Page 30 of Cursed Shadows 2

Eamon holds me.

Gilded the glade is. A fitting name.

Before I came to the darkness in the Midlands, I never expected the beauty of the dark to meet the splendour of the light. I always thought it cold and harsh and unforgiving.

But now, in the light of golden skinned fruits that hang too low from the branches ahead, and the specks of gold glitter dusted all over the grass and dirt, I realize just how deep Pandora’s words struck me.

Wallowing in my own self-pity.

It’s true. Not just because she believed what she said, but because it is exactly what I’ve been doing. Even if it’s justified, I have only seen my own dark, not the light, not anyone else’s shading.

“I’m a wretched friend,” I sigh the words out with that ragged, post-sob voice of mine. “Since I found out about Taroh, this has all been about me.”

“You are selfish,” Eamon says but it’s not an insult or a complaint, he just speaks it, and still he holds me.

“Talk to me about you…” Sounds like my voice was dragged over a grater. “Not to distract me from myself. Iwantto know. Is it hard for you here? Do you loathe it? Love it? Do you have many males in your bed? What new books do you read that you haven’t told me about?”

“Or,” he offers before I can ramble on any more, “why not ask how it is for me to be the babysitter of two stubborn, young females who can’t seem to keep out of trouble?”

“Or,” I add in a whisper with a bitter smile, “do you love me less now that you have her?”

He grins against my temple, then laughs something curt. “I enjoy my time with her. I adore Aleana, but this phase she spends with her mother in Kithe. I can’t say I wasn’t relievedto come to you alone.”

My grim smile softens.

Our time, shared alone. It’s special to me, as it is to him.

Sometimes, we sit together in silence. We snack on the latest fruit imports, or wander markets, explore the seaside, sit in fields and read our separate books. Other times, we sneak off to the human lands we explore.

Always, since we met, we have our moments, our time.

This phase, it’s exactly what I need.

“The timing was fortunate,” he adds softly, as soft as his rough voice can be, “for Aleana to stay home. I’m all yours, selfish Nari.”

I don’t want the conversation to be steered back to me, I want to know more about the friend I’ve been neglecting too long.

“Maybe you only came up here to see Ridge,” I comment, and I feel his smile tug against my temple at the mention of the pink-haired litalf.

“How do you know him?” he asks.

“He was an apprentice to the village guard.” I tuck my knees up to my chest. “I was a child in the year or so he was around. I met him when I slipped on the mud and went tumbling down the hill after a rainstorm.”

“Hm?” A tired prompt.

“Ridge came out into the rain,” I tell him. “He helped pick up my things. Then he walked me home. That’s all I know of Ridge.”

That, and that he has the softest shade of pink hair, so pale it’s almost blonde in the moonlight, and that his nose—while sharp and arched—is a little crooked, like it’s been broken a few times and not properly tended to by a healer, but likely a house servant. I know his complexion is like the marble of the High Court, like the sun is trapped within it, and the marble can do nothing less than glow. He has that glow about him, a dewiness to his skin, a prettiness so perfect for drawing in prey.

And now, he’s a contender.

But Eamon thinks of a different identifier—

“So he is kind,” Eamon decides.

I frown at the tree ahead. Not because ‘kind’ for a fae means something else entirely to what a human might think kindness is, but because of how Eamon says it… like he actually cares about Ridge being kind.

I thought he only wanted to bed him.

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