The Golden Key (Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

were no longer attached to his body, and a horrid wave of
pain drove through the shield he was building with the mantra. The agony in his
shoulder drenched his mind just as the ice-cold water drenched his face. He
gasped and sputtered as he tried to lever himself back up onto the shelf, but all
he managed to do was get his left arm beneath his head. It was barely enough to
keep his nose above the shallow waterline.
    He tried to reassert control over his body with the mantra, tried
to push aside the pain, but it took a long time for it to have any effect. A
part of him was clinically pleased by the pain; it meant the arm was still
there, could still feel pain, and that meant he would be able to cast
spells again after it healed. If it healed. If he got out of the
ice before he starved to death.
    He focused on the mantra and on his breathing, and as the
pain gradually ebbed to a tolerable level, he thought about his situation.
Despite his injuries, he would have to find a way out of the ice if he hoped to
survive. His right arm was useless. His left arm was fine. His left foot was
numb and his right leg was sore. His chest was not crushed, even though
it still felt like it was. He had no food. He had no magic—yet. That brief
glimpse of the magic in the distance had been promising, and if he could bring
it closer, he might have a chance. But his backpack was strapped to Gretchen,
and the spells he had primed for were missing. Or were they? Would he find the
priming intact if— when —he regained his sense of magic? Or would he have
to prime for them all over again—if he could still prime them at all?
    No sense dwelling on what he didn’t have; he needed to focus
on what he did have. The wand. It only had four or five spells left in
it, but he could use them to make a tunnel through the ice if he needed to. He
had dropped it on the shelf when he fell off of it, and he would have to remember
to retrieve it before he climbed out of the ice. If he could climb out
of the ice. What good was his left foot? It was completely numb, and without
sensation, he wouldn’t be able to feel for gaps in the ice. And his hands would
warm the ice to a slick sheet in moments.
    First things first , he thought as he opened his eyes
and looked at the murky pool of water beneath him. He needed water to survive.
He bent forward and drank deeply from the fresh, ice-cold water. At least he
had that much. But what to do about his right arm? He couldn’t have it flopping
around uselessly; it would get in the way and bump into things. Even when he
shifted it only slightly, the sudden jolt of pain was almost unbearable, and
the mantra was struggling to compensate for that pain.
    He rested for a long time, but when the water began to
trickle into his nostril, he lifted his head and opened his eyes again. The
pool was deeper than it had been. Before, it had not covered his arm, and his
head was at least an inch and a half above its surface. Now, his arm was
completely covered, and water was seeping into his nose and ear. He shifted his
left arm and found a neat little indentation had formed beneath it. The water
hadn’t risen that much; the ice beneath him had melted while he had lain there—and
it was still melting. How long had he rested? A few minutes? An hour? There was
no way for him to tell, but he did know one thing: he couldn’t stay there much
longer.
    He turned to his right. The rock shelf was only about six
inches above him, but in his present condition, it was more than a minor
obstacle. His right hand was still on the shelf, twisted around the wrong way,
and there was no way he could use it to help him get up to the shelf. But his
legs worked, and he slowly brought his knees up under him. He winced as his
back muscles stretched painfully across the wound the jagged rock had left
behind. It started to bleed, and the warm liquid trickled down his tilted spine
to the base of his neck. He gritted his teeth and used his left arm to lift