Page 4 of Cursed Shadows 4
The roads are so violent now that his shoulder knocks into the wall, and he has to plant his boots firm to steady himself.
The leather grip above him is gone, but the bolts remain. Someone before him has wrenched it clean out.
His mouth thins, grim. “You care so much about your duty that you abandoned it for the light.”
Morticia snarls, and it strikes him silent.
“I abandoned the dark,” she hisses. “I abandoned Dorcha. But never Sgail.”
Eamon has no answer.
Whatever thoughts find their way to his tongue, he silences them with a tightened jaw. He brings the dagger to rest on his lap and cuts his gaze to the drawn curtains that shield the window.
No silence fills the carriage. Not with the assault of the kelpies outside, those punishing hooves on the gravel roads. The wood of the swaying carriage, it groans and creaks, hinges squeak, and the rocking clatters loud, too loud.
Eamon cringes against it.
His hand finds his chest.
Palm flat against the heavy thuds of his heart, he shifts his eyes on the dark.
The ache blooms.
No matter how firmly he rubs the sore spot of his chest, the blouse rustling under his touch, the ache spreads until it’s a chill creeping along his shoulders and tingling down his spine.
No breath he forces into his body is filling enough, deep enough, to soothe him.
“She will be fine.” Morticia’s lie is effortless, too much so. “Every dark one will dedicate themselves to protecting her.”
Eamon’s mouth twists.
Morticia’s reassurances are as empty as the hollow feeling in his chest.
Yes, Nari will be shielded in the Sacrament. But that protection is not absolute.
Every contender will step through that portal, and be swept to the Mountain of Slumber,alone.
They will landalone.
Shewill be alone.
The mountain will bleed crimson and black—and no one can guarantee that the blood spilled will not belong to her.
Eamon’s throat bobs as he swallows down a thick, choking sensation.
His mind flitters to the letter he scrawled fast, too hurried, to Ridge before he left.Before he left her behind…
A letter to say goodbye, to wish him luck, to declare a need to see him again one day—and to ask of him a favour, not something a fae does often. A debt.
He asked Ridge to protect her.
“Nari is cunning,” Morticia adds. “More than others recognise in her. She will do well.”
Eamon just stares at the cropped curtains, eyes prickling.
Morticia shifts on the creaking seat. She reaches out for the curtain. Her slender fingers pinch the edge—she peels it back just a touch, enough to see that, beyond the window, darkness is stealing the air.
Eamon watches the lights fade. Lanterns and streetlamps left behind as the gravel beneath the carriage wheels turns to dirt, and the town is gone.
