Eight hundred foot-pounds of falling striking force hit Tomas Reed’s scarred left arm. Then, the sound inside his wrist was like a dry pine shingle snapping under a heavy boot.
His body was jerked downward across the icy marble shelf, his chest slamming against the rough granite bed joint with a force that knocked every breath of air from his lungs. The sharp edge of the stone bit through his woolen coat, bruising his ribs. At the same time, his right hand wildly clawed for purchase on a forged iron spreading bolt he had driven into the granite an hour before.
His calloused fingers caught the square bolt head. He locked on with the desperate, gut grip of a cart driver whose wagon is sliding down an iced mountain grade.
Beneath him, dangling four hundred feet in the empty air, hung Nessa Vale.
She was spinning slowly at the end of his locked left arm, her boots kicking against empty mist, her instrument chest swinging wildly on its leather strap. Her right hand had clamped onto his wrist, her fingernails digging deep into the calfskin leather of his brace as she looked up into his eyes with total, unblinking terror.
