Page 96 of Cursed Shadows 2

If he wants to sayI told you so, he fights the urge smoothly. “All it means now is that he can’t kill you without dying himself.”

Eamon’s hands slip from my back. He steps away from the embrace.

His attempt at a smile eases me, but I note the strain of it around his dark-circled eyes, and I sense he hasn’t gotten very much sleep.

For a moment, his gaze snaps to my cheekbone, then drops to my mouth. The bruises that Taroh left are dimmed now, mere red marks thanks to the garrison’s supply of balms in the washroom.

But Eamon still studies them, and I think he must have been told of the attack, and so he scrutinises the echoes of my wounds as if to ensure they don’t suddenly turn purple and bleed.

Satisfied, he says, “It seems he cares enough to spare you from this.” He casts a look over my head to the contenders mobbing the courtyard. “He kept the bargain—I wasn’t so sure he would honour it.”

My mouth flattens into a grim line.

I never doubted Daxeel in our bargain. I trusted, maybe too easily, that he wouldn’t break it.

Bargains are different between our kinds. Dokkalves give their word. Their word is their bond, their dignity, their reputation, their honour. Like a kiss, a bargain is sacred, and they will almost always fulfil it.

But they do have a choice.

They can break it if they choose, if they decide it outweighs their better interests. Shame will come with such a deflection of responsibility, but it’s possible.

Litalves have no such ability. The light ones cannot abandon bargains any better than lie. Fully bound to our bargains, as the soul is bound to the body, and truths to tongues.

Dark fae hold bargains like a sacred promise shared through their gods. But for us, it’s shared through our life source.

I suppose it’s something I should have considered.

“He spared me from this,” I say, but I wonder if I’m speaking more to myself than to Eamon. “He forged the bond. I have faith in him.”

I must have faith. Without it, I have only desolation.

Eamon steals my attention back as he clasps his cool fingers around my wrist. For a beat, we share a silent look, and I don’tknow what we’re trying to tell each other with it.

Then he turns and steers me down the wall to the grandstands.

At the bottom of the steps leading all the way up to the top row of seats, a black-hooded iilra lingers with a scroll and inked quill, and the way she lurks reminds me too much of a spirit trapped in some haunted home.

Without fail, the iilra bring unease to me. It’s in the sudden tension that bolts my shoulders, the slow and stiff turn of my steps, and the focused way my eyes lock onto her as though just waiting for her to strike at me with all sorts of dark magick.

Even hidden behind a hood and a cloak, iilra maintain that effect on me. It’s a sense, something about them that’s just not quite right. Like the cloaks, the shadowy edges, the glimmer of the black like it’s weaved from dark souls writhing in place.

The iilra turns as we approach, sensing us, sensing me—and she seems to float over the stone ground.

“Contender Narcissa Elmfield,” her wispy, strained voice comes from the darkness of the hood. “Second to Pandora Elmfield, a disqualified contestant.”

Eamon keeps a solid stance in front of me, but I know that’s for my own sense of safety, not because he’ll have to intervene between us.

“Yes,” I manage a whisper from around Eamon’s arm I hide behind. “I’m Narcissa Elmfield. But I’m not to compete. I have a bargain—with Daxeel of the House of Taraan. Did he not come to you?”

“Yes,” she says and the relief ribbons through me. The iilra hands me the quill and then outstretches the parchment scroll. “Now you must sign.”

I frown at the parchment, then notice a blank line that I assume is for my signature, because below it is Daxeel’s.

I’m quick to scribble my name on the scratchy paper.

Satisfied, the iilra snatches the quill back—and then she’s gone.

Just a formality, but one that apparently caught attention.

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