Page 176 of Cursed Shadows 4

The brick wall winded me—but its limbs, arms and legs, tumble at my side.

I suck in a sharp breath, a gasp of panicked understanding before I’m grabbing at the wall. Only, it’s not brick, it’s a solid, limp body. Cold and hard like falling marble.

I clammer onto it.

My fingernails threaten to snap clean off under the ferocity of my grip. My knees press into the thighs of the falling fae, the dead one that Ipraybreaks my fall.

My eyes squeeze shut—

And, with a loosening breath, I let my body relax.

Tension will injure me, wound me, break my bones and wreck my muscles. I must let the corpse break my fall.

It does.

The thud is sickening. The crunch of bone and the crack of a skull on the hard ground, it should shudder the darkness itself.

I bounce.

My body arcs through the darkness, inches above the shattered corpse, and the pain is quick to shred through me before I slam back down on a surface as solid as stone.

The impact reverberates through my spine. An icy punch to my chest, the winding ache is quick to choke me.

Can’t move…

The shadow of my lashes fringes my vision.

Need to move…

Lips parted around a wheezing breath, I watch the darkness skitter above, bodies spitting out from the skies. Dead fae hit walls and towers, tumble into each other, corpses tangled and spiralling towards the stands like bombs.

Get up, get up, get up.

The survivors, the ones who live, are twisting mid-air, diving and curving and arching before disappearing out of my line of sight, landing on their boots in the dirt, or barrelling into the stone structure of Comlar, or crashing into the stands.

Two surviving fae smack down an arm’s reach from me.

One of light, one of dark.

And still, I’m winded, spine arched off the ground, lips parted, breaths wheezing.

I blink on the dokkalf as he lands with a stumble—a stumble that has him staggering, hard, into the litalf’s back.

Their hisses and snarls are quick to come, too quick, and I watch as they shove at each other… then…

I blink.

They just stop.

Stop, as though realising now where they are. Not on the summit. Not on the mountain.

Not in battle anymore.

Comlar has us now.

Mutual lands.

My frown is tired, faint, as they start a gradual pace uphill—and that’s when I understand where I am. On the short hill behind the grandstands, just before the battle blocks.

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