Page 131 of Cursed Shadows 4

I kill only to save myself.

And that makes me better than them.

The guttural cry shudders me as I wrench myself all the way up onto the ledge and scoot closer to the wall of the cliff.

Just in time, too.

The second arrow whistles by—and it lodges into the rock above.

“Nari!”

My heart catches in my throat.

Back pressed into the cliffside, I stare at the ledge of the ice, at the trails and pool of my blood.

I have lost blood. A lot of it.

And yet I am certain I did not imagine it. His voice. The shout of my name from his tongue.

Daxeel.

“Nari, hang on!”

I don’t get the chance to lean closer to the edge and look.

I don’t get the chance to see Daxeel down there, somewhere, staring up at me, the horror in his face that I canfeelin my chest, horror laced with strings of nausea.

That is how I know how ill my fate is… How much blood must be spilling over the side of this ice ledge, how slumped I must be, how fast the litalf is gaining on me.

Still, I cannot move.

I know I must.

But I am just… slumping.

Melting into the frost.

My lashes flutter around blood and ice.

Still, I hear it—an eruption of shouts exploding from the air beneath me, all around me, louder than the trembles of the mountain that still shudder me.

“Caius!”

“Behind you!”

“Nariiii—”

Dazed, I can only watch as a gloved hand reaches up out of nowhere, then it’s coming down on my neck.

The air is slapped out of me.

A strangled grunt catches in my throat, the foreign hand with a grip tight enough to silence me—

Then I am dragged off the ledge.

My limp body follows the weight of the grip.

And I fall…

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