Page 42 of Cursed Shadows 4

I scoff.

Everyone probably saw that.

I forget, even if only for some moments, that the whole of fucking Comlar can see me. Those damn portals-turned-windows. Pools of ink betraying me and my shame.

It won’t be like the caves in the first passage, hidden from view. The second passage reveals more than the contenders on the mountain, but perhaps the depravity of our souls, too.

Every spectator on the stands will be watching the contenders fight for their lives—and for the deaths of others.

Father is among them.

He will have watched me. He will have seen the litalf male chase me to the river, and how I evaded him, and how I survived the water, and even took the opportunity of my survival to fish, then got myself out of the dangerous current—and still, even then, I don’t think he would beproud.

Relieved, yes.

Relieved, because the longer I survive, the more I survive, the better the chance I return home. To him. To his ownership.

And then he can sell me off.

But that isn’t going to happen.

Because I am proud.

And it shows on the watery smile hidden beneath the mud caking my face.

I flop onto my back and, blinking up at the muted sky that is closer to white now, I let the mud soak into my sweater.

The sun is tucked behind the thick clouds masking the skies, the clouds that haven’t moved since I first landed, and that was maybe two or three hours ago.

Two hours of sunlight.

That’s what Dare told me.

I wasn’t exactly keeping track of time while I fought the river and the rapids and the drops. So I am not certain on how long the daylight has been above me, not certain on how much longer I have left until the skies are grey again, and the threat against me expands to the dokkalves who will come out of hiding.

I stop wasting time.

No matter how achingly my body begs for more rest, I must move. There’s too much to do.

Forcing myself onto my front, I push up with a strain.

My shoulders sag as I huff a tired breath and face the forest.

The fleeting thought to wash myself in the edge of the water passes my mind, but of course I would rather the mud stays caked all over me to mask my scent.

I shove my body weight onto my left leg and start the hike through the tallgrass for the forest line. Once my boots tread on foliage, on drier earth, and I’m sheltered by lush green and rusty brown, no longer slowed down by mud, I break out into a run.

If I can find some dried wood, fallen branches not too cold, then I can maybe start to gut and cook these fish, like Dare taught me, or dry my clothes, or warm my prickled flesh and soothe my shuddering lips.

Now that I think on it, the cold feels wetter than it did when I was on the dead tree, and the hunger eats away at my gut like churning acid.

I should have eaten breakfast.

Amateur mistake.

12

DAXEEL

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