Page 44 of Cursed Shadows 5

DAXEEL

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The rush of bathwater falls from his rising body and splashes into the filled tub. The filmy surface of soap residue is disturbed.

Standing, Daxeel tilts his head forward, trails of water streaming down his face, and watches the rainwater cascading into a pool of murk.

That’s what he sees.

The filth of the Sacrament.

It washes from his body.

Never his soul.

And there is too much filth to see.

Tris did her duty to clean him as best as she could with a pot of warm water at his bedside and a cloth and a bar of soap. She took care to scrub his nails and comb his hair while the black powder had him.

It wasn’t enough.

Dirt and sweat and blood, it isn’t to be wiped away, but rather to be scrubbed with a brush, in a full tub, emptied, then a second and a third to make sure every speck is gone.

The hour of washing has exhausted him, fresh out of the black powder sleep. And for a beat, he just stands there—until the doorknob rattles.

His gaze lifts to the brass handle, turning, until it opens with a shudder, and Tris bustles in.

She holds the case of medicines to her chest.

Her cheeks are as flushed as the crimson of her hair, hair that has spilled out of an updo she had when she came to change out the bathwater earlier.

The flushed cheeks aren’t for him, his naked body, or that he watches her skuttle across the marble tiled floor to the mahogany bench, then sets out the case. Tris is so used to him now that those cheeks that once burned for his body, ignored by him, stop burning altogether.

Now, it tells of her workload this phase. The rush of training a new slave for Hemlock to take over in her coming absence. And the recent fumble she has fit into her schedule.

Tris gently sets out the phials, the lotions, the bandages, the moss.

Still, Daxeel simply watches her.

He can smell it on her.

Smell Dare all over her.

Tris is a slave, but one granted more freedom than most. Her willingness to slip into Dare’s bed upstairs is of her own accord.

Within reason, Tris can do what she likes.

She can wander into Dare’s bed, Samick’s cold arms, Rune’s warmth, whoever will have her. She can take her breaks out in the streets of Kithe, wander and taste and feel and smell.

Tris is a rare sort of slave, not one who was taken, but rather one who found them.

It happens more often in the light realm. But there are those who, in the human world, venture near bridges to the Midlands, to Dorcha, to elsewhere, in search of awe.

Awe-seekers.

Worshippers.

The humans who search for the fae, view them as gods, as angels, as demons—all within their limited concept of the worlds.

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