Page 98 of Cursed Shadows 2

General Caspan and Second Bracken are just two rows down from us. It’s hard not to notice them since Bracken looks over his shoulder at—not me but—Melantha a handful of times. Then he spares Aleana a scathing look.

She feigns ignorance but I notice she leans in closer to me, like I can protect her. I would try. But I would fail, and we would both go down in sprays of guts and blood.

I don’t know much about Bracken, but I do know he has it out for Daxeel and, to a male like him, ones like Aleana and I are perfect pawns. Weaker than he is, so much weaker. But hearts that beat outside of Daxeel’s body—cut us, he bleeds. Taroh’s reasoning, I’ve learned.

Now, though, Bracken seems to have forgotten our existence entirely as a hush as heavy as the darkness itself presses down on us.

With only the contenders, the courtyard has lost half its crowd. Still, there are hundreds of fae down there—and the divide is clear.

Dark ones gather at the base of our stand.

I realize exactly what my position means up here on this seat. I’m with them. A declaration of loyalty, one made unintentionally.

Across the courtyard, the light fae warriors congregate in larger numbers. Maybe three times as many as the dokkalves.

Despite the light fae outnumbering the dark ones, the battle is unsure. Because dark fae are more lethal in every way, in their minds and instincts and bodies.

‘They evolved to kill. We evolved to live.’

Something father used to say when I was young and full of questions.

Now I only have one question—

Will you survive?

And I aim it at the dark male down there I can’t seem to keep my gaze off for too long. Leaning against the trunk of a narrow, potted tree, he’s partially hidden by the midnight leaves that gleam like his eyes. He doesn’t lift those eyes to me.

With Rune and Samick, he waits.

We all do.

We wait as a dozen iilra spread around the courtyard, becoming the outline of a rectangle. Nearby contenders standing too close take steps back. Slowly, the iilra lower to their knees and flatten their bandaged hands on the stone floor of the courtyard.

They chant.

From up here, the sound is like the wind whispering to me. A shudder rattles me. I cringe against the thickening sense of magick in the air.

Whatever words they speak to the gods to draw on their magick, I don’t recognize them. Foreign to my ears. But Ifeelthem, thick shadowy hands grabbing at me.

Can’t stop the hiss from crawling up my throat, and similar ones from the stands across the courtyard trickle through the air, where my kind sit in masses and cringe against the dark magick.

The chanting deepens to a growl, one savage enough to rumble the courtyard. Even my seat starts to tremble beneath me.

Hands snatch out, mine for Eamon’s, Aleana’s for mine.

Then the chanting is shoved down by the sudden weight of whispers and gasps. The stone blocks of the courtyard ground start to bubble and fester. The stench is more rotten than the fruits my kind feed to wayward humans. Stone by stone, from the gaps a thick, black sludge boils out and slicks and slimes it’s way over the ground.

Magick.

I’ve seen little of it in my life. I don’t exactly hang around with the Four Sisters of my land. And our magick is reserved for sacred times.

Like fresh tar, the slime crawls all over the cracks and contours of the ground. But it stays in the rectangular formation of the iilra, until it’s fully spread out and—it becomes a black pool.

Faint sketches seem etched onto the surface of this tarry floor. I can’t quite make them out. I inch closer in my seat. Itdoes nothing to clear the images, but I now understand I’m looking into a window of sorts.

The longer the chants, the clearer the images through the window, and I can soon make out the shimmers of caves and a cliffside and a sea. It’s murky, but I recognize it for what it is. The black pool is a portal, like the bridges between realms but unnatural, and we can see right through it.

What it shows us is enough to twist a cool of sick in my belly. Dragon caves—for the contenders to fulfil their purpose of the first passage. To find their anchor, to retrieve a dragon eye.

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