"NO! ZARIUS!"
The scream didn't sound like Marielle. It was a raw, broken sound, like something inside her had snapped. For a second, the world was nothing but that sound and the terrifying, empty space where the carriage had been.
She didn't think. She didn't calculate. Her boots skidded on the treacherous, "rotten" lip of the ledge, her fingers clawing at the freezing air as if she could catch the tail of the wind and pull the world back.
"MARIELLE! NO!"
A pair of gauntleted arms slammed into her, the impact hollowing out her lungs. Elios tackled her back from the brink, the two of them crashing into the churning slush and jagged shale.
"Let go! Elios, let me go!" she shrieked, a wild, unrecognizable thing thrashing in his grip. She was stronger than she looked, fueled by a frantic, sorcerous adrenaline that made her fingernails dig into the steel of his pauldrons. "Zarius is down there! Cherion… they're… I have to…"
