Cool earth pressed against her cheek. Dried tears clotted her eyes and left salt clinging to her lashes. Kigal blinked one eye open, then the other.
Ignoring her throbbing head, ignoring the sticky heat near her temple, she shot up. Her breath caught in her throat. She could still feel. Could still think. Movement filled her limbs and hunger ached in her stomach. She was alive? A great blackness surrounded her, though from some corner of the world shined just enough light to let her see the rocky slope beneath her.
Surely this couldn’t be death. Had she merely thought she’d jumped, only to fall unconscious on the slope? But no, Kigal remembered being battered against the rock face, remembered as she thought of her mother one last time, and then finally remembered cursing the deities for
