No. Iwouldget there. Iwouldhunt at his side. I would make Marcus’ followers regret turning against us. They’d regret ever laying a finger on me.
Icy wind skirted under my braid, chilling the sweat coating the back of my neck, the mud soaking into my clothes as I reached out for the first notch in the stone. I grunted as I pulled myself up before placing my boot on a cracked rock.
A blur of shouts and cheers reached my ears, but I couldn’t seem to latch onto what they were saying, too focused on not falling. I gasped as the stone under my right hand shifted, nearly falling free of the cliffside.
Don’t look down.The taunt in the voice left my insides boiling.
“Perhaps if I fall and die, I’ll finally be rid of your annoying chatter,” I muttered, grabbing hold of another and pulling myself higher.
I cursed as the places where I could grab hold of grew more and more sparse the higher I went. My arms burned as I held myself in place, searching for another rock. As I reached for one, my fingers grasped at air, the edge just out of my reach.
“Come on,” I groaned, stretching farther. Just a little bit—
I sucked in air as my grip slipped, and my forehead smacked into the stone face before I fell back, the world flipping as my boots slipped from their perch. My heart plummeted as I did.
“Cassie!” Damien’s voice rang out over the expanse of forest.
Wind swept in, hard and fast, the familiarity of it speaking to me in a quiet language that needed no words. Invisible hands grabbed for me, but it wasn’t enough to stop the impact, and I cried out as I hit solid ground, air bursting from my lungs.
I gasped, desperate for air but none came, and for a moment, I couldn’t move, couldn’t turn my gaze from the sky above me, from the rock wall taunting me.
Icy air brushed over my skin, colder than the winter wind, and a familiar presence surrounded me.
“Cas?” Damien said, his voice full of fear as his hand rose to my face, his eyes latching onto something on my forehead.
I parted my lips to speak, but I couldn’t breathe, my gasps coming up empty.
“You’re okay. You’re all right,” he said, as if trying to reassure himself. “Slow breaths.”
I nodded, but the moment I tried to move, I winced.
“Don’t move,” he said, his hand rising to my chest before he turned to shout over the ledge. “I need a medic!”
I tried to speak, but my words came out broken, air evading me. “…Fine,” I managed on the little air I could pull into my lungs. “I’m—”
“You’re delusional.” He felt me over. “You’re not fine. Stay still.”
Another face appeared beside him, this one unfamiliar.
“Hey,” he said, his presence warm and inviting. “We haven’t met yet. My name’s Luca.”
I blinked up at him as he knelt at my side, a smile curving his lips. I’d seen too many of those confident smiles in the faces of nurses and doctors.
“Cas,” I rasped in response.
“Can you move anything?” he asked, testing my right arm, feeling it for what I assumed he thought might be broken bones.
I lifted my arm from his grasp, flexing my sore fingers, and I realized faint traces of blood were smudged across my fingertips and palm from scrapes from the rocks.
“Good, that’s good,” he said. “What hurts?”
Whatdidn’thurt? My muscles were sore, my fingers and palms stung, my knees ached, my head throbbed, and my lungs burned with each breath of winter air.
My heart pounded, each beat a painful reminder that I’d once again pushed myself too hard, and I cursed my limitations.
“My... head,” I said, finally finding the ability to breathe again. “My head hurts. Everything else doesn’t feel as bad.”
“Yeah, it looks like you hit it pretty good,” he said casually as his eyes rose to my forehead. “Sasha managed to slow your fall.”
