Page 48 of Cursed By the Dawn

Maker, it felt as though the voice smiled.

“If you refuse to yield, Elliot and Erebus will be mine. Just like your parents. Just like Eden.”

You don’t know anything about me, I snapped.

“Oh, but I know everything.”

Tears stung my eyes as I clutched the sand, squeezing it tight between my fingers. Being a Shadow Weaver was supposed to offer me protection against the dark, not beckon to it like a shining beacon. The voice didn’t feel holy like the Maker, nor did it feel like an ordinary demon, either. It felt familiar in a way that wasn’t quite placeable; a wicked, commanding presence that knew exactly how to speak to me in a way that I couldn’t ignore. I wanted what it wanted. To be seen. Recognized. Heard.

To have more power.

More.

More.

“More,” echoed the voice.

“Getout!” I shrieked.

Shadows bloomed around me, exploding like a tempest. They didn’t know where to strike, so they struck everywhere. The sand, the sky, my clothes, the Nocturne. The voice chuckled darkly. And then, like a claw loosening from my mind, it was gone. My fingers burrowed into the sand as I tried to steady myself. The voice was gone but its touch lingered, pressing against the edges of my skull. I shuddered, feeling the air around me turn colder. Or perhaps it was the chill that came from within. From that poisonous whisper that had twisted itself in my mind.

“Esmer.”

I gasped, jolting upright.

The sound of Erebus’s voice made my chest clench, but I didn’t turn around. I kept my gaze on the Nocturne’s surface, its darknessswallowing the starlight. The sea of dreams, now a void that mirrored the clawing emptiness within me.

He moved closer, his presence casting a deeper darkness around us.

“Are you running because of something that happened in the trial?” he asked. I could feel his gaze, intense and penetrating, as if he were peeling away my layers to reach the heart of my fear. “Or are you running from me?”

There was an honest, tender hurt in his voice. He thought I was afraid of him.

“Neither,” I whispered, raw and fraying. “It isyouwho should be running fromme.”

“You know I would never run from you. You faced my darkness at its worst; I will face yours gladly.”

I glanced at him, catching the gleam of his silver eyes beneath a lock of his white hair. The air between us felt charged, like the calm before a storm. Poised. Alive.

I don’t deserve him.

He needed to know. He needed to know, but it would change everything.

“I’ve been hearing a voice,” I finally confessed.

His eyebrows drew together. “A voice?”

I curled inward, clenching my hands to my chest. Part of me had hoped the voice was just a dream—a harmful figment of my imagination. But today’s trial proved me wrong. The voice was a real and present danger, and I hated how much it twisted my heart, begging me to agree with it.

“Yes. And I think it’s Raelion.”

It pained me to admit the sin I’d been hiding for days.

But Erebus was unperturbed.

“The Dream Realm is rife with illusions. It could be your own fear twisting into the shape of something foul,” Erebus supplied, kneeling by me in the sand. His gauntlets vanished from his hands, revealing strong, slender fingers that he used to examine my arm. Shadows still flowed from my cut, drifting thickly into the air. It hadn’t been so long ago thatmy shadowy blood first told me I was connected to the villain inside my head. To the Shadow Bringer. “The more you listen, the louder it will get.”

“But it’s more than just an illusion. It knows things about me that no one else does.”