Page 144 of Cursed Shadows 5

Forranach’s grumbled voice is a murmur, soft, but I hear it as clear as lightning in a silent sky—

And it strikes me.

“Forgiveness is a difficult thing.”

Forgiveness…

The very thing I wanted from Daxeel. The very thing I fought for.

Now that I have it, it is my turn to forgive him.

Eamon.

The name shudders through me, and I flinch.

Does he forgive me?

Does he forgive that I am the reason he is dead?

My lashes shut on the fresh wave of tears. And, when I open them, my breath is a whisper, “What do you want from me?”

Daxeel lifts his head. The bloodshot of his eyes come with no shame to crisp his cheeks. “I have designs on you, Narcissa Elmfield.”

Designs.

It jolts a faint scoff through me, an almost laugh, but it is wet and bubbly.

Such a normal thing for two fae. Designs. It is the courtship of two free fae, unmated, no evate, no pressures, no society.

It is something light and sweet with no definite future written out for it.

It…

It is lovely.

And yet, I just turn my dead, dull stare on him, lashes damp with tears, my breath thick with them.

The clock keeps on ticking.

The stares aimed at us grow uneasy.

The silence swells, it thickens into something painful.

Daxeel lets a breath deflate him.

His leg tenses, muscles harden, then he is pushing up from his kneeling position.

Defeat is draped over him.

“Everything I have…” He lifts an anguished look to me, fringed with darkness. “All that I am. It is yours.”

I look down at the floorboards.

Daxeel sighs something soft. “I do not blame you, vicious one. The poisoned bond distorted me—and with that, I broke you. I ask for your forgiveness where I never offered you mine. If you find solace in my pain, then you should know that I will suffer endlessly, without the rage to hold onto in the storm. I have no anchor in this misery.”

Out the corner of my eye, I catch his movements.

Daxeel dips into a bow that he holds for a mere moment before he’s upright again and marching out of the tavern.

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