Page 47 of Cursed Shadows 4

On the other side of this tree.

The trunk is thick, it is lush, boulders mound and curve all around it. I am protected by it. Shielded from whatever battle clashes on the other side.

But that might not be enough.

I lift my boot.

My movements are slow as I twist my leg around the side of the tree trunk, then flatten my boot on a patch of dirt. I lean my weight on it, slowly, my teeth gritted as though that’ll somehow help me keep quiet.

I slip around the tree, my shoulder so close to the bark that just one filling breath will close the distance and the tree will scrape along my sweater.

I peer around the thick brown trunk.

My throat tightens.

I should have been prepared for this. Better prepared for the… violence.

Dare taught me to hunt, to fish, to cook, to escape—he taught me a lot, but not to prepare for the grisly sight of the dead.

I am not a fae familiar with death. I saw no battles in my youth, I face no debt to the defence of the light lands. I am sheltered, a darling, raised to brandish brushes of lip paint, not swords.

I am ill-prepared for the grim sight in the clearing ahead. The portal spat out warriors here. Like where I fell, more landed nearby, some in clusters. Condensed areas.

This was one of them.

The clearing, if one can call it that, is a kill site of more than warriors. It’s cracked trees, bent and crooked, exploded by lightning strikes, and the bodies littered around the tree cemetery aren’t all that different.

A dokkalf landed in his own death. Impaled by the torn trunk of a split tree.

At least three others fell here.

Two more dokkalves—and one litalf.

But I don’t see the battle that I can hear ringing in the air. Metals colliding, grunts and the heavy thudding of punches.

That fight is close.

So close that I keep my breath bated and my steps soft as I inch closer to the dead.

Bent at the knees, I keep a low crouch as I sneak towards the clearing. My gaze sweeps the area, sweeps the bodies. A throat torn out, a limb shredded, as though it’s exploded into fleshy ribbons.

An acidic burn trickles up my throat.

I swallow it back and steel myself.

I’m not viewing the violence, the brutality for nothing. I search the faces for anyone I might know—and the breath that escapes me is curt, a soft relief, when I come up short.

I only recognise the litalf as someone I have seen around the High Court from time to time, and the vaguely familiar face of the impaled dokkalf as a face I saw around the barracks of Comlar. But no one Iknow.

Before the relief can slump my shoulders and relax the grimace of my face, a guttural cry disturbs the air.

I drop.

I fall to the forest floor, right behind the split tree. Above me, the gaping face of the impaled dokkalf drips blood.

A grimace steals me as I slide out of the way, but not before an inky droplet lands on my muddy shoulder.

Can’t worry about that now.

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