Rhys opened his eyes.
The first thing he felt was the gentle warmth of a sun on his face. The second was the rhythmic, deep sound of water moving. The air smelt clean and salty.
He slowly sat up, his body aching with a deep, bone-weary exhaustion that went far beyond simple tiredness.
He was sitting on a vast, flat hand. The hand was made of black rock that had faint, glowing lines of starlight running through it.
High above him, the sky was a perfect, clear blue, a colour he had not seen in a long time. Below and all around him, a calm, dark ocean stretched to the horizon in every direction.
The hand he was sitting on belonged to Stony. The colossal being was walking through the ocean, its massive legs moving with slow, steady steps that did not disturb the water.
Its upper body was high above the clouds, a silent mountain moving through the sky. Rhys and his two companions were resting on one of its open palms, a platform the size of a small town square.
