“Like hell am I leaving you,” he said. “I’m climbing too, just in case.”
In case I slipped, and he needed to catch me. I smiled across at him. “Okay, let’s do this before it starts to rain again.”
Jasha went first, hooking the fingers of his right hand into the notch I would have picked to start, then finding the perfect boot notch. He grabbed hold of another indent with his left hand and found a boot notch for his left foot, then swung fully off the ledge.
I couldn’t help but be nervous. He was a big guy. How stable was the rock face after being roasted by lightning? But he seemed to be doing okay. Almost halfway across, he looked back.
“You see the path?” he called over the rising wind.
“I do.” I grabbed hold of the same notches and swung my body off the ledge.
“Don’t look down,” C’ael called out. The worst possible thing to say to someone dangling over a chasm with a death fall. But I’d done this before. I knew how to keep my cool. I moved along in Jasha’s steps, head turned his way so I could watch where he grabbed and where he stepped.
“I’m right behind you,” C’ael said.
We were about three-quarters of the way across when Jasha stopped, spitting words that sounded like curses.
“What is it?”
“There is no path now. No hand hold or foot hold. The rock is smooth.”
I took a breath and did the unthinkable.
I looked down.
My heart thundered at the reality of the drop.
No. Focus, Leela. You know what you’re looking for.
I found it a moment later. A ledge a few feet below Jasha and a few feet from the other side. That could work.
“Jasha, drop to the ledge below you. Then you can leap onto the rock face on the other side and climb up from there.”
He looked down, cursing once more.
“Can you do it?” C’ael called out.
“Of course I can!” Jasha proved it a moment later, letting go of the rock face and dropping onto the ledge. He landed in a crouch then stood slowly, examining the rock face ahead of him.
Now that he was on the ledge, it was clear how small it was. My chest tightened as an awful thought hit me. What if there were no nooks to grab hold of on the rock face in front of him?
Jasha shook his head and turned back to the main mountain face. He began to climb, moving across. “Wait up there!” he called out. “Just in case.”
My arms strained, leg muscles throbbing as I held on. Jasha made his way across the mountain and up, finding enough hand holds to get him safely to the other side, up and over.
The knot in my chest relaxed. We could do this.
I got to the dead zone spot that Jasha had reached.
“Careful!” both Jasha and C’ael called at the same time.
Breathe, Leela. Focus on the jump. On the ledge.
Every part of me attuned to where I needed to be.
I leaped.
The sky roared. The heavens opened, and a gust of wind punched me in the gut. My heart leapt into my mouth as the ledge hurtled past me, and comprehension dawned.
