Page 70 of Cursed Shadows 4

Something about the powder daze, whether its black or white, it dries the mouth and starves the belly. So it’s hard to ration myself after the daze, and I eat through all the nuts, some berries, and a full snap of honeycomb before I guzzle from the waterskin.

I want more.

More water, more nuts, more berries—but I need to save what I can. I need reserves. Don’t know when I’ll need them again.

The black powder hasn’t fully released me yet.

I’m in a haze, a mist of its own making.

I stay put. Spine slumped against the tree trunk, rope looped around my midsection, and my backside planted on the bough, I let time tick by in sluggish heartbeats.

The weight of my lashes pulls on my eyes, begins its battle to steal my vision from me.

I fix the thin rope around my middle, secure it. My legs stretch out along the thick, sturdy branches, ankles crossed, and my backpack rested on my lap.

Some time passes, whether seconds or minutes or an hour, I can’t be sure. I just know that my lashes are drooping over my vision, and the black powder firms its grip on me. It drags me down again, back to slumber.

The skies are grey, the air is silent, and a brush of steady warmth tickles my hairline.

Blinking awake, I am sagged against the bark. One boot hangs off the branch. It dangles from the safety of the tree.

Vaguely, I am aware of the rope still bound around me.

But before I can focus on it, focus my mind to my body and reach to check how secure the rope is, that strange tickling sensation disturbs me again: Right at my hairline, little hairs are prickled.

I frown on the fuzzy sensation.

Lifting my hand, I scratch at my forehead. The gloves irritate me. never a decent scratch with these things on.

Before I can think about slipping off the gloves, that tickle comes again, as though the tip of a feather or a dislodged twig disturbs my hairline.

Rubbing my head, I lift my weary gaze up, and up, all the way to the branches above—

And my throat thickens.

I don’t know what I expected. The imagined feather. The fallen twig. A leaf. A vine that dangles too low and brushes over me, just grazing me. I expected, perhaps, something that belongs to this tree.

I didn’t expect that it is the warmth of a steady breath that tickles me. I certainly didn’t expect to look up and see a creature, watching me from the branch above.

My breath stills, trapped within me.

And I am staring into the eyes of a python.

The creature holds my gaze.

It’s a sort of python I haven’t seen before. Frosty eyes that watch me with too much intensity, and—through its parted jaws—fangs, like icicles carved and sharpened, then dipped in a glassy venom.

A shuddering sound whispers from me.

The air that lingers near my mouth frosts with the warmth of my breath.

Just by the look of its clear, sharp fangs, I suspect it is more venomous than my body can survive for longer than a handful of minutes.

My toes curl in my boots.

Hands fist into the leather of the backpack, nestled on my lap, blocking my reach to my belt—to my weapons. I could reacharound the side to my hip, grab a knife from there, a dagger to slash out at the creature…

But that means to move.

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