The pressure finally releases?—
Too much of it releases.
And then I'm falling.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The clouds swallow me whole.
For a disorienting, horrible moment there's nothing to see in any direction except the pale glowing expanse of them. Above and below and everywhere in between, it's all the same: cold and damp and white whipping around me, soaking me to the bone, drowning my screams.
I am speechless, breathless,breaking.
And I am going to die.
I'm going to break into a million pieces against the ground, unless?—
Sesca.
I feel her, even now. But she's still too far away. Still too much sky and too many dragons between us. Her urgency is twisting into anger, the helpless fury of a being powerful enough to shape worlds finding herself out of options, out of time.
I break through the cloud cover.
I close my eyes, and a memory of her words finds me:I could reach you from the other side of the stars, if only you called.
There are no stars between us. Only vast empty blue that somehow makes the distance seem even more insurmountable, with nothing bright to wish upon and no constellations to find my way by.
I still call for her.
Not with my voice. Not even with my thoughts. But with something deeper, something that woke up inside of me when I walked out of my chains this morning and hasn't quieted ever since. Some ignited, fiery part of this bond that runs deep and divine and undeniable even in the face of death.
I'm not reaching but sinking in, trusting her—trustingus—completely. I imagine myself falling into her rather than falling to the ground, and I receive a rush of all-consuming warmth in answer.
It’s followed immediately bypain.
It rips through my back. My shoulders. Tearing, blindingly hot pain, and for a moment I think the dragon that dropped me must have snatched me again—that its claws are dismembering me in mid-air, and parts of my body will soon be raining down in a horrible, scattered mess across the mountains.
But no.
I'm still falling.
Still in one piece.
Nothing has caught me, yet the pressure and agony persists, radiating out from between my shoulder blades. It feels like there's skin breaking and blood pouring out, too, though it's hard to tell how extensive the damage is while the wind and the cold continue to batter me.
My body catches on something.
I spin violently before continuing to fall, slower now but still heavy and plummeting to an inevitable ending.
I blink my eyes open.
I'm upside-down, hurtling head-first toward the ground that continues to rise up far too quickly. But something new is curved above me, and with a rush of clarity I realize?—
I didn't catch on something.
I caught myself.
With wings.
