Page 30 of Cursed Shadows 4

He drags his gaze over the crimson, smeared rock. The heat of fresh blood eats through the frost and reveals the black ice beneath.

He looks down to the mist.

A fog of distant battle calling to him with its cries, the striking song of swords humming in his bones.

The itch to charge into battle prickles him. His fingers curl tight around the hilt of the dagger. White blotches stain his knuckles beneath the shield of the gloves.

The urge calls for him to kill.

He follows the call, lets the battle shrouded in mist lure him closer.

As the snow thickens under his boots, he pushes into a run and makes for the distant mist.

9

††††††

I am going to drown. I am going to die.

If the river doesn’t kill me, the litalf swimming after me will.

I have no strength to battle him, the waters, or my fate. The fight is unribboning from my body muscle by muscle, and my bones are weakening to hot, stretched seaside taffy.

The violence of the current is formidable. The chances of swimming myself to shore are so laughable that the thought doesn’t even pass my mind for longer than a fleeting, bitter moment.

The water releases its grip on me—and I’m soaring to the surface. No sooner is my head above water that I throw it back and suck in a searing, strangled breath.

The wretched gasp is quick to mangle into a scream.

The river drops.

I feel the drop. With it, my heart slingshots to my gut.

I’m freefalling for what feels like a heartbeat too long, a promise of forever that’s not delivered on, because the moment passes, and I smack down into the river again with a splash.

I am trapped in a cascade: Continuous small drops in the riverbed, boulders surrounding me… and probably headed towards one hell of a waterfall.

I claw my way to the surface—

The panic is ice through my veins. I suck in a sharp breath that’s nothing less than a sword spearing through me, but just reaching the surface of violent rapids isn’t enough to slow the racing thrum of my heart.

Water attacks me from all angles, the foamy surface encasing me. It sprays my face, soaks my hair and trembles my lips, but it floods me too. The urge to be sick is a wave through my insides. All that comes is a retch before I’m shoved down again.

I’m choking.

My fists beat against the water, but my fight is lame, and my opponent too strong.

And I’m thrown off another ledge, another drop in the riverbed. Feels as though the river itself moulds into large, strong hands and shoves me off a miniature cliff.

I claw myself up again—but slower, this time, my lashes heavier now, and the kick of my legs weakening by the lethargic heartbeat.

A wretched burp crawls through me. With it, water sicks out from my soaked lips. My tears are lost in the river.

The agitation of the water starts to turn me. Twist me. Too fast, I’m whirling.

I catch fleeting, blurry glimpses of the litalf who chased me into this death river. He’s closer now, just a dropping riverbed behind me.

Last time I laid eyes upon him, he was swimming towards me, a knife in his bite, buttercup eyes alight with bloodlust.

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