Page 8 of Cursed Shadows 4 (The Dark Fae)

DAXEEL

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The lava field is a stagnant current of blackness, waves of ink frozen in its quest of total destruction.

The thick blackness of the field offers cover to those with black leathers, crafted from the onyx scales of dragons. It is a sanctuary of obscurity for darkness—for the dokkalves. Almost as though the dark gods themselves moulded the frozen lava currents and scorched them, just for a dokkalf to take cover.

Daxeel does just that.

It isn’t cowardice that has him crouched behind a trinity of bunched black bumps, his inky shadows curling over his shoulders or looping around his neck in something of an embrace. Everything in him itches to chase down the nearest litalf and sever their head from their body, to tear out a spine with his bare hands, to see hot blood spill from torn flesh and to feel the dying, slowing thumps of a heart until—silence.

Instinct has his fingers curling until his gloves are fists at his sides. The battles lift spatters of blood, light and dark, through the misty air above the crevasse. Daxeel left it behind for the lava field, but he falters. Hesitates. Enough that, crouched, he lets his narrowed gaze slide back up the slope.

The flattened ice of the crevasse should melt with the amount of hot, fresh blood spilled. Heads roll, fae are kicked over the edges of crevices, falling to their deaths.

And not a face among them that Daxeel considers worthy of saving. To pause the pursuit of his mission, the fae he runs to the aid of must be a soul brother.

None of them landed on the crevasse.

Landings are not as random as they might seem. The iilra warned him of this. The portal distorts the placements of the intruders, in the free-fall through the abyss the gods meddle. Dark and light. Mother does not.

Whatever gods got their sticky fingers into his fae of the soul, his brothers, his blood, his evate—they made sure to spread them apart on the mountain. How far apart, he’s yet to learn.

But they each have their own objectives.

Samick and Dare won’t search for Daxeel, not until they have found Nari. The pair of them move better, faster on their own.

Their hunt has already begun.

So, among the faces of the fae sprinkled around the lava fields and the crevasse, Daxeel searches for three faces. For Nari, who he is convinced is nowhere near him on the mountain; for Rune, his cat eyes and yellow ribboned hair; and for his blood brother, Caius.

He searches in the fae ran through with swords, the dokkalves toppling over the edges of the crevices, in the hacked bodies that litter the white floor.

He finds none of them—so he turns his back on the bloodshed and, with his shadows engulfing him, races down the lava fields.

His footing is faithful. Each landing boot is steady on a soft mound of frozen lava. Without pause, he chases the greystone hill far down the sharp decline of the mountainside, until hardened black rock gives way to black ice coated in a thin layer of snow.

The snow smear doesn’t give Daxeel any comfort.

One wrong step, one boot too firm, and the snow will not protect him from the fall down the sloped greystone, a decline so steep that it borders on a cliffside, and might well become one in time.

He moves slow, now.

Careful footing from bulging rock to smooth stone, the threat of the ice still lingers. It is a constant.

The snow pads his methodical steps.

The crunch of the snow comes again and again in the quiet of the greystone slope. An icy wind carries the distant cries of battle he left behind. The hum of it is something of a comfort to his shadows, still wrapped around him, as though they sense that the time to part is nigh, and they will be taken from their true home. Him . The Sgail bloodline.

Daxeel’s thoughts are severed, fast, as though a blade struck through his mind. He stills.

The battle cries carry, but the direction has shifted.

A frown cuts into his brow. He homes his hearing on the fresh layer of sound—of shouts and strangled cries, of the songs of swords cutting through the air, and of a thunderous break of ice.

Motionless, the shadows tug away from him, drape back into place down his arms and back, melting in with his leathers. Without them coiling near his ears, he better listens to the new battle he’s encroached upon.

And he pins the melody to beyond the greystone hill, through the mist that gathers down there. Whatever is beyond the fog, he doesn’t know. No maps can be drawn of the Mountain of Slumber. Each visit, the terrain has shifted, the topography has warped. Lakes change positions, cave systems collapse or disappear entirely, a crevasse on one side of the mountain changes to the other, and perhaps lower down, too.

The rotation of the seasons on this mountain makes too many changes—and so the contenders come in blind.

He feels blind. Blinded by choice.

The risk of running into that battle down there, a mist of uncertainty, is not worth the possibility that he might find a soul brother among the warriors. That is what the iilra told him. It is what General Agnar warned him of.

The mission comes first.

If it means to leave behind warriors, then that is what must be. Sacrifice a few—for the greater power of Dorcha.

Daxeel’s footing down the lava fields was steady and confident. Further down the greystone, ill at ease. But now, facing a mist of battle, his boots are unmoving.

There is something else moving.

A shudder runs through Daxeel, a flutter of his muscles, his instincts prickled.

The faintest shade of pink flickers out the corner of his eye. So pale that it is almost white, not unlike lungs freshly spilled from a chest cavity.

Daxeel’s gloved hand reaches for the weapons belt. He draws the first dagger to touch his palm—and the moment he fists his hand around the hilt, a ferocious roar splits the stagnant air.

He spins around, bringing the dagger with him.

His eyes land on the gaping black mouth of a metal-fanged faerie hound—a beast as large as himself, mid-lunge.

Daxeel moves fast. His leathers are a swipe of black over the rocks; he whirls out of the beast’s path, shadows lashing around him. The chalky black metal of ateralum glitters in his fist as it cuts through the air.

He misses.

The hound lands, hard, on the greystone. Each of its paws strike down on the uneven slope of rocks—and yet it doesn’t so much as wobble on landing.

Its lips curl, and reveal the growing metallic needle-like teeth, longer than Daxeel’s own fingers, that extend from blackened gums.

It soars at him.

But Daxeel is ready this time.

He jolts forward into a kneel. His knees smack down on the hard ice, his spine falls back—and the hound soars over him.

He’s quick to cut the blade right down the gut of the hound. A spray of crimson rains down on him.

Daxeel throws himself up into a crouch. His hand fists onto the ground, the dagger firm in his other grip.

Thump .

His head is bowed, crimson coating the hair that brushes his brow. He waits, still, motionless—

Slump .

Without looking over his shoulder, Daxeel knows that the faerie hound has collapsed behind him. Dead, gutted. No longer an obstacle in his way.

Shoving his weight into his fist, Daxeel pushes up from the bloody rocks. The soles of his boots slip. Just a touch, but enough to halt him.

He drags his gaze over the crimson, smeared rock. The heat of fresh blood eats through the frost and reveals the black ice beneath.

He looks down to the mist.

A fog of distant battle calling to him with its cries, the striking song of swords humming in his bones.

The itch to charge into battle prickles him. His fingers curl tight around the hilt of the dagger. White blotches stain his knuckles beneath the shield of the gloves.

The urge calls for him to kill.

He follows the call, lets the battle shrouded in mist lure him closer.

As the snow thickens under his boots, he pushes into a run and makes for the distant mist.