Page 163 of Cursed Shadows 4

I freeze.

Eyes swerving around the wisps of grey, the flickering dark spots like shadows moving in the distance, I am pinned in place.

“Narcissa, I can smell you.” The hushed impatience teeters on annoyance. But the voicewhispers.

It does not shout as the others do, Daxeel and Dare still calling my name across the snowfield, some distance behind. They will start hunting me now. Realise that I do not answer, that I ignore, and Dare will be quick to find me in the smoke.

The whisper returns, closer now, just a reach away, “Nari, I won’t harm you.”

The relief of the promise is a raspy breath from my cold, blue-tinted lips. “Rune… I’m here.”

Not a heartbeat passes before I feel the air shift at my side. I swerve my frozen gaze to the leather-wrapped warrior, too muscular, too large, towering over me.

I blink on him once before he drops to a knee.

Rune’s familiar cat eyes gleam like yellow fireflies in the dust. He hisses with such hushed urgency that I almost think it a trick of the ears. “Take this.”

The beige hue of his hand flicks through the air. He tosses something at me, and I can hardly see it through the smoke clouding me, but I swipe at it all the same.

It knocks against my fingertips, flesh and stone colliding—and topples onto the snow. I slap my flattened hands on the snow and smear them around, until…

Cool stone, cold enough to bite through the rawness of my flesh, but a different cold to the snow. It’s the sort to prickle my skin with pimples and curl my shoulders. It’s otherworldly.

I scoop it up and bring it closer to my squinting eyes.

Hard to make out much of anything in the smog, but this is the exception. In my palm, it’s not just easy to see, but to feel as well.

The gloss of a small stone glimmers in my splayed hand, a stone with an oval gap in its centre.

Dragon eye.

An anchor.

The strike of it is a sensation humming down my bones—then a drop in the pit of my stomach, an anchor hitting the bottom of an ocean.

I stare down at the dragon eye for another beat before I close my fingers around it.

The message is clear.

Without the dragon eye, Mother can suck me into her abyss, consume my soul in the depths of the mountain. And since I am the sacrifice, the dark ones have no need for an anchor in my hand.

Rune giving his anchor to me means something. It means he still has hope that Daxeel won’t go through with it, that he will falter—change his mind. It means Rune suspects I have my own agenda, and he cares enough about me to ensure I won’t fall into the abyss while I chase it.

And if Daxeel does sacrifice me… but I have an anchor… then maybe,just maybeMother won’t pull me into her abyss.

I lift my gaze to Rune.

Hand outstretched, he flexes his fingers, an impatience in the gesture. “I’ll get you there.”

Instinct draws me to him.

I throw out my free hand, and he grips my wrist, tight.

Rune stays crouched in the smoke.

I push onto my boots and crouch with him.

Keeping low, we move, fast, through the smog. His instincts guide us.

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