I pressed my spine against the hard black stone and tried to remember how to breathe.
My left collarbone was a knot of pure agony. Every time my chest rose, the broken halves of the bone ground together under my skin and sent a white spike of nausea straight into my skull. I was exhausted down to the marrow. My spirit well was a dry, cracked bowl sitting at zero. I didn't have a single drop of essence left to spend.
But we were off the water.
I rolled onto my right side, keeping my left arm braced tight against my ribs, and looked down the length of the shoreline. The black cliffs of the island towered above us and disappeared into the dark of the cavern roof. The basalt shelves higher up in the Precipice had been freezing. This stone radiated a deep, unnatural heat. It felt like pressing your hand against the flank of a big, sleeping draft horse.
Protruding from the sheer rock face were the chains.
