Page 129 of Cursed Shadows 5

A little shard of honesty; if I am swimming in despair, then it is not so terrible that I live on in his absence.

It is my fault he is gone.

Eamon was challenged in an honour duel because of me. He was targeted because he was pulled into my troubles.

And Daxeel…

He is to blame, too.

Dare told me as much. He and Daxeel killed Taroh, and Eamon paid the price with his life.

The only one whose hands weren’t dirty, were clean of the blood of others, was Eamon.

The true innocent among killers.

Yet it was his blood that was spilled.

I watch the letter be chewed and spat out, some pieces swallowed, and I don’t know how I feel about it; I simply watch until it is gone.

I offer Hedda a bone, then I lock her in the dwelling.

I tread the carpeted steps down to the tavern.

The heat hits me like a sauna at a spa.

The fireplaces roar with freshly fed flames. At the hearth facing leather armchairs, a boy sits, huddled.

Not quite a youngling, but not mature yet either.

My steps are soft coming through the open door, wedged in place by a scrap of wood.

He does not hear me approach.

His ashen face is angled towards the flames, his lashes low over his sleepy brown eyes. The clothes he wears are baggy, much too big for his sunken and skeletal body. He should be fuller, at his age which I suppose is around eleven years.

I pause at the edge of the bar.

I cast a swift glance around the tavern—and see no sign of Forranach. But I hear him in the faint clinking that comes from the swing door to the kitchen.

I slip through the swing door, quiet so as not to disturb the boy half-lulled to slumber.

Across the middle bench, Forranach’s head sways with movement. He leans forward in his wheeled chair and fixes a plate of dinner—wedged potatoes, a meat pie, and a generous lump of mashed turnip.

He glances up at me without a word.

I prompt him, “There is a boy out there.”

“He’s waiting for a feed,” he grumbles, then starts to salt the plate. “Leif. Our new barkeep.”

“A child?”

Forranach lifts his gleaming gaze to me. “An orphan.”

Blankly, I stare at him.

“Lost his mother in the second passage, his father in the rubble of Comlar.”

The fog prevents any pity from piercing me. Still, my words are fair, “He is in luck. This is a tavern for the grieving.”

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