~Kaida Orion POV~
Falling feels long when you cannot see the bottom, I remember grabbing light, grabbing air, grabbing Lupus Stone scraped my arm and my ears rang. Then wet earth hit my side and drove breath from my chest.
Silence, then water dripping, suddenly Lupus's voice, strained but steady. "Kaida, speak."
"I'm here." I coughed, my ribs hurt, but nothing sharp moved inside. "You?"
"Bruised, not broken." He found my hand in the dark and squeezed twice.
Above us, a ragged shaft of dim light marked the hole we fell through, dust and small stones still trickled down. I could hear voices faintly....Rachael shouting orders, Biat calling for rope, too high for help to reach fast.
We were below the altar, in the deep foundation, in whatever lay under the grove since before our marriage, before our parents' vows...maybe since the first one.
The howl I'd heard before the fall came again....soft now, as if behind a wall, a old female, not wild, but grieving.
