Page 7 of Cursed Shadows 4 (The Dark Fae)

??????

More are falling. More are coming.

The distant thuds of boots slamming onto cold, hard earth is a surrounding patter accompanied by the snaps and creaks of branches. But it’s when I hear the clash of striking blades that my insides constrict.

In the trappings of my boots, my toes curl and flex as I struggle to find breath. The constriction of my lungs is easing, but each inhale is a grating burn down my chest, and I’m running out of time.

Too many fae, too close.

Already, I risked too much movement since landing. I could have been spotted at any moment. But luck sprinkled over me like the snow that coated me from the fallen branch.

Now, I am frozen, on my hands and knees, swerving my gaze over the gaps between the trees, watching leathers move in blurs.

The breaths splintering through me are ice, as cold as the snow still clinging to me, but it’s the daze of my vision that lures my focus.

For a beat, I squeeze my eyes shut, then spring them open again; over and over until the blurs start to clear, and I can make out the battles all around me, pairs of fae locked in fights, swords clashing, knives striking.

Any of those weapons can turn on me in just a heartbeat.

There are too many of them. They are sprinkled around the snowy hill, through the trees, beyond the boulders, up the slope. The agility of the warriors turns my mouth down with a frown. There’s no victory in a fight with any of them, not for me.

Best I can hope for is to sneak away before I’m noticed, before the blood-spilling slows enough that distractions don’t keep the attention off of me.

I need to get far away from here—and fast.

The frosted trunks of the trees shield me from open view; the frailty of my slow, gradual breaths keeps me silent among the greys and whites of the forest floor.

That, I decide, is where I am. A crisp and cold forest dusted with foliage and boulders and nettles, whose trees are thin and wispy, and whose gales whistle much too eerily, much too like the whispers of witches and gods.

A shudder runs through me at the thought.

I can’t let my mind get carried away. Can’t let my focus slip to the harrowing realisation of where exactly I am. The Mountain of Slumber. The place of the gods.

A place I do not belong.

It’s a wrangle to bring my focus back to survival.

The panic is ice spreading through me, the urge to flee from the mountain. I must focus on the fae.

I must creep away from these oversaturated woods of fae, of swords clashing, of battle cries echoing through the woods, and I need to find shelter.

Shutting my eyes, I feel snowflakes dissolve on my cheeks. My breaths start to slow, start to soothe.

In and out, in and out, in and out.

Once my chest rises full with fresh air—and the burn is minor enough that I can move without stumbling—I dig the toes of my boots into the hard, dead soil.

Gloved hands press into ground, fingers spreading carefully around damp branches and fallen nettles, a careful avoidance.

There’s a sagging weight to my shoulders, drooping my head, slowing my movements, but I shift my weight back onto my boots—and they sink onto the forest floor until I’m squatting in the snow.

The force of my landing should have knocked me out. If it weren’t for the branch, I might have died on impact. Instead, I am trapped in a sluggish daze.

So sluggish that, I almost don’t hear it.

Almost.

But I do—

A clatter.

Faint, soft, but I am fast to pinpoint the source.

I lift my chin, a frown burrowing into my brow,

The weariness of my gaze aims up the gradual incline of the rocks and boulders poking out from the snow. A blockfield that rises uphill alongside the forest.

I watch a small rock, a stray, bounce and jolt down the larger boulders, falling. But only falling because it must have been disturbed.

I lift my stare.

I trace the incline of the blockfield, searching for what might have dislodged the one little rock. But at the peak of the small boulder field, rock gives way to forest.

I swerve my gaze over the edge of the woods.

Snow doesn’t quite take the ground up there. It’s a falling white powder that dusts over the crisp foliage, not unlike the icing sugar that Knife would sprinkle over my honeycakes on the days I didn’t knock him over or lock him in a cupboard.

I study the forest floor. All over, light clouds of snow sprinkle above dried foliage and icy boulders and leathered boots—

Boots .

Panic jolts through me like an ice sword rammed down my throat. My heart flutters and my eyes widen into something wild.

I glare up the slant of the sparse woods.

I glare up at the fae watching me.

And a sickly sensation is quick to roll through my gut.

I don’t know what I was hoping for, if anything at all. Maybe a rodent to have skittered too close to the little stone and knocked it down the slope, or a wildcat lurking through the woods. Even the obvious hopes of Dare and Samick and Rune and Daxeel, I would take over this.

Maybe I hoped for any dark fae who won’t harm me, because I am bonded to Daxeel, and they simply cannot kill me without killing him, but they would simply maim me.

My luck is unfortunate.

So cursed that there should be ballads written about the unlucky halfling and her misadventures—because of course it is a male of the light who stands above the blockfield.

He stares down at me with a frown that tugs his mouth, a glare in his sharp gaze. A slow understanding of who I am.

His face is unfamiliar—but he sure recognises me.

I see that in the frown he spares me, in the way he starts to turn, his cheek to me, his shoulders moving where his boots do not. And it’s as though he means to leave me behind to fend for myself—a hopeful second that is shattered like glass weaved from prayers. Because it strikes him. The awful realisation. The understanding of exactly who is frozen on the frosty forest floor. Me. Daxeel’s bleeding heart.

The light male stills.

Flushed cheek facing me, his brow tugs again and his lashes flutter, once, twice—then his jaw hardens.

Slowly, he turns his darkening look back to me. The yellow hue of his eyes flickers like buttery petals caught in a storm. The brown smear of his leathers tightens over his tensed muscles.

I have enough breath in me now to ease the ache, but not enough to push onto my feet and run, or to throw out pleas that will certainly fall on deaf ears.

Horror has me frozen on the dusting of snow, but colder than the touch of it against my thermaled armour is the trickle of fear spreading through my insides.

Of all the fae around me, this one saw me.

This one recognised me.

I swallow back a lump—and that one move from me strikes through the litalf.

In a split heartbeat, he’s moving for me.

His strong legs jerk before he’s lunging through the air in a long, perfect jump over the blockfield.

I don’t wait to see him land.

A panicked breath strangles me.

I force every ounce of strength into a violent shove back from my squat, and I smack down on my back. No hesitation delays me before my boots are kicking against the foliage, over and over, until—

The ground drops, and I fall down the hill.

I tumble.

Bracing myself, I fold my arms over my head like a helmet of flesh and bone. Beyond the whirling smears of white and grey and brown, I am blind.

And I feel everything .

Nettles scratch my cheeks, foliage wrenches at my braids, a nestled rock punches my shoulder so hard that tears burn my clenched eyes.

But all I can do is roll down the hill. Barrel, like a dropped cannonball, and I know if it wasn’t for this leathered armour moulded to my body, open wounds would be bleeding from my flesh. It won’t stop the bruises, and I feel the early kiss of them blooming all over me.

Between my grunts, the thundering sound of punishing bootsteps chases me down the slope. The light male rushes after me.

The drop of the hill is my only ally.

I plummet.

Each landing has me bouncing back up in the frosty air, then I smack down again, hard, rolling, and the momentum is too much, I wouldn’t know how to stop it if I needed to.

It batters me.

The fall beats me black and blue, I’m certain of it.

And still, I don’t try to slow myself down, because he is racing after me. Those pounding bootsteps are gaining on me, shuddering the very earth I smack into and tumble down.

A cry splits me.

My forehead knocks off a hard chunk of forest floor.

The tingling heat swells on my brow, and I know my blood smears the rock left behind.

I keep rolling, a dizziness quick to cloud me.

Hard earth rushes up to meet me.

I smack into it—and I fly through the air.

My limbs lift on the winds that are too sudden, as though they have come out of nowhere. The winds that seem to backhand me, and I am thrown to the ground.

I land with a muffled grunt.

And I doubt bounce. I don’t roll.

I am still.

My eyes widen—and I wait for the searing suffocation from the collision. But none comes.

I frown against a soft, sludge. Brown all around me. Nothing but brown. Yet, it isn’t the litalf’s leathers. That much I know.

The male is still chasing down the hill after me. The pummelling sound of his bootfalls matches the race of my heartbeat, the thump, thump, thump that rushes through my ears like waves of blood.

But I don’t see him.

A wet sensation dampens my face. It soaks my braids. The grainy, bitter taste forces itself into my mouth.

I turn my grimacing face, and my eyes crease with a dazed, slow frown.

Water rushes by me.

One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three—

I blink on the understanding. I have landed in the muddy bank of a river. The winds knocked me off the hill—and the mud softened my landing.

A small favour from the gods, or nature, I am sure of it.

I am in their home, in their garden, and they offer me a slight kindness.

I don’t waste it.

Those bootsteps slam closer and closer, thunder advancing on me—but before the litalf can reach me, I roll over the mud, my arms slapping on the sludge; I roll and roll until the frozen touch of violent water rushes over me.

I slip into the river, and it’s quick, quick to secure me as a victim, it submerges me in a chill of liquid ice. My boots dig into the wet riverbank. I propel myself deeper in the river.

In all the panicked movement, forcing and clawing my way through the water, the glint of a knife spears through my peripherals. I flinch just as a knife stabs into the river—a breath’s touch from my cheek.

A guttural sound claws through me.

My hands grab out at water it can’t hold, as though I can drag myself deeper—and I kick my way until the riverbank no longer presses against the soles of my boots.

A silent prayer brings tears to my eyes.

Gods lead me.

The moment I think it, the river steals me away.

But it isn’t kind.

And it feels nothing like a saviour.

The waters offer me no moment of adjustment before the violent force flushes over me, and I know instantly that I have thrown myself into the fucking rapids .

I’m going to die.

This is it.

Not the way I thought I would go.

Yet, I fight to survive.

My arms flail, my chin lifts, and I suck in the sharpest breaths that have ever cut through me, like a sword has been plunged through me and severs my insides.

The panic of my gaze is fixed on the mudbank ahead, through the thick foam and mist.

The water steals me away, but the litalf is a blur of brown as he trudges through the mud. And his eyes are glaring right at me.

I can only hope this light male is from a dry court, where there are no streams to swim in, no lakes to float in, no rivers to play in, and so his skills in the water are unrefined.

But thoughts of the litalf threat are quickly replaced by the ice-burn down my chest as water shoves its way into my throat.

I’m pushed down.

My arms flail, my hands claw—and I drag myself back up to the surface of the river.

I sputter on a raspy breath.

Arms splashing on the foamy waters, I struggle to keep myself upright, even with the kicks of my legs—but I manage enough that, through the wetness slicking my face, I catch sight of brown leathers ahead.

The light male has reached the edge of the mudbank. And he has thrown himself into the rush of the river.

Buttercup eyes are alight with the hunt—and locked onto me. They are too pretty to be so bloodthirsty. But that is what his gaze is. Hungry for my guts in his hands.

The distance between us doesn’t soothe me.

The volatility of the rapids doesn’t ease me.

The litalf bites down on a small knife, and his arms stroke with practice, with skill. He swims with the thrust of the river to catch up with me.

If the rapids don’t kill me—he will.

The ease of his skill tells me of the worst luck possible. That the gods are not on my side as I foolishly thought for a moment. This male hunting me in the fucking river is from a wet court. He swims with too much ease, uses the current to his favour, he knows the waters as well as I know the woods.

I am thoroughly fucked.

Dare’s training voice, a tone of steel, thrums through me.

Evasion, evasion, evasion.

It’s my skill. My talent.

It’s one of the few tricks I have in my arsenal.

And it got me away from my landing spot uphill, down to the river, it kept me away from the litalf.

Evasion.

I am not dead yet. I let the currents lead me. I let the river help me evade. I wait for an opportunity.

And I try not to drown.

If there are any warriors nearby, fighting or running my way, chasing down the bank of the river, then I don’t know anything of it—I don’t hear them over the rushing waters of the river, I don’t see them through the droplets spraying in my face or the foamy surface plunging into my mouth, grabbing my head and pushing me under.

I wouldn’t know if a knife was zipping through the air at me until it burrowed into my head.

All I can do is try to stay afloat.

Already the muscles in my arms feel as though I’ve done nothing but dance and dance and dance for the day and night, and the kicks of my legs are slowing down.

I am slowing down.