Page 26 of Cursed Shadows 4

Hard earth rushes up to meet me.

I smack into it—and I fly through the air.

My limbs lift on the winds that are too sudden, as though they have come out of nowhere. The winds that seem to backhand me, and I am thrown to the ground.

I land with a muffled grunt.

And I doubt bounce. I don’t roll.

I am still.

My eyes widen—and I wait for the searing suffocation from the collision. But none comes.

I frown against a soft, sludge. Brown all around me. Nothing but brown. Yet, it isn’t the litalf’s leathers. That much I know.

The male is still chasing down the hill after me. The pummelling sound of his bootfalls matches the race of my heartbeat, the thump, thump, thump that rushes through my ears like waves of blood.

But I don’t see him.

A wet sensation dampens my face. It soaks my braids. The grainy, bitter taste forces itself into my mouth.

I turn my grimacing face, and my eyes crease with a dazed, slow frown.

Water rushes by me.

One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three—

I blink on the understanding. I have landed in the muddy bank of a river. The winds knocked me off the hill—and the mud softened my landing.

A small favour from the gods, or nature, I am sure of it.

I am in their home, in their garden, and they offer me a slight kindness.

I don’t waste it.

Those bootsteps slam closer and closer, thunder advancing on me—but before the litalf can reach me, I roll over the mud, my arms slapping on the sludge; I roll and roll until the frozen touch of violent water rushes over me.

I slip into the river, and it’s quick, quick to secure me as a victim, it submerges me in a chill of liquid ice. My boots dig into the wet riverbank. I propel myself deeper in the river.

In all the panicked movement, forcing and clawing my way through the water, the glint of a knife spears through my peripherals. I flinch just as a knife stabs into the river—a breath’s touch from my cheek.

A guttural sound claws through me.

My hands grab out at water it can’t hold, as though I can drag myself deeper—and I kick my way until the riverbank no longer presses against the soles of my boots.

A silent prayer brings tears to my eyes.

Gods lead me.

The moment I think it, the river steals me away.

But it isn’t kind.

And it feels nothing like a saviour.

The waters offer me no moment of adjustment before the violent force flushes over me, and I know instantly that I have thrown myselfinto the fucking rapids.

I’m going to die.

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