Page 157 of Cursed Shadows 4

‘Scha-scha-scha-scha.’

Breath pinned to my chest, my hands are quick to fist at my sides, as though I can somehow steel myself against the skittering sensation nicking and clawing at me, inside and outside of my body, no escape.

‘Narsssissaaaa….’

I think I might be sick.

Dare watches me closely, his gilded eyes gleaming like pools of molten gold in snow. “You hear it, don’t you?”

Daxeel’s jaw flexes. The side-look he spares me is a flare in the mist.

My answer is a faint nod, a sickly one.

Daxeel’s upper lip curls before he growls out, “Let’s move.”

That godly sound, a language not meant for the ears—or the bones—of mortal flesh, it snakes and skitters all around me. And it follows as I push into step.

I keep close to Dare. Practically on the heels of his boots with each cautious step I take.

Caution is not in short supply.

It’s an abundant, sudden shift among the fae of our group. Steps are slow, gazes are thrown around, cautious, and breaths are bated. Even Daxeel keeps a slow, methodical pace through the snow—and his gaze is sharp, cutting and swerving around the mist.

The unease follows us further past the treelines on either side of the clearing, a border of trees that shouldn’t grow this far up the mountain, any mountain at all. But this isn’t just any mountain.

Each one of us, I’m sure, has felt it. The strong sense of not belonging, of invading a place so natural that it isunnaturalto us. This place does not abide by our laws of nature, it does not conform to our understanding of the worlds, the realms, the lands.

But now…

Now, that sense of not belonging, of intruding, it’s a shout through our bones, a hum; it’s instinct creeping along our muscles, as though to force us to turn and run.

I am certain, so certain that I would bet my fangs on it, that each one of us wants nothing more than to turn and bolt in the other direction… not one of us so much as pauses.

Not even when, in the twin treelines that border us, the fog starts to clear—and shadows creep out from it.

Wispy, frozen trees that frame us, left and right, and no matter which way I turn my head, muscular silhouettes emerge. They stretch, taller and darker, a light grey that fast blots into shapes of spilled ink… like leathers.

Dark fae.

Dokkalf warriors that have waited at the summit for this.

For us.

For the end.

I loosen a shuddered breath and draw closer to Dare’s back.

He touches his chin to his shoulder, his lashes low over gilded eyes. But they are no longer pots of molten gold. They have hardened into gilded steel.

He pushes ahead, and I keep tucked behind him, Daxeel close to my heels.

Yet I feel nothing close to soothed by their presence.

Peppered all over, the dark ones are creeping out from the shadows. Silence envelopes them. Their steps are slow andpurposeful, their gazes flinging between me and Daxeel, then to the Mother Stone ahead.

These dark ones made it closer to the summit before we did. And they have been lurking here since, waiting for us to arrive.

We walk the clearing, drawing closer the Mother Stone—and the closer we do get, the better I see the greyish centre, the jagged line scraped down its middle.

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