Page 102 of Cursed Shadows 4

My scent will be stronger now, no longer muted by the layers I wore over my armours.

But Dare is my companion.

I should be just fine.

The spot he chose for our rest was an uphill climb that lasted the better part of an hour.

It was worth it.

He finds us a creek beamed with boulders, trees that haven’t been frozen to death and so can be foraged for firewood, and a healthy dozen of wild pigs feeding through the area.

In the time I waded into the creek, then stripped off my sweater, leathers, boots, and unwound my frazzled braids, Dare had already snuck to the edges of our perimeter to hunt.

I have washed myself and have started on scrubbing my armours with a stone and beating them against the boulders when he returns—

Dragging a dead adolescent boar into our camp.

And that’s what it is. A camp.

Dare makes sure of that when he starts to build a fire in the small, grassy bank that’s hugged by thick, lush trees.

Rinsing out the water from my sweater, I look over my shoulder at Dare. He hasn’t looked at me once, washing in the creek, and for that I am grateful.

Mind, he’s preoccupied skinning the poor beast he hunted down.

I turn my back on him and drop. I let the creek envelop me.

The rush of water is a soothing embrace.

I stay submerged a while.

I used to do this when I was a youngling. Test my breath-holding skills in the copper bathtub, or pretend I was one of the merfolk in the lake.

At most I can manage ten minutes.

I guess that’s how long I stay under before the constriction of my lungs propels me back up to the surface.

Fresher than I’ve felt in a while, however long I have been out here on this mountain, I run my hands down my flat hair. Really squeeze out all the excess water.

I linger so long that my fingers are pruned and icky to the touch. It’s only then that I grab my gear and trudge onto land.

Naked, but without the shame of it, I crouch for the phials I laid out over the stones. Balms. One, I dab over my now-scabbed gash. The other, I smear over my ribs and thighs. The third is a soothing ointment, and I finger it around my mouth to ease the itch of the lies.

Behind me, the creek is sloped enough that the song of the water rolling downhill, and splashing over boulders, andtrickling down rocks is loud enough to mute any noise we might make.

Dare took me to a place of disguise. Hiding behind the song of a creek.

I dry off with a rag from my backpack, then climb into my damp clothes. The leathers will dry against the heat of the crackling fire just fine, and fast, too. It’s the sweater that might take some hours.

I hope we have hours.

I want for more than dry clothes. I want for sleep, too.

Andthat.

The red meat sizzling on the flat pan of metal that Dare placed on the bridge of the flames.

My mouth floods at the sight of those four generous cuts, the fish, too, that he sourced from my backpack (courtesy of Boil).

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