Page 127 of Cursed Shadows 4

If I hadn’t re-braided my hair, a single slender braid that’s wound into a bun, then he would manage a fistful of it—and that would have snapped my neck back.

That little thing saved my life.

For how long, I don’t know.

It feels very much like I’m on the precipice of death.

It feels very much like my luck has run out.

The sound that rips through me as my boots slam on flattened, cracked rock, the beginning of the crevasse, is a shout. It draws out of me with a panicked determination, then firms into a scream as my knees bend—then I lunge.

I jump for the wall of the incline.

A cliffside of death.

My bare hands smack down on a rock ledge. Just some inches of protrusion from the cliffside, it isn’t enough to stand on—but I hold on tight, my legs dangling above the straight drop down the crevasse.

A shout rips from the litalf.

It’s close, too close, and he takes the jump right after me.

But I am already on the move.

Agility.

Speed.

These are my strengths.

He has jumped right into my skill area.

Swinging my legs, I flip my body aside—and release my grip on the ledge. I fall, swung through the air, and away from the litalf’s landing spot.

His hands smack down on the same ledge I was holding onto just a heartbeat ago. But I land on the sturdy boulders metres away.

I spare him a mere panicked glance before I start to climb.

More rocks protrude from this wall, more boulders for steady footing. I manoeuvre myself around them, slowly, carefully.

I make it two boulders up before a sudden roar thunders through the mountain,the entire fucking mountain, and it rumbles like a beast, disturbed.

The rumble steals every rock and grain of dirt on this godly mountain—and it rattles with the force a fucking earthquake.

The hope is too quick to rise through me.

Is this Mother?

Is she throwing us away?

Are the iilra coming, reaching out through space and time to steal us back, because they just can’t hold on another moment?

No, it isn’t the iilra. I am not taken through a portal. I am firm on this rattling rock as the earth shudders all around me.

Debris rains down on me. Grains of dirt and ice are sprinkled all over my face, getting into my strained, squinting eyes. I clench them shut and turn my cheek, pressing it against the cold burn of the cliffside.

Earthquake…

It must be.

---