’t change with the seasons.

Another human trait to give me away in these lands.

I loosen the thought with a heavy sigh, then change into the chemise. The cheap cotton scratches at my skin, but I’m used to the sensation so I just make for my bed. On the way, I pause—

I falter at the glass vase of dead, blackened roses. So withered. So wilted. Not a scent to them, not a red spot on them. Dead. Still, I pause to run my fingertips down the dry stem, careful not to disturb it too much, because to rouse the dead—even if it’s a rose—is a dangerous thing.

Dropping my hand to my side, I sigh and turn for bed.

I fall onto the feathery mattress, and as I eat my night snacks, I weep silently—my thoughts on the one who gave me those roses ten years ago.

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