Page 27 of Cursed Shadows 2

Maybe he does care, I let myself wonder.And he’s only composed to help me find my own strength.

The voices of the two opposite me wind together in a gravelly, disinterested hum, “You offer your blood to the Gods beneath the Mountain of Slumber, but it is theirs to spill should they please.”

I wince as the blades press against the meat of my palms. At first, my skin fights the indent, but soon blood beads—then spills freely.

“You promise your soul to Mother, but it was hers since its creation.”

I watch as the daggers are placed on the desk before they each take my hands, then tilt them. Crimson blood pours into the chalice.

“You bid your bones and flesh to the Sacrament, but they have always belonged to the earth.”

Those words roll over me like waves.

Sound echoes in my ear, near-deafened by a sudden ringing noise. I stagger on the spot.

“Narcissa Elmfield,” their distant-sounding voices snare around me, winding through the gaps between the pulses of my heartbeat in my head, “welcome to the Sacrament.”

One final pulse slams through me.

I smack into the edge of the table, a bite of pain at my hipbones.

Dazed eyes fight against the white glare of glowjars and I blink, squeezing my lids shut on the blinding gleams.

My breath ribbons out of me, shaky and unravelled. Then firm hands find my shoulders, taking them in a steadying grip.

My lashes flutter open.

Already, the scribe and iilra have left me at the table. The chalice is gone, and all I see is a glimpse of their tattered cloaks disappearing through curtains before I recognize the scent closest to me: Apples, honey and earth.

Pandora holds me steady by the shoulders.

My face contorts into a scowl.

Turning my vicious look on her, I jerk my shoulders hard enough to pull out of her hold. My narrowed stare is a set of vicious swords spearing into her. But I only waste it on her saddened eyes for a mere moment before I stumble around her, then start for the door.

I don’t make it.

Father’s command hits me like a punch to the back, “Youwill leave when you are dismissed, child.”

Face twisted, my hands fist at my sides. But I don’t take another step, not even as I catch a glimpse of the familiar male out in the corridor.

Eamon reclines against the far wall, waits for me—and his soft jawline tightens. It tightens for the light male that brushes by me.

Ridge, a litalf from home, sweeps out through the doors with such a soft breeze that I know he’s intentionally keeping his exit gentle for my benefit. A small kindness in a garrison of cruelty.

Eamon’s gaze cuts to the pale, pink-haired male for a beat, a moment long enough to pinch his cheeks with a blush, but then that moment shatters—

It’s gone when Ridge takes a turn around the door and disappears with silent bootsteps.

Eamon cuts his stare back to me. His eyes are embers in a fire pit the very second that father moves for me.

I feel him come up to my back, just a step closer, but a step that shudders command through my stiff shoulders.

I don’t turn around, not even as his next words come with a strained voice, as though he’s almost desperate. “I tried all that I could. I tried to save you from this fate.”

Eamon gives me strength with his hard gaze. He aims it at me through the doorway, but it’s for my father, and I know that. Even Pandora, his old friend, gets the cold shoulder from Eamon in the corridors of the garrison.

They can’t see that he’s out there, not from the angle they lurk at behind me. But I know, and it’s enough to fuel the fire in me, like he’s standing beside me, holding my hand through this moment I’ve avoided.

---