Page 25 of Cursed Shadows 4 (The Dark Fae)

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A lethal silence grips us.

Samick’s manipulation is not contained to water, I learn. It reaches the air itself.

Never in my short life have I seen any of my kind turn water into ice just by touching. But in the face of this power, this magick, water-to-ice seems like a mere parlour trick.

Samick can mist …

This mist, the one that wisps over the plateau, is born of the cold. Samick harnesses that—and brings it to circle the four of us through our trek.

The icy fog encircles us, it conceals us, but it doesn’t silence us. Bootfalls are soft on flat rock, our steps gentle.

No one speaks, not even a whisper to break the illusion of a passing cloud.

Two hours of this, of bated breaths and cautious steps over the polished rock surfaces, and we are nearing the horizon—

It has an icy mist of its own, the horizon.

The longer I stare at it, the more I squint my eyes, the better I can make out the silhouette of the treeline, the lumpish shapes of boulders.

It’s what rises up behind the horizon that frosts my insides. Can feel my heartbeat thumping in my throat at the sight of it—the looming peak of the mountain.

The summit.

Pure white snow arching up into thick clouds painted across the sky. But it’s there.

It’s days away , I tell myself. It’s nights away. Hikes and treks and climbs between us.

But all the reassurance I muster doesn’t loosen the cannonball swelling in my chest, the weighted and cold sensation of dread starting to sink through me.

Because I can see it.

I can see the summit through the wisped clouds. And no matter how far away it is, it’s still just so fucking close.

Time is not my friend anymore.

Her warm grip is slipping from my hand, fading from between my fingers, and with each measured, careful step I take with the group hidden in the mist, I feel time leaving me.

I should be grateful at least that we move slow, that Samick maintains a glacier pace, as though to move too quickly means to shatter the mist around us and disperse it into dust.

The realisation thrums through me, a faint zap, like those times I used to rub my feet on the old rug in the dining hall then touch Pandora to give her a little static shock.

Samick’s mist is fragile.

We keep huddled together, Dare and Samick at my front, Caius behind me, and I feel like we are pickled pixies crammed into a jar, shoulders brushing, breaths tickling, because the mist is fragile—and that means, it can be broken .

A small bud of hope appears in my chest, it blooms in the weight of the cannonball.

Shadows—like the tendrils of darkness that lounge and drape over Daxeel’s shoulders—are slithering through my mind. A snake pit, disturbed, thoughts are peeling and lifting and threading together.

I have an idea.

A faint one.

The whisper of a scheme.

I hold it like a too-loud breath in a frozen moment, because I must wait for that moment, the right one.

I will know when that time comes. One of my companions will give me a sign.

Without realising what I will do about it, one of these males will indirectly tell me in some fashion that we are close to the threat of other folk.

The silence wisping around us, the mist clouding us, our slow and quiet steps, our huddled bodies—and that growing, thickening tension as we get closer to the treeline, it all warns me.

Litalves are near.

Might be up in the trees, on watch for dark fae.

Might be hidden beyond the boulders, scanning the plateau for any signs of us.

But with the way we move, the silence that we keep, I know the threat is there.

My mouth sucks inwards and I bite down on my lips.

I tread with them, in perfect tandem, and my wary gaze is glued to Dare’s back.

I don’t want this.

I don’t want to betray them, to reveal Dare’s location to enemies nearby. But I can’t, I can’t , let them take me to the summit.

The thought trickles through me like frost—and just a moment after, Dare turns his chin to his shoulder… and he reaches out his slender hand for mine.

My throat bobs.

That’s it.

The sign. The indication he gives, the way he tells me, indirectly, that his senses have been disturbed.

We are nearing the end of the plateau—and we are nearing the litalves hidden in those woods.

I step closer to Dare’s back, but I don’t offer my hand to his grip.

He doesn’t question it. His hand drops to his side and, satisfied, turns his stare back to the woods that draw nearer and nearer.

Again, my throat bobs. No matter how many harsh swallows I force, that ball is still wedged in there, on the verge of choking me.

It’s easy to form the scheme, but as it creeps closer, and it’s my time to move, to betray the three of them, hesitation has me faltering.

My breaths come out with faint, hushed trembles.

The others hear it. No doubt in my mind about that. But they will dismiss the shuddering fear through my nostrils as the threat of the litalves, not the dread at what I am about to do.

I steel myself. I force my mind to focus on one thing.

Target three.

I am target three.

If I’m to guess, Daxeel is target one. I suppose him as more of a threat on this mountain for two reasons: He has his evate as a second anchor, and he was the one to complete the first passage and walk away with the Cursed Shadows.

That makes Caius target two.

Which is one priority above me.

I’m easier to take out.

But if I help the litalves out a little… If I help make Caius that bit more vulnerable, will they chase me over him?

I’m going to find out.

I don’t attack head-on. Not my style. And I have no chance of success if Caius even suspects for a moment what I’m about to do.

Now is my moment.

With his gaze swerving and shifting over the horizon, from tree to tree, fog to mist, cliffside to boulder, he is homed in on creeping threats. Not on me.

My fists clench for a mere heartbeat before I push into action: I force my boots to slip over the smooth surface of the rocky plateau.

A gasp spears through me, but before the rocky floor can rush up to meet me, Caius is jerked out of his watchfulness, and he moves for me.

His big, meaty hand seizes the nape of my neck.

I still.

At an incline, leaned forward, I am held up only by his grip—a grip that borders on too tight.

Fingertips digging into the sides of my neck, he forces a wince through me, then holds it, that pressure cutting into my flesh, my muscles, my bones.

The mist shudders around us.

Samick pauses, Dare stills…

And Caius yanks me upright with enough force that I can use the leverage against his bulking weight.

I flip backwards and, digging the soles of my boots into the edge of a rock, I throw every ounce of my body weight back.

I smack into his chest.

I am not particularly heavy, nor strong—but I do know how to manoeuvre and manipulate my weight. Dancing saves me again.

Caius grunts as he staggers back one step, two, and his boots slip over the smooth rock surface.

I don’t give him a moment to right himself before I spin around—

I boot him square in the chest.

Caius’s face flares with rage… then the sight of it is stolen from me… He falls.

And I don’t waste any fucking time.

Before anyone can react—before Samick can get a handle on the dispersing, shattering mist; before Dare can do more than throw me a wild, startled look; before Caius can slam onto his back, out of the protection of the breaking mist—I turn on my heels… and I run .