The Unseen Tempest (Lords of Arcadia) by John Goode, J.G. Morgan Page B

calmly, putting the bow back over his shoulder. It vanished from view when he took his hand off it. “What did you expect from a sorcellerie ?” He bounded across the clearing, not checking to see if the dark elf was following or not.
    Ater sent his weapons away and raced after the elf, keeping his mouth shut despite his anger.
    Sorcelleries were elven archers who used their bows as a mystical conduit for spells. Their runes were literally carved on the surface of the weapon, limiting how many different spells they could cast, but making them devastating fighters.
    They made good time away from Evermore, neither one saying a word to the other as they traveled farther and farther away from the elven homelands. Once it was clear they weren’t being pursued, the pair slowed their pace, looking for somewhere hidden to camp for the night.
    It took them little time to find a small cave that had been recently abandoned by a family of bears. Kor made a quick sweep of the enclosure to make sure it was empty, and Ater covered the entrance with shrubbery so it wouldn’t be noticeable from outside. Once he was sure they were concealed, he turned around to ask Kor what their next move was.
    He found himself face-to-face with a drawn arrow that was glowing blue. “What?” he asked, shocked by Kor’s move.
    Kor whispered the word “ Vérité ” and let the arrow fly at the dark elf’s head.
     
     
    I HATE falling.
    Yeah, yeah, you’re sitting there going, “Well, duh, Kane, who likes falling?” To that I would answer a couple of things. One, a lot of people, because if people didn’t like it there wouldn’t be roller coasters or bungee jumpers or parachutes and all that stupid crap. I mean it; if you willingly jump out of something just to feel yourself falling, you’re stupid, and we will never be friends. Two, I would say to you, give me a freaking break because my boyfriend just pushed me into an endless hole. And though I’m sure there’s some magical thing that will stop us from crashing into the ground below us, my heart is going to explode before then, so it won’t matter after that, will it? And three, I would say that if you’re picturing that idiotic fall they show in cartoons, where someone falls down this hole that’s well lit with cabinets and shelves passing by as the someone falls, you’re wrong. Because it’s pitch-black, I can see nothing around me, and the only thing I can feel is the wind pushing against my face as I scream toward terminal velocity.
    And I mean that literally. Screaming at the top of my lungs.
    So I have a new fear, by the way, which replaces falling as the most horrible sensation I could feel. My greatest fear now is falling in darkness with no way to tell how fast I’m going or how far I have to fall. It’s like Falling: The Next Generation, Falling Plus, Falling Squared—oh, how I could go on, but honestly, my mind is about to turn itself off because I’m about to die from fear.
    So yeah, I’m falling, and I hate it.
    I can feel Hawk’s mind try to calm mine down, but I got a quick snapshot of wolves chasing us, which just gives me an image of two wolves wearing skydiving outfits falling above me. They have those goggles on and the round helmets, but it does nothing to shatter the image that there are vicious wolflike killers chasing me. Then I start to wonder how a wolf would pull the ripcord on the parachute I have him wearing, and I realize that I’ve hit some kind of wall in my head, and I’m just too scared for my own good.
    There’s only so much you can take before you just give up and let whatever is going to happen, happen.
    And I’m still falling.
    Now I’m just pissed. I mean, how long can this hole be? Hawk’s thoughts seem to imply longer than I would think, since we’re falling between worlds. That kind of puts me in check, because I’m normally bad with distances. Multidimensional distances doubly so. Even though I can feel Hawk in my head, I wish I