I slammed into the rocks below, and the world went black.
Chapter 4 
I dreamed of a tower of gray blocks, stacked beside a rushing waterfall. Too high—a child’s arm reached out and knocked the wobbling tower down.
I dreamed of a bow strung with fire. An arrow was loosed from the bow, and it caught fire as it flew, tracing a burning arc through the air. Where the arrow landed, I knew the world would burn, down to its very roots. I would burn, too, down to my very soul—but I didn’t fear fire.
I dreamed of a gray-eyed girl who solemnly held out her fist to the man who knelt before her. “Promise me, Father. Promise I will determine my fate.” She opened her hand. A ring lay there, woven of her own silken hair.
The man chucked her under the chin. “I’d promise anything for my beautiful girl,” he said. The child beamed up at him, but even in my dream I knew the man was lying. All fathers lied, one way or another.
The dream faded, leaving me alone in the dark. I tried to open my eyes. My lids were too heavy. Something had happened—there’d been wind, water, falling. There’d been pain, too, or would be once—
“You need not remember.” The words held the rhythm of wingbeats, steady and lulling. I’d never heard that voice before. “You need only sleep.”
I slept.
When I woke, I could open my eyes, but the darkness remained as thick as before. The air was cold and damp. Hard stone lay beneath my back. I tried to sit up.
Pain arced through my spine. It burned through my arms and legs and skull, my every shattered bone. I bit my lip to keep from screaming, remembering dimly that I must never cry out, however terrible my dreams. A gasp escaped my lips as I fell back to the stone.
“Not a good idea,” said a squeaky voice. “You need rest. You need healing. You need time.” I heard claws tapping stone. Something—the air around me?—lifted my head. Someone pressed a cup to my lips.
Warm, sweet liquid filled my mouth. I swallowed, and even that small movement hurt. Sweetness flowed down my throat, into my spine, along my arms and legs and skull, down to the smallest bones of my fingers and toes.
“Who are you?” My voice sounded strange and thick.
I heard a bark—or maybe a laugh. “Only a scrap of lingering lore some choose to remember. Nothing you need worry about.”
I thought about sitting up again, but moving had hurt the last time I’d tried it. I struggled to remember what had happened, but thinking took too much work. I slept once more.
In my sleep, I heard voices.
A woman’s voice: “Haley! Where are you, Haley? The fire I called burns on—in my hair, in my thoughts, in the coin you yet hold. You took that coin of your own will. Do you refuse the bargain that goes with it? For three days I have returned to this cave, hidden from my father’s view, to seek you out. Are you a coward after all?”
A boy’s voice: “You are breathing. At least you are still breathing. I do not know where we are, but—I will find a way out of this place. I promise I’ll be back.”
I tried to recall why I wanted a way out, but I saw only burning things: a bow, an arrow, a woman’s hair, cracks within the earth.
A squeaky voice: “Here. Drink this.” Sweetness filled me again.
A voice that held the beating of wings: “You need not remember. You need only sleep.”
When I woke again, the pain was gone. I sat up slowly, afraid, but nothing hurt. I began trembling, with shock or relief or maybe both. The air was still dark. I couldn’t see my own fingers, held up in front of my face. Just then, that didn’t matter. “I’m all right,” I whispered, and the trembling eased.
Small feet clicked against the stone and stopped beside me. I felt a cup pressed to my lips. The liquid within smelled sweet and alcoholic. I pushed it away.
“It would be better if you drank.” The squeaky voice again. I reached out and felt soft fur. So soft—more like a plush toy than anything real.
“I’m not thirsty.” Whatever was in the cup would make me sleep, and I didn’t want to sleep anymore. I heard movement in the dark as the furred creature left my side. Something scraped the floor.
I felt around me. I was sitting on a hard low platform, like a stone bed. The air smelled heavy with water. I swung my feet over the edge—still no pain. “Is there light?” I asked my—captor? Rescuer? Had I needed rescuing?
“I will get light.” Claws tapped rock, leaving me alone.
I squinted into the dark, but my eyes didn’t adjust. I knew I’d been able to see before—where? I couldn’t remember. My thoughts felt fuzzy and strange. I stood—the floor was stone, too—and walked forward, stretching my arms out in front of me. After a few steps I came to a rough stone wall.
My shoes squeaked as I returned to the platform. I’d been running. I remembered that much. I’d been running, and someone had been calling my name.
Haley—somehow, I pulled that name from the back of my mind. It was like pulling something out of thick, sucking mud. My name was Haley. I held on to the thought, afraid that if I let go, I would lose it.
I sank to my knees, fighting nausea. I was in more trouble than I could imagine if I had to work to remember my own name.
I rubbed my arms. They were covered in nylon—jacket sleeves. My long hair was loose, and it fell into my face. Think, Haley. Where did I live? I couldn’t remember. Family? Nothing, just sludgy darkness where my memories should have been. My teeth chattered. It was cold in this stone room.
Yellow light flared at the edges of my sight. Too bright—I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them. More light bloomed in front of me, behind me, as if by magic. The light cast faint shadows.
I blinked and stood. I was in a small stone room, maybe ten feet across, wearing jeans and a blue hooded jacket. The light came from small bowls of oil with burning wicks in them, set in shoulder-high niches in the walls. Smoke drifted from the bowls, carrying an oily animal scent. Aside from the bed and the lamps, the room was almost empty, with just an ivory-colored drinking horn filled with amber liquid, set in a wooden stand beside the bed, and some shelves and ledges in the walls, which disappeared into the darkness above me. To my left, a broad doorway led out into a dark tunnel.
A small white fox padded out of the tunnel and crossed the room to sit at my feet. An arctic fox with small ears and a long fluffy tail—not a red fox or a fennec fox or any of the other species names that tumbled into my awareness. Why could I remember twelve kinds of foxes when I couldn’t remember my family or home?
“Light,” the fox said.
Never mind what species he was—I sank abruptly down on the stone bed. “You can talk.” None of those dozen species could talk.
“So can you.” The fox scratched behind his ear with one paw. I couldn’t help it—I reached out to pet him. The fox leaned into my hand. His woolly fur really was that soft.
Was I someone who liked animals? I stared into the darkness above. My name was Haley. What else? Mother and father? Sisters or brothers? My thoughts slid away when I tried to focus them, as if they, too, were beyond the light. I clenched my other hand into a fist, released it when my nails—sharp nails—dug into my palms. “Ouch!” I jammed both hands into my pockets.