Page 150 of Cursed Shadows 3

Melantha’s poem is strained with battled tears, “Sleep thou, sleep, and away with thy sorrow.”

Again, the ring of the bell.

My mouth twists.

I fight the litalf urge to flee from the clang.

Then Melantha whispers out the words with the same hoarseness I feel deep in my chest, “Sleep this night in the breast of thy Mother.”

The third ring of the bell is loud enough to deafen the sharp inhale that pierces through me. My hands fist as the vibrations of metal hum. My bones are scraping from the inside-out.

It takes too long for the hum to stop.

But once it does, the males shudder with movement.

In perfect synchronicity, they push from the ash mounds and lift their blackened, dusty bangles to the bleak skies above.

They lower the bangles to their chests, and hold.

For a moment, their hearts beat on the metal. Then, as they force the bangles over their hands and onto their wrists, I watch Daxeel’s face harden, his jaw tighten, his lashes lower over wet ocean storms.

He lifts his firm chin.

And as though the land participates, as though the darkness joins the mourning on the ash grounds, a wedge of wind gusts directly through our circle.

It gusts over the ashes—and takes them away on the wings of the breeze.

Daxeel fists his hands at his sides—and storms away from the ash grounds.

A current ripples behind him. The others follow. An orderly line of procession leaves behind scorched earth and a flickering firepit.

I follow last.

The walk to the road is long and suffocating. No one speaks, not a murmur, as we reach the carriages that brought us here.

Three of them are idle on the gravel beyond the dehydrated, black trees, dead like the ash grounds.

I keep to the back of the line.

Tris in front of me, my steps are as fatigued and weathered as my heart. And I know,I know, I just can’t take much more of anything.

Not the rules, the Sacrament, the honour duel, the death of my friend, the hatred Daxeel harbours for me, my father and Taroh—anything.

If I’m a glass ornament, cracks formed long ago on my surface, but now they reach into my core and threaten to break me at the slightest breeze that disgruntles me.

But I am not an ornament.

I am a halfling.

So I don’t expect that, when I break, it will be as pretty as glass confetti.

Tris steps aside—and it’s only then that I blink and realise the walk is over, that we have reached the carriages, and she makes to help me inside the one I aimlessly followed her to.

But I hesitate.

I rebel against the rules of Dorcha culture, for I pause and look over my shoulder.

I mouth the words but don’t voice them, “Goodbye, sister.”

---