Page 53 of Cursed Shadows 4

I would have been an idiot to think that the dark one would just simply vanish and leave us be.

He was always going to return.

I just don’t plan on being here when he does.

My gaze lingers over the wound.

I stuff the pouch of nuts into my backpack, then wrestle the straps over my shoulders.

“How bad is it?” Forgetting all about the dead dokkalf, I stride towards Ridge. “Let me see.”

“It’s just a wound. No organs or arteries there—I’ll be alright.” The raspiness of his voice snares my attention.

With each step closer to him, I notice the beginnings of a glossy sheen sweeping his brow. A sickly pallor has taken him, in the lilac of his eyes, even the cherry blossom hue of his hair—the strands not soaked in blood—resembles the frost that dusts the other side of the river.

It takes me a moment.

But then it clicks in my mind, like fingers snapping.

Panic should stab my heart like an ice dagger. It should drop my gut to my bottom.

Instead, I find more of a caution in my gaze as I spin around and eye up the fallen dark one. It’s not the same dokkalf who stabbed into Ridge’s flesh, but I eye him as though he is that very one.

Not far from his limp hand rests a knife, short and simple, a chalky texture. The texture glistens with soaked crimson, as though it has absorbed the blood of its victims.

Black metal.

Ateralum.

Soaks up poison.

I turn on Ridge.

“Do you have the white powder?” I breathe the question with a gust of urgency and, in three running steps, close the distance between us.

I only have black powder on my person, a small phial wrapped in a cloth and buried deep in my backpack. But that is for cuts, gashes and lost organs; it is only for physical wounds, not poisons.

We need the white powder.

Ridge nods his head, a weary gesture that he manages just once before his lashes flutter shut.

“Can you walk?” I whisper the question I’m afraid to learn the answer to, because we can’t stay here—not with fresh dokkalf blood pooling on the ground behind me. A scent that will draw in a nearby contender, and if the warrior who comes to investigate is litalf, then I should consider myself dead already.

I think even if Daxeel was standing here with me, right by my side, the target would be on me. I’m no warrior, I am far weaker than the warriors in this Sacrament—so I am a hell of a lot easier to take out than Daxeel is.

Right now, I only have Ridge.

And he’s on the verge of passing out.

He slumps entirely against the tree now, and the wobble of his legs tells me how close he is to dropping to the ground.

“Wait here.” It’s all I say before I lunge for the low hanging branch. Leaves fall past me as I propel myself up the tree. The branches prove sturdier than their appearance suggests—not one snaps or cracks under my weight.

This isn’t a climb I wanted to risk. Not with my weariness, my hunger, my aches. But I have little choice now, and I climba few metres up—enough that I can make out some of my surroundings.

The river is just where I left it. That was a mild concern of mine, just how tricky the magic of this mountain would be, how far off I wandered.

The cliff drop to the river stretches on too long. It turns to frost and snow not far from here. If we walk in the direction opposite the waterfall, it will take at least five hours to reach a point of crossing the river.

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