Page 179 of Cursed Shadows 4

I am alive.

Alive…

Yet, no relief hits me.

No tears of joy flood my eyes or wobble my bottom lip. My tears are for the pain shredding through me, the booming of the black thunder above, growing louder and louder, thicker and darker—

I swallow back a groan and, eyes hooded, I push into step. I make for the courtyard.

A frown digs into my sleepy brow.

Now that I am moving for it, I notice that walls are gone.

Once, there stood stone walls curved around the courtyard, some ruined into rubble, but strong enough that I sometimes walked them.

Now, I see nothing but debris—and bodies buried in it.

Dead fae, thrown from the portal, dozens, maybe a hundred, and the impact of the corpses hitting the walls has crumbled them.

A shoulder knocks into me.

It hits the thought of the walls and the bodies out of mind. A dark female, an elder by the way she moves, slower and with a slight gait, rushes past me. Panic wets her eyes.

She only glances at me before she’s gone staggering down to the battle blocks, I suspect to check the bodies downhill.

I turn my back on her and limp over the grass.

Bootsteps are thundering closer to me.

From the courtyard, three silhouettes are gaining on me.

The fright of the mountain has stuck to my bones, because I tense—and my free hand reaches for my weapons belt.

It is empty.

No cool kiss of a blade to graze my palm.

Not that I need one.

I am not on the mountain anymore.

And these fae aren’t my enemies on the summit.

Three fae run past me, a dark one and two of light. Not in leathers, but in tunics and blouses and breeches.

Spectators.

They only spare me fleeting glances, as if to confirm that I am alive, that they need not check my face for familiarity, and then they’re gone.

I look over my shoulder as they run downhill, then splinter off.

Swaying on the spot, hand still pressed to my gashed head, I stand a while and watch them scramble from limp body to limp body, and then the dokkalf chases the hollow sound of moans further into the darkness.

I can’t see that far.

Whether it is because torches are not lit, or that the Cursed Shadows are already spilling too much blackness into the dark, and so it’s stealing my sight, or it’s that my headwound has distorted me too much, I don’t know.

I just know that my eyes are squinting, as if to see better, as I turn my back on the moans, and I hobble to the rubble that was once a lovely, solid courtyard.

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