Page 183 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

He grabbed at the silk around my neck, twisting his fingers through the strands. “Those subjects are better dealt with,” he whispered into my ear.

Then he shoved.

The seconds slowed.

My hands clasped over Emilius’s arm, grappling for a hold over the rush of air that grazed my back. He dragged my legs over the iron guard as he pushed, and it tore at the back of my calves, sharp against my heels.

Pink sunlight lanced off the glass walls, soft as the color of coral.

The sky swept below my feet. My stomach plunged into my chest. The world flipped upside down, and wind roared inside my ears as the wrought iron railing shrank away, Emilius’s eyes peering over its boundary.

I’d never known time to falter as it did then. When existence measured in mere breaths, each longer than the last. I couldn’t decide if they were a marvel or damnation.

Water sputtered in my hands.

Had I fallen with full strength, I could have called the sea below to catch me. But useless drops formed at my fingertips. The only thing to catch me would be the rocks below, joined by mist and spray of salt.

A lower balcony blew past, three women lifting their heads to watch me. One of them pointed, another screamed.

I wonder why I hadn’t screamed.

Maybe I’d forgotten how.

Maybe I’d forgotten to be scared. I was falling so slowly. Slow enough to catch the details of the world with vivid focus. The veins in the leaves, rippling just out of reach. Ivy dangling from iron ledges and over rooftops, glittering. The twigs in a bird’s nest, woven tight.

A fire sparked under the sea.

No—fire sparked in the sky. The canopy hanging over my feet, adrift with dreamy tufts of orange and peach and gold.

It grew like a wilderness, flames like rough-sewn feathers, so bright it was almost dark. It flared and burst and flared even brighter, aiming at me like an exploding star.

Long grass and heather soared into view. I braced, ready for the moment my body would crush against the stony edge of the cliff. It came and went. The thrust of Emilius’s push had sent me further than I’d thought.

But the rocks were still below, a breath away. I could feel them pulse against me like the beat of an ocean. Vibrating in my marrow.

The world seemed so dark. Or perhaps it was that the fire above was so radiant. Everything existed in black shadow, and I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the burning light.

Heat closed around me, a cradle ablaze.

Impact.

I hit the rocks, I thought. Sharp. Hard. Solid.

A jolt lanced through my spine. I couldn’t move.

My heart lunged as my trajectory changed, shooting sideways instead of down, the pointed tips of the rocks flying away from me.

Mist hissed and spat at the flames, the tide lashing over my head.

I think I was delirious. Because sea washed across my brow, extinguishing the fire enough to see sunbeams carved into the hard ridge of a chest. An arm curved around the back of my head, another around my waist and hip, pinning me in place.

“Kye,” I said, recognizing dark curls and a crescent moon scar.

I should have been dead. More than dead. Shattered.

“Hold on,” he replied, his grip tightening over me.

The surface of the sea boiled angrily as he glided over it, a spray of steam rising in his wake. Cheek fused to his collarbone, I reached through the flames that made my ocean bubble and simmer. They were soft to my touch. Cool. Like stroking the down fluff at the base of a feather.