Page 130 of Cursed Shadows 4

But just behind, two stones down, Caius scales the mountainside. Twin ateralum daggers are fisted in his hands, and a smaller blade bitten between his bared teeth.

I watch him for a heartbeat, watch how he uses his own blades, but his limbs spread out wider than the litalf’s, and he moves like a giant spider up the rocks.

The climbing litalf is gaining on me.

But Caius is gaining on him.

But the light female with the bow and arrow…

She releases it.

A gravelled sound crawls up my throat.

I cling to the ice and heave my weight over the edge. I manage just a turn before the arrow spears—

And it strikes me.

My grunts twist into a harrowed cry.

The flesh of my back is shredded, torn.

The arrow pierces clean through my shoulder, speared at an angle, one that spurts and spills dark crimson blood all over the ice I grip onto.

I let my cries choke in my throat. The sobs quiver my chest, but I need to move, I can’t waste seconds on them.

The blood is slicking the ice, it’s warming the glacier surface—and if I let it warm, let it become even a little bit more slippery, I will fall.

I wrap my mouth around my heaving breaths. I pull the reins on them, and with each passing second, that pounding panic in my dizzied head starts to fade.

I ground myself.

I need to, if I want to trust my movements up the cliffside, if I want to trust that my grip won’t slip, my steps won’t slip, and I won’t fall to my death.

That’s what will happen if I slip now. I will plummet to my death—and no one can save me from that.

No one is close enough.

Just as I let the thought pass through my mind, that swell of booming, echoing panic suffocates my chest again like a bad cold.

I cringe against the sensation.

Daxeel’s panic, not mine. I’m certain of it.

I didn’t see him when I dared look just moments ago. And I’m not certain how brave I am to chance another look.

I must keep moving.

That litalf is advancing on me, those blades singing ever closer. I’m certain the female litalf will be notching the next arrow.

I climb up the ice.

My boot slips over the surface. My face twists with pain and fear and tears, and I now decide I loathe every piece, every scrap of my sad and miserable life.

Would it be so bad if I do fall?

Yes.

I do not let the thought consume me or settle longer than a heartbeat. I am worth more than these killers.

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