Page 36 of Cursed Shadows 3

The cooling breeze rustles her fine dark hair around her ears.

She sleeps through the tickle, the hum of her delicate snores entwining with the faint rustle of the wisteria that drapes all over the gardens like a roof of violet blooms.

A pause comes, and I stand on the steps at the backdoor.

I study her, the sickliness she suffers without all her tonics and potions, the true appearance beneath the balms and the lotions.

The depth of her ailment is clearer than it’s ever been before.

Her skin is so ashen, so bruised, that it twists my mouth.

Looks like a street artist wandered in, painted her grey, took a sponge to black dye, then blotted it all over her limbs.

A wretched twisting sensation rinses in my chest.

I start for the bench she’s sprawled out on.

The disappointment of her deep sleep turns my mouth down at the corners, yet I keep my steps soft as I approach, careful not to stir her.

I wear no sandals or boots, so the cool bite of the stone nips at the soles of my feet. The chill of the Breeze cascades over my pebbled flesh, but a sharp layer of frost prickles me as I pass the hefty trunk of the wisteria and, as I look around it, beyond the swing seat and blackfish pond, I spot the bulky silhouette of a male.

My face tightens.

Caius leans against the wrought metal fence.

The black arrowheads must dig into his back, but I’m certain he’s bulked with steel muscle and so doesn’t feel even a pinch.

I force a stiff smile in greeting. The corners of my mouth tuck into my cheeks with it, and I hate how it unnatural it feels on my face, like I’ve been wearing a mask at a ball all night, suffocating my skin and I itch to claw it off.

Caius only looks at me a moment before turning that gaze on Aleana.

He pushes from the black metal fence, and the faint shimmer of the wisteria blooms flicker over his cropped hair.

“You’ll watch her,” he says.

I’m not entirely sure that it’s a request, not an order.

What I am sure of is that he runs me over with a look dripping with enough disdain to wrinkle his crooked nose before he storms out of the gardens—and I meanstorms, his boots kicking up fallen leaves and swirls of dust with his thumping steps.

I watch him go until he’s vanished through the parted glass doors, panelled with blackwood.

It’s only when he is gone from sight that I let a trapped breath whoosh out of me.

I don’t immediately move for the swing seat.

For a long pause, I stand rigid, narrowed eyes fixed on the darkness that Caius disappeared into, and my lips twitch into a fleeting, snarky smirk.

Melantha’s words come to mind, the ease in which she declared Caius her least favourite child.

I understand it.

I turn and duck under a particularly heavy drape of limp branches that hang like rope, violet flowers whispering all around. As I straighten my back and swat away the tickle of petals on my nose, the grunting of a beast thumps through the peaceful air.

I frown through the thicker shadows of dark beyond the metal fence.

Another grunt, not unlike that chesty thumping noise faerie hounds will sometimes make. It lures me a step closer.

I slip through the thicker wisteria drapes, and the moment they fall over my shoulders to caress my back, my sight adjusts to the faint light in the garden over.

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