Page 40 of Fire in Stone

I’ve got you.

I’d been let down by these words before. Badly. But my eyes closed as if on their own, and I surrendered to sleep.

Here, in the vastness of the sky, I had no choice but to trust Elex.

Ten

AMBER

Aslight jolt woke me up. I waved my arms, trying to grip the air. Panic speared through me.

I was falling!

“Shhh,” a soothing voice hushed. “You’re safe. I’ve got you, Amber. I’m not letting you go.”

Elex’s arms were around me, his embrace as strong as ever as he touched the ground with his feet. I dug my fingers into his shoulders, catching my breath.

“What happened?”

“We’re here.”

I glanced around. A white, foamy surf ferociously beat against a rocky shore with a crashing sound. The red, bloated sun hung low over the horizon. The air was rich with salt and moisture.

“Where ishere, exactly?” I rubbed my eyes, my body refusing to jump to alertness after the deep sleep. I wished we could just keep flying. But sunset was obviously close.

“This is a small island, north-west of those large islands you called the British Isles.”

Well, that was as good an explanation as I could hope to get from him. Elex might have great navigational skills, as he claimed, but he wasn’t a GPS to give me all the proper names and coordinates.

“Thanks for getting us here. Sorry I passed out.” I dropped my feet to the ground, letting go of him.

“You slept well.” It wasn’t a question. “You snored so loudly, I could hardly hear my own thoughts.”

“I don’t snore!” I gave him a light shove.

“Oh yes, you do. With some cute snorting sounds, too. I both heard and felt it, right here.” With a teasing smile, he rubbed the spot between his neck and his shoulder where my head had been during our flight. It’d been a good, deep sleep. I must’ve drooled and slobbered all over him, too.

“Well,” I rubbed my upper arm awkwardly. “It must be the sleeping position—all curled up and pressed against you like that…”

“I didn’t mind at all. I felt bad waking you up, but the sun is too low already.” He tipped his chin at the horizon.

I followed his gesture with my eyes. “It is, isn’t it?”

“I saw some structures that way from the air.” He headed up the shore. “We’ll stay in one of them for the night.”

I hurried after him. “What makes you think people who live there would let us in?”

He turned around, waiting for me to catch up, then took the backpack off my back and slung it over his shoulder.

“I’ll convince them.”

* * *

“Who are you?” The woman in front of the first house we’d come upon squinted at us suspiciously.

“We’re…um, just passing by.” I gave her the brightest smile I could manage with my teeth clattering from the biting wind.

It’d been so much more comfortable flying all day in Elex’s arms, hundreds or thousands of feet in the air. Here on the ground, with his body no longer keeping me warm, the coastal winds proved brutal.

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