Lissie gasped and choked on snow. She coughed. She opened her eyes. Her entire view was saturated with a deep blue glow through the ice above her. The rock wall was covered in dark blood.
Lissie moved her head to try to get some space in the pressing snow. She screamed in pain.
My arm is broken. I’ll have to show someone how to set it.
She moved slowly, wincing, to look at her arm, and saw only ice. She twisted against the crevasse.
Her right arm seemed unharmed. She pushed her body, trying to twist out. She screamed again. Lissie took a few ragged breaths, noticing the cold. Every direction was pulling the heat out of her.
She thought of fire. Her breath came easier, warmer.
Lissie closed her eyes and envisioned breathing in a golden, healing glow. She searched. She raced up and down her body, evaluating the damage. It was easier to hold still like this.
My legs are fine, but pinned.
She moved up.
My back is bruised, but not badly.
She slid up her right arm.
Unharmed.
She slid back into her body and braced herself to enter her left arm without crying out again.
Shoulder. Strained, but still in the socket. The upper arm is cut badly.
She was growing more distant from herself. It was a strange quality. Like looking in a mirror in a dream.
She moved down.
Forearm snapped like firewood.
She stopped thinking of firewood.
Flesh punctured.
She could feel the blood leaving her. She could almost feel the blood that had left. She told it to stop. Her heart jumped and slowed.
Slower.
Thump. Pause. Tha-thump.
How long is it going to take them to find me?
She glanced up at the caved-in ice above.
Can they even find me?
Her teacher’s voice in her head, Nothing left but to ride the wind, girl.
She closed her eyes for a moment. Then she reached for the candle in the pouch on her belt, careful not to turn or twist. Her free arm was creeping, trembling. She could feel the blood oozing through her fingers. She slowed it more.
Now is the time to wait, she told her heart.
Minutes passed and the candle was finally at her face. She stared at the wick. Her mind held her heart, but now she needed it to also light the flame. Crack. Another fracture of her thought broke off, and was the candle. Was the wick. Her heart jumped and began to hammer, she reined it in.
No you don’t. Wait. I’ll be back for you.
The wick. Nothing else. The rock walls faded away. The light from above grew dim, and there was no candle, there was only the wick, and the air. And pressure. She took a slow breath, thinking of the fires at the harvest festival. The bonfire behind her at the start of the Triad.
She breathed out, and the candle took her breath. The wick sparked to life.
Now the easy part.
She stared into the flame, and tried to grow.
Would more time convince you to leave your body? The voice of Mother haunted her.
If this won’t convince me to leave I don’t know what will.
She rose. The candle fell away. She outgrew her body, and was glad to be rid of the pain.
Where is the wind.
She grew and grew, the crevasse started to fall away. A shower of rock and ice fell on her body. Then she was small, screaming in pain.