Page 86 of Cursed Shadows 4

Hands pressed into my thighs, legs under me, I start to sag over myself until I’m folded in three and my forehead is rested on the jagged surface of the surviving flint rock.

That sickly singe is burning my insides.

The hunger is crawling through me, creeping and stinging, and I have no way to appease it. The fish I have in my backpack, the fish on the parchment beside me, they taunt me. I can eat neither, because there is no flame that will take to the dewy, cold foliage.

So much wasted time.

I left the tree when it was still dark, before the clouds lightened with the hidden sun. I risked nearby dokkalves just to have more time. It was an hour at the stream to catch the fish in the net, then sourcing firewood, finding the right spot to build the fire, to cook the meat, and then however long I spent uselessly striking the flint rocks.

Now, the sun has lightened the clouds above, and the dark ones will be back in their shelters, dotted all around the mountain, and when they reemerge, it will be all too easy for any one of them to snatch me up.

Slowed down by fatigue, stupefied in mind by the hunger, I will soon be a stumbling target, aimless.

In the dawning defeat, I shouldn’t think his name.

Daxeel…

I should avoid him still.

I should run the other way if I see him. If he sees me, I should throw myself into the closest river and pray for another divine act from the gods.

Yet, the call still thrums through me.

Daxeel, are you there?

Is it him that I need, or is it merely food and a rest?

Daxeel…

I am starving.

Help me.

An answer comes—

My heart slingshots.

Behind me, a twig snaps. A faint sound that, in the silence of the frozen woods, is as loud as bone breaking.

I tense all over.

The breath that shudders through me is sheets of ice.

He has found me.

He has tracked me down, followed the call of my heart.

Daxeel has come.

Slowly, I straighten up and turn my chin to my shoulder. I look over at the arch of two boulders planted firmly between the pillars of dead trees.

I expect to see him. To find cerulean eyes gleaming at me, shadowed by dark kohl lines and thick lashes.

But that is not what I see.

It isn’t Daxeel who has found me.

A pair of emeralds gleam from the dense mist.

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