The windowpane rattled and screeched. Glass shattered. Frigid air and razor-sharp shards blasted into Delaney’s skin. The smell of blood clashed with tearing pain, and then Delaney shattered, too.Broken into millions of molecules, she tumbled into the dark, icy whirlwind, over the window sill, out the opening. She went blind.Falling, falling. Cold, blind and out of control.Mid-air, she landed on downy softness…those huge black wings? Her broken essence was swept upward. She soared impossibly high.Higher.Ever higher, until she lost track of time and space. A tremendous sonic boom exploded around her, inside her…And then there was nothing.* * *Delaney’s hearing returned first. Freezing wind moaned in her ears. Scraped her body. Laying flat on her back…where? Her fingertips twitched, and scraped powdery sand.Forcing heavy eyelids open, she stared up at a leaden sky. Spent cinders whipped down and stung her chilled limbs. Groaning, she struggled to sit up and look around.Her fingers dug into the powdery substance piled beneath her—not sand, but deep drifts of cold, black ash.
