He didn’t even make it to the end of the sentence. Another shattering blow flung his head forward. The snowy ground spiraled up in front of him, but he wasn’t aiming, he couldn’t make his arms move. He didn’t feel the crash.

CHAPTER 16

Pain had its uses, Jainan thought. It put things in perspective. There was something clean about the way it cut through the emotional tangles and reminded you that things could be worse.

He hurt quite a lot. It took him some effort to ignore it, but eventually he noticed something clammy pressing into his shoulder. He stared at the short expanse of snow in front of him—which was inexplicably sideways—and at the icy-blue sky beyond it. It took him a while to realize that the wetness pressing against his shoulder was also snow.

Once he had realized that, everything else rushed in. The flybug was a mangled wreck around him. He was still strapped to a seat that lay among a crystal pile of safety glass shards, and his security harness was a line of pain across his chest. He drew in a breath of freezing air and attempted to release the harness; he was shaking so much he couldn’t press the button. His shoulder ached fiercely.

On the second try, he managed to release the catch and tumbled the last couple of inches into the snow. The last of his breath went. He rested his forehead in the snow and reminded his lungs how to expand.

The cold wasn’t making it any easier, but it did him a favor in making the discomfort of his rapidly soaking clothes so unendurable that he had to push himself up. He was already starting to shiver. He turned and looked for Kiem.

He wasn’t there.

Jainan stared at the wreckage of the flybug’s dome and empty seat for a full three seconds before he looked farther and saw a dark form lying at the end of a track gouged in the snow. It was suddenly very hard to breathe again. His head must still be hazy, because there didn’t seem to be any time at all between spotting Kiem and kneeling down next to him, shaking so badly he had to stop with his hand an inch from Kiem’s face. Kiem’s eyes were shut. It wouldn’t help to touch him. What would help? Jainan was useless.

As if he felt the heat from Jainan’s hand, Kiem stirred. His eyes opened and he raised his head, pushing himself up on one elbow. “Ouch.”

Jainan crouched back so suddenly out of relief that he sat down in the snow, saving himself with his hands. “Kiem.”