Page 9 of Cursed Shadows 4
clock,
click,
clock.
Fingers trembling, I wrestle on the gloves.
They clasp at the wrist with small pearly buttons, and I think it a lovely touch. A perfectly wretched gift from Aleana that stirs my insides and has salty tears lingering on my pinched mouth.
All of this is Aleana’s gift to me. The whole outfit.
And it was a horrible thing to wake to.
I woke less than an hour ago. Tris was setting a tray on the other side of the bed. Right where Daxeel had been. But he was gone, it was only me—and Tris.
On the tray, there was a steaming pot of freshly brewed coffee, a full breakfast that I didn’t have the steady gut to eat, and water. Lots of it. I managed only a glass.
And I watched Tris.
I watched her leave, then return with a sturdy black box, too wide for her stretched arms, too bulky for the point of her chin to arch over, and so her flushed tear-streaked face was mostly hidden as she waddled it to the bed.
She set it down beside the tray.
The matte black box lured me out from under the blankets.
No note, just a silvery bow wrapped all around it—a box containing the armour, the gear, the belts, the weapons.
I’ll always be haunted by the thick sound of Tris’s grated voice as I lured off the ribbon. “Aleana.”
A familiar thickness chokes my throat.
I draw closer to the box, lid lifted and strewn on the bed with the tangled ribbon and discarded bow.
I land with a cushioned thud.
Stray chestnut locks fly up around my face for a moment before I yank at them and start the gruelling process ofwrangling my too-long hair into a system of braids that wind around my hairline. A crown of braided hair. Best to keep it all out of the way.
As my fingers spindle, I wonder if Aleana knew for certain I would enter the second passage—or if she had all of this done for me as a backup, that she betted on amaybe.
All Aleana’s efforts to fight this fate between me and her brother, what was the point of wasting her energy on that if she knew I was to enter the Sacrament in the end?
‘I’m afraid…’
Her voice echoes through me like a sword through my heart.
I swallow back the tears.
My fingers tremble in the gloves as I pin the braids into place along my scalp, until I have nothing more to distract myself with. I reach down to the small leather backpack on the floor and tug it to rest between my feet.
I dig through it again and again and again.
Of all the supplies—a perfectly folded fishing net, fillet knife, waterskin, pinkie-sized phial of black powder—I take out only one from the bag. Just one supply that I set down on the floor to be left behind.
Shooting sparks.
The kind that, when aimed upwards, will erupt a pocket of the sky into bursts of sparkling lights. Humans call them fireworks, though theirs are of a different kind.
These shooting sparks are black and silver—and so if I used them, I would be calling for the help of any dark fae nearby.
