Lucien hit the Big World like a meteor.
Soil buckled and stone fractured. A crater flowered outward and dust rose in a ring that swallowed sight for a breath.
He lay still, more annoyed than injured. He felt a heavy weight pinning his chest. For a half second, he thought the corridor had collapsed on him.
Then the weight shifted.
A body. Warm. Faintly smelling of smoke and sunlight.
Lucien's hand slid under the shoulder and he rolled the person off him. He placed her on the ground as the dust thinned.
Kaia.
Her lashes trembled, golden embers still fading along her arms.
Lucien remembered the fall. Midair, Kaia's golden flame had snapped out like a lasso, coiling around him, binding their trajectories together so they would not scatter farther apart.
Lucien exhaled once, then stood and closed his eyes.
The Concord Pact thread was still there.
He spoke into it.
[Sister. Brother. Where are you two?]
