Page 155 of Cursed Shadows 4

My breaths are unsteady wisps of mist at my parted lips.

That sensation of being watched—hunted—is all over me, a million invisible spiders skittering over my flesh. And while my teeth are bared against the horrid shudder that jolts me, my alertness has taken a hit.

The dash of black powder in my body keeps my lashes low over my eyes, my hands moving slow as I reach for the next rock, then the next, and the next. This drowsiness, this fatigue pulling on my muscles, is a hindrance I cannot afford. Not now. Not at the end.

I fight through it. Each hiked step I take up this dreadful climb to the Mother Stone is stronger than the last, because it has to be.

I don’t feel strong. I feel as weak as a mouse staring down the jaws of a faerie hound… Yet that mouse has the power to feed thebeast, and save all the other mice, give them a chance to evade the beast.

A gasp cuts me.

It’s not the thoughts of my fate, my self-doubt or questioning that shudders me with a rippling breath.

My hand slips on the rock.

Before I can fall, before I can cry out or lean away from the face of the cliff, a hand snatches for my wrist—and clutches on, tight.

I throw a flurried look to Mika.

Just a reach above me, she crouches on a small ledge and leans aside to hold onto me.

Her icy hair falls free of its ribbon and into pale, sharp features. The chill of her ice-blocks-for-eyes is locked onto me.

I nod, a little shake of gratitude, an unspoken thanks.

Then I reach for the slippery rock again.

The snow caught on the cliffside is melting. Before we got here, someone must have already climbed, grabbed onto this very rock, or stepped on it, and the peppered snow has melted into something light and dewy.

I firm my grip on it once, twice, before I decide I can trust it now, and I lift my weight up onto the next.

Mika stays with me.

She stays leaning, twisting around, and watches me until I am safely past the slippery rock.

Then, once we are at eye-level, she inclines her head—a silent order to continue above her.

I do.

That leaves her, Daxeel and Aled behind me.

I follow the others, sticking too close to Samick’s boots as we scale the overhang. I make it to the edge when Rune—first over the ledge, first onto firm ground—reaches for me.

His ungloved hand extends for mine, fingers as raw as my own, palm as swollen as mine.

I slap my hand to his forearm. I grip, tight, hugging the solid muscle of his arm to me, and he lifts me up with a strained grunt. He yanks me over the edge—

I go tumbling before I land facedown in the snow. A lump of it shoves into my mouth, as frosty and cold as my insides.

An instant cough jolts me as I lift my face out of the snow.

I roll onto my back and swat at my face, the clumps of frozen flakes in my eyebrows, the little lumps that found their way up my nostrils—

I don’t get a moment to wipe my face clear of the snow before a pair of boots land, hard, beside my head. The toes of the boots drag over the wispy strands of my hair, too close.

I jerk back from the intruder, a scowl aimed up at him.

Daxeel looks down on me, a curious tilt to his arched eyebrow. He runs me over with his gaze for a heartbeat, then jerks his chin.Get up.

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