Page 32 of Cursed Shadows 4

The gods.

Nature.

I should be calling out for nature, not a dark male.

I am litalf, female.

I am one with the earth and the water and the beasts.

I can do this myself.

Shutting my eyes on the looming plummet, I wrestle the straps of the backpack off my shoulders.

Help me.

My watery grunts are gurgled as the flow sweeps me around boulders and tree stumps and a watchful white otter.

Catch me.

The tickle of swarming fish flap around my writhing legs. But they are as doomed as I am, and I am doomed if I don’t make this shot.

Save me.

The leather of my glove creaks. I firm my fist around one strap of the backpack, then spread my arm out wide. The other strap of the backpack floats behind me, something—I hope—of a lasso.

My gaze homes in on the fallen tree—on its dead branches that splinter out into the river.

I shout something guttural,desperate.

And I fling my arm over the water. It arches over my head, the strap flimsy in the winds—

My breath pins to the tensing of my throat.

I can’t breathe.

I watch, and it’s almost as though it happens in a slowdown of time.

The strap falls downwards.

The tree is advancing on me, and the churning river is about to sweep me right by it.

All I have is this backpack—one strap clenched in my fist, the other falling, desperately, for the tree.

My breath loosens in a cry.

The strap loops around a spiny branch.

I dare to hope, I dare to let tears burn my eyes as the river rushes me to pass the tree.

The other strap still fisted in my gloved hand, all I can do now is pray with my entire soul that the branch doesn’t snap the moment the river’s thrust yanks my weight against it.

My eyes shut on the tears, my prayer coming from damp, blueish lips, “Gaia…”

Agony jolts through my arm.

Like a lightning bolt thrown from the gods themselves, my arm screams with me—but my cry suddenly jerks into a grunt.

My body jolts. Then… stops.

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