Page 144 of Cursed Shadows 3

I look away.

I look anywhere but at Aleana, limp on the bed.

Her lashes don’t so much as flutter. Her chest rises just a touch with her hoarse breath—then deflates with a sound that isn’t unlike lungs scraping over a grater.

I cringe away from the sound of her soul teetering on death’s door.

If the worlds are connected at the seams, Aleana lingers on the join, not quite here, not quite there, not quite anything.

And I don’t know what to do with myself.

Never before have I been in this situation, to watch a loved one die, to have lost someone I hold dear, or to be this—an intruder on a private moment.

To go to Aleana’s side would be to push my way through the others hanging back in the bedchamber, to manoeuvre my way around Morticia and Eamon and Melantha; the family that have the right to linger around the bed.

I could go to Daxeel’s side. I could come up to the back of the armchair he’s slumped in, his elbows dug into his thighs, face in his hands. I could put my hand on his back and soothe him.

But even that feels invasive.

Besides, Eamon does that for me.

He’s sat on the arm of the chair, his hand firm on Daxeel’s slumped shoulder, and the pair of them are enveloped in thick silence.

So I stay here, lingering near the open door, my back pressed into the wall. I keep to my silence like I keep to my place.

A sniff comes from the doorway.

I swallow the thick tears I fight back and turn my chin.

Tris rustles into the bedchamber. Eyes bloodshot, she snivels and wipes her nose with the back of her hand.

No one but me and Dare spare her a glance as she enters.

She drops into a curtsey and announces, “Caius Taraan,” in a mousy, hoarse voice.

Melantha’s head jerks up just as her bulking carved-from-muscle-and-stone son swaggers into the room. His build is so wide that his shoulders brush the doorframe he squeezes through.

Behind him, Samick slinks like frost creeping over a field.

And so he must’ve gone to fetch Caius, wherever he was.

Melantha lifts her tired hand and gestures in a lazy wave for Caius to join them at the bed.

He does.

Caius asks, in a grumbled voice, “Has she awoken yet?”

Rune pushes from the wall and leaves. He joins Samick out in the corridor.

“Not yet,” Morticia answers, her voice hushed.

Perched on the edge of a worn chair, she leans into Melantha, crouched on the side of the bed. Morticia’s hands rest like a spectre’s touch on her sister’s shoulders, as though too much weight will disturb the moment. The flat-mouthed look sheglances at Caius adds the rest of her unspoken thoughts, ‘She won’t wake.’

I tuck my chin down, then push from the wall.

Without another glance at anyone, not even Aleana, I take my silently falling tears with me—and I trade in the delicacy of the bedchamber for the quiet patience of the corridor.

Dare follows not a moment after, then Tris, and she shuts the door gently. It clicks, a soft sound.

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