The moment my feet lost the ridge, the world tilted sideways and vanished into a blur of shattered stone and swirling frost. I slid across broken rocks with painful momentum, my hands scraping desperately for something solid. The debris beneath me shifted like loose sand. Snow mixed with dust filled my lungs each time I tried to breathe. Every heartbeat thundered in my ears as I slid closer toward the glowing fissure that split the mountain.
Talon’s voice tore across the chaos, raw and furious. “Kaia, hold on. I am coming.”
His words reached me through roaring wind and cracking stone. I tried to respond, but the ground collapsed again beneath my palms. My fingers slipped across freezing rock. My body jolted downward in another uncontrolled slide. The silver glow from the fissure brighten
