Page 75 of Cursed Shadows 4

Put it like that, and maybe I understand that they are all out to get me. My life doesn’t compare to what is at stake.

I am not worth more than the security of the light, the lands, the folk.

I am just a silly, selfish halfling.

That is who I am.

I don’t want to die.

Not for any cause.

I won’t offer myself willingly to be sacrificed.

But… I won’t—I can’t—let Daxeel take this win. Not easily, not without a fight.

I promised him I wouldn’t make this easy. And so I won’t.

I’ve decided…

I will ask something of Mother. I will steal that wish right out from under Daxeel.

He hasn’t figured it out—or at least doesn’t realize thatIhave. I will call on our joined souls, cut from the same cloth, and I will speak to Mother just as he will attempt to.

The determination of my thoughts is mirrored in my stern expression. As though the spectators can hear my running thoughts, I nod, firm.

But it’s only a passing moment of resolve before I’m sucked out of my mind—

I flinch as something tickles my head.

Between the braids knitted to my scalp, strands of hair are disturbed by what feels like a breeze that comes from the branches above me just to tickle me… or a breath.

Again, that tickle disturbs my scalp.

I frown up at the breeze that irritates me—but no breeze meets me, only the frosty eyes of the ice-python.

I stiffen all over.

It has returned for me.

To eat me.

Fight me.

Poison me with its venom.

Like a statue perched on the sturdy bough of a frozen tree, I am unmoving as I glare up at the snake who… wholicks my fucking head.

Tasting me, smelling me, sizing me up—

My neck shrinks into my curving shoulders.

My mind scrambles and shouts with a dozen reactions I should have. Yet none of them take form, none of them reach my tensed muscles.

Before I can do something,anything, the python stops its grooming of me, then flicks its head to the side. Then again. And again. And, this time with a hiss, it repeats the gesture slowly, and it looks out beyond the branches.

My brow knits.

It’s trying to communicate with me.

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