Page 148 of Cursed Shadows 4

And time is so sparse.

My gaze flitters through the darkness wedged between the trees, as though I will see Mother or the Mother Stone if I look hard enough.

I won’t.

The angle of our location, it’s too far under the curve of a cliffside, and so all I see is rock and ice and snow and mist.

I see no gods.

That doesn’t mean we aren’t close.

The summit is less than a phase’s hike, even with my wound. If the dark ones take turns carrying me, it will still slow us down—as it already has. But the distance is slight.

The dread pools in my gut.

I am running out of ideas.

Schemes are hard to come by in black powder fatigue.

And I fear I have no way out, not anymore.

Defeat is a weighted sensation. It sags the shoulders and slumps the spine. I do just that against the bark of the tree scratching at my back.

I part my lips for Daxeel, for the powder.

He slips his finger into my mouth before he drags the smear of bitter powder over my tongue.

My mouth twists before I tug away from him. “I’m hungry.”

Daxeel looks down at me. “We will cook what we have.”

I don’t meet his gaze. I stare ahead at the firewood that Dare returns with, the pile stacked in his arms.

It will be a while before my belly is filled with fish and berries or whatever else we have to cook among us.

I deflate with a sigh.

Lolling my head back against the sharp bite of the bark, I look up at Daxeel’s steady gaze. “I need to relieve myself.”

His lashes lower.

Sudden suspicion burns in his eyes.

It’s a fight not to roll my own.

I extend my hand and flap it like a dying fish. “You and I both know I am not running very far with this leg. Just help me, or I’ll wet myself.”

His face darkens, shadows shifting from his leathers. “So do.”

I drop my hand to the dirt.

It hits with a thump.

“You want me to die in my own urine?” I scoff and turn my cheek to him, but not before I catch a glimpse of his frown forming. “You won’t even grant me the dignity of an honourable death. Of all the regrets I have…” I shake my head, not at him, but at myself, the disappointment that floods me. I throw my gaze back up at him. “It’s that I did not listen to my father when he warned me about your kind.”

Daxeel’s jaw rolls, as though he chews on daggers he means to aim at me. A snarl claws through his chest as he swipes down for me. He snatches me by the arm, then yanks me up onto my feet.

The stab of searing hot pain is quick to bolt through me. I grunt on a choked cry.

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