Cora MarisovnaDuring the sickening descent down the brittle cliffside, Cora allowed Stroganov and Dr. Dycek to help her over the roughest patches. Elbows of sharp black rock scraped against her unfeeling skin. Falling pebbles made clinking sounds like broken china as they shattered on the larger boulders below.
She swayed on the polymer-strand cable, poised on the brink of falling to her death. She felt out of control, at the mercy of too many things—but she had to move, not just wait for fate to play its games. Waves of nausea and cramps assailed her. The slope was dark and treacherous, and the slippery rope gave her no feeling of security. Her whistling breath came rapid, cold.
Cora was willing to do this so that she might save her baby. She felt an intense attachment to the life insid
