A soldier's boot crunches on the snow.
It is not distant.
It is right here.
It is right outside the pine boughs. Mere feet from our hiding place.
19
THREK
We are one, a single, fused, terrified thing. We are a creature of rock and flesh and fear, wedged into a grave of stone.
My body is a prison for her. My chest crushes her, pinning her small, warm body to the frozen rock at her back. My hand is a cage over her mouth, and I can feel her hot, panicked breaths beat against my palm. I can taste the salt of her fear. My own heart is a hammer, a frantic, painful slam against my ribs, but my body is utterly, agonizingly still.
My world is scent.
I smell the elf. It is a cold, sharp, arrogant smell, like ozone and winter. It smells like hate. It is the scent of my agony. And I smell the human soldier. He is sweat and iron and fear.
He is close.
His boot crunches on the snow, the sound a thunderclap in the suffocating silence. It is right there, just on the other side of the pine boughs, mere feet from my face.
He is going to find us.
The red haze boils in my blood. The elven magic inside me screams, a shriek of pure, suicidal rage. It demands that I kill. Itwants me to explode from this rock. It wants me to fight, to tear him apart. It wants me to die.
I see the soldier's boot through the pine boughs.
He is going to find us.
No.
A new thought, cold and clear, cuts through the rage.
If I kill him, the others will come. Larda will come. And Betty will die.
Stealth. Not rage. Stealth.
I fight the red haze. I push it down. It is a war inside my skull. I am shaking with the strain, my muscles locked and burning with the unspent fury.
The boot stops.
The soldier grunts. "Nothing here!" he shouts to the clearing. "Just a damn rockfall."
He kicks the pine boughs.
The branches whip against my face. A cold spray of snow hits my eyes. He is inches away.
He misses us.
He grunts again. "It's freezing. The beast is long gone. It's leading us on a chase."
He crunches away, his steps retreating.
The breath leaves my body in a shudder.
But we are not safe yet.
