Stone shifted under his left foot. It gave him the instant's warning he needed to pull his foot away. A chunk of stone tumbled from the edge, smaller fragments falling in its wake. Q'arlynd listened but couldn't hear them land. The bottom of the cavern was too far below.

Enough of this.

He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and took a step back from the edge, then another. He ran forward, flinging himself into space.

The air snatched at his piwafwi as he fell, yanking its hood back from his head. It pressed his shirt and trousers against his body and plucked at his shoulder-length white hair, turning it into a ragged streamer. He opened his eyes, feeling the wind squeeze tears from them. He flung out his arms to let air whistle through his splayed fingers. His heart hammered wildly in his chest, and it felt as though his stomach flattened against his spine. Grinning, he watched in morbid fascination as the floor of the cavern rushed up to meet him. That jumble of stone below-that was death.

Closer, closer…

Now!

Q'arlynd mentally shouted a command, activating the magic of his House insignia. His body jerked to a halt so close to the ground that his neck purse bounced off an up-thrust slab of stone. In the instant that he went from falling to levitating, his vitals felt as if they were being pulled from his body by an invisible hand. Bright sparkles of light crackled across his vision. Blackness roaring with blood nearly claimed him, but he shook it off and fought down the urge to vomit.

He floated, dizzy but exultant. A laugh burst from his lips, wild as that of the victim of a hideous mirth spell. Then he got hold of himself. It wasn't the first time he'd free-fallen from a great height. As a student at the Conservatory, he'd competed with the other novice mages to see who had the most nerve, but that had been years ago.