Page 166 of Cursed Shadows 4

Frenzied, I spin around and fall onto my bum.

My glare finds him—ocean eyes in pools of blood, honeyed skin in white, dead earth.

Daxeel stands at the edge of the smog.

His shadows lash around him, peeled back like spider legs that threaten to spear anyone who gets close.

But his gaze is pinned on me.

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There is no question about that look Daxeel pins me with. Standing on the border of the smog, spattered in blood, his hands slicked crimson, and his chest heaving, that feral edge to his stare is nothing short of a standoff.

I don’t back down.

Slowly, I lean onto my boots, then rise up.

His lashes lower over his kohled cobalt eyes.

My hands fist at my sides.

His jaw tightens.

We face each other, once together, now apart. Opponents. Natural enemies, as it should be.

The cerulean of his gaze burns through the smoulder of the mist, sizing me up.

The circle around me is as rigid as a vault. There is no getting through this barricade of dokkalf warriors, not until the litalves attack—and then I will have my chance.

That moment doesn’t come, not yet.

The litalves have paused their advance, the dokkalves keep their backs to me, shields of protection, but my prison guards, too.

Just as Daxeel and I do, the warriors are locked in a beat of assessment, sizing one another up, minds whirling for their most favourable schemes.

It’s Ronan who shatters the tense pause. I recognise his voice, even in a shout, “For the light!”

I throw a startled look over my shoulder—and between the two arms of dokkalves, I catch sight of Ronan, barely, as he lifts his sword high and his face twists with a war cry.

In a blink, chaos erupts all around me. Faster, deadlier than the explosions, the final stand breaks out.

The shouts and cries of war thunder in my ears, lashing at me from all angles. I blanch against it, my vision blurred by the sudden surge of rushing leathers, of black and brown, of armours of gold and silver, of ateralum and steel.

The backs of the dokkalves leave me.

No longer shielded in a circle, I stand alone in the snow, a mist of it kicked up from the ground.

I fling my gaze back to Daxeel.

My eyes narrow on him.

He has moved.

Not towards me, but towards the Mother Stone.

Some arm’s reaches from the line of smoke, he throws up his fisted daggers, a braced defence against an onslaught of lashes. A litalf advances on him, bringing down a razored whip over and over—and Daxeel is throwing up his blades to block each strike.

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