Page 159 of Cursed Shadows 4

I force it down.

I let shuddering breaths pass through me once, twice, before I shoulder into him.

Daxeel throws a glare at me, one threaded from warning and threats. His eyes smoulder from kohl lines, but he keeps a silence as I push past him and march ahead.

Dare says nothing as I reach his side.

And I match his pace.

But I match it for only three hiked steps through the thick snow before a sharp stillness sweeps the clearing.

Ahead, the dark ones stop.

Dead in their tracks, statues that become one with the frost. And that stillness ripples through the crowd, all the way back to us, and freezes us all.

Dare’s golden eyes gleam sharp as though he’s aware of everything in all directions. Slowly, he reaches out his arm, then flicks his wrist. That one, practiced gesture has a razored whip uncoiling from his forearm. It unfurls in a heap that thumps the thickly dusted snow—and his hand flexes, firm, on the leather grip.

His murmur is gentle, “Litalves.”

I fling my stare to the Mother Stone ahead.

But before I can focus my stare on anything, a gust of smoke blasts through the frost—and I’m thrown off my feet.

33

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My body smacks onto the hard snow with a thud.

I would roll if it wasn’t for the pair of legs that my spine strikes against, legs so solid that it’s not unlike being thrown into a pair of marble pillars.

Those pillars are knocked out of place.

The black of leather topples over me, then crashes into the snow at my side. Aled grunts a word of sheathed curses, then throws me a wicked glare.

I blink on that feral look he gives me.

Stunned, I peel my body from his, our arms untangling, and I roll onto my side.

I glance up at the grey mist swirling above us, like rolling thunder clouds, snow disturbed.

All around me, ahead of me, dark fae rise from their falls. Some are crouched in the debris of tree bark and exploded brushwood, arms are crossed over heads, braced against the pistoning branches that hail down on us as furiously as a storm’s rain.

But this is no storm.

This is a planned attack. An offense. A symphony of explosives erupting all over the snowfield at once.

The litalves planted explosives, concoctions of blasts and flames, all around the clearing. Buried under the snow, hidden in the burrows of the treelines, and the dark fae at the front of the line triggered them.

Smart. Smart to plant the bombs down the treelines bordering the glade—because now, those splintered trees and spearing branches rain down on us with more brutality than any arrow attack could ever.

I watch heads decapitate from their bodies, lances of nature spear into legs and pin down their victims, I watch dokkalves smeared with tarry blood rip out jagged stones from their limbs.

For too long, I do that… justwatchthe destruction.

I’m knocked out of my daze abruptly.

Beside me, Aled shoves up from the snow. His shoulder knocks into my shoulder blade, hard enough that I’m shoved out of his way.

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