The Hidden Hybrid’s Redemption
Killian crashed down on top of me, his chain-wrapped torso pinning me to the freezing stone as he gripped the outer edge of the mountain seam to keep us from tumbling after the staircase.
The tier plummeted into the dark, the sound of the crashing pine growing fainter until it was swallowed by the howling wind of the valley floor three thousand feet below.
We lay there in the dark, pinned against the freezing basalt, our lungs burning with the sharp, resinous pine air, the only sound the heavy, rhythmic scraping of our breathing against the silence of the high peaks.
Then, the mountain spoke.