The first sensation Serina felt was weightlessness.
Her body plummeted, hair whipping around her face as the wind roared past her ears.
The world spun—sky, trees, shadows of jagged stone—and for an instant she thought the teleport had gone wrong, that Lerai's invention had ripped her free of the mortal plane entirely.
Panic seized her chest as the ground surged closer, a blur of black and green rushing up like the jaws of a beast.
Then—warmth.
A hand caught her.
Arms steadied her fall as though gravity itself had been denied. She blinked through the shock, heart hammering, and found herself cradled against Aric's chest.
Her sigh came out half-relief, half-exasperation.
"Lerai didn't warn me about that part."
Aric's mouth tugged into a thin, dry smile.
"Yeah. He didn't warn me either. Difference is—" his eyes glinted with quiet amusement, "—I had no one to catch me."
Despite herself, Serina smiled.
