Pain was the only thing keeping her conscious. The sharp, tearing agony in her shoulders, the burning of the fraying rope fibers against her palms, and the oppressive, baking heat of the lava river far below, waiting to claim her.
Her scream was swallowed by the vast, roaring emptiness of the cavern. She dangled, a puppet on a single, rotting string, her body a dead weight of terror. Her strength was gone. Her fingers, slick with sweat and blood, were slipping.
This was it. This was the end. A foolish, ignoble death in the dark, her quest to save Clara ending in a plume of incinerated flesh. I'm sorry, Clara, she thought, a final, silent apology. I'm so sorry.
Her grip failed.
For a fraction of a second, she was airborne, the world a blur of red light and black space.
Then, a hand.
It clamped around her wrist like a band of iron, jolting her to a stop with a force that nearly tore her arm from its socket.
