KAEL'S POV
The drop swallowed every sound but the roar of rushing wind. Ice, jagged and slick, scraped past my fur in flashes of white and blue. Veylor's massive shadow was above me, his eyes two molten coals cutting through the darkness as he plummeted with me—his grin wider than before, as though gravity itself had bent to his will.
The walls of the chasm weren't smooth. Shards jutted out like teeth, some snapping beneath my weight as I tried to catch myself. My claws scraped metal-hard ice—too brittle, too sharp to hold.
A spear of frozen stalactite spun past, missing my muzzle by inches. The cold here was worse than anything above, not the clean bite of winter air, but a suffocating, ancient chill that crawled into my lungs and froze the breath before it left.
Veylor didn't fail—he guided his fall, kicking off the walls with the ease of a predator that had done this a thousand times. When the chasm widened, he twisted midair, his massive claws outstretched toward me.
