Elara made it halfway down the slope before her legs began to shake so badly she had to stop.
The cave's warmth had followed her for only a few steps. Now the wind worked through the wet fabric of her swimsuit, drawing heat from her body faster than she could replace it. She wrapped her arms around herself and kept moving.
When she reached the beach, Kael was crouched near the fire, arguing with two men over a place on its sheltered side.
He looked up at her arrival. “Where have you been?”
“Looking for a better option.”
His eyes moved over her face, taking in the soot, the cracked lips, the way she was struggling to keep her hands steady. “Did you find one?”
Elara didn't answer.
Kael understood enough. His mouth tightened, but he didn't ask another question. He shifted aside to make room for her near the fire.
The heat reached her knees. For a few moments, she was almost able to ignore the smoke.
Then the wind changed.
A thick ribbon of it rolled low across the beach, stinging her eyes and catching in her throat. Several people began coughing at once. Someone stumbled away from the flames, bent double and retching.
“Move the wet wood!” Chen Jian shouted from the other side of the fire. “Don't pile it on top. It's smothering the flame.”
“Then find us something dry,” Kael snapped.
Chen looked at the blackened heap around them. The useful driftwood had already been burned, and most of what remained had spent hours soaking in seawater. “That's what I've been trying to do.”
No one had an answer.
The fire had saved them from the first hours of cold, but it was turning into another danger. Whenever the flames died down, the wet material smoldered and filled the air with choking smoke. When the wind blew hard, the smoke dispersed, but the fire gave off little warmth. When the wind eased, the heat improved and the air became harder to breathe.
The survivors had no shelter to retreat to. They had only the beach, the rocks, and one another.
As the hours passed, the arguments faded. People became too tired to keep fighting for every inch beside the flame. They huddled together with their backs turned to the wind, heads bowed, trying to conserve what little energy remained.
Kael kept close to the fire. He had spent much of the night pushing others out of the best spots, and now he pulled an older man from Finance behind him to block the wind. “Just for a while,” Kael muttered when the man protested.
The older man said nothing. His wet clothes clung to his body. His teeth had stopped chattering, which should have been a relief, but his eyes had begun to lose focus.
After a while, he started tugging at his jacket. “It's too hot,” he mumbled.
Kael looked around, confused. The air was cold enough to make his own hands ache. “Sit down. You're freezing.”
“No. No, I need to get this off.”
The man fought with the sleeves, clumsy and impatient. Kael grabbed his wrists. “Stop that!”
For a few seconds, the man seemed to recognize him. Then his gaze slid away again. He pushed at Kael's hands and staggered toward the rocks, still trying to pull off his clothes.
Someone shouted for Chen.
By the time Chen reached him, the man had fallen onto the sand. His skin was cold, his breathing shallow. Chen knelt beside him, calling his name, but the man's eyes no longer followed the sound.
The group watched in stunned silence as Chen tried to keep him still and warm. “Get his wet clothes covered,” Chen ordered. “Don't leave him lying on the sand. Someone bring dry fabric—anything.”
No one moved quickly enough.
The man's breathing stopped before Chen could do more.
Kael backed away, staring at the body. A moment earlier, the man had been alive beside him. Kael had used him as a windbreak, then let him wander off when he began to act strangely. “I didn't know,” he said.
No one accused him aloud. That was worse.
The night dragged on. One of the younger employees fell near the rocks and struck his head. A woman from the public-relations team grew confused and weak, then stopped responding. Two more people never managed to rise again.
By the time the first grey light spread over the sea, five people were dead.
In the cave above the beach, Kai had kept the fire small and steady. He hadn't slept much. Every so often he checked the entrance, listening for movement below and watching the flames for signs that the wind was shifting.
Sora had finally settled near the back wall, wrapped in a dry section of fabric. She slept lightly, waking whenever the fire cracked. Lila had remained close to the warmth, quieter than before. Whatever she thought of Kai's choices, she had learned not to mistake shelter for certainty.
At dawn, Elara stood up from the rocks and looked toward the horizon.
She expected to hear an engine. Even a distant rotor would have been enough.
There was nothing.
No aircraft crossed the pale sky. No ship moved along the horizon. The sea carried pieces of the Aetheris Dawn's wreckage back and forth, but no one came to claim the survivors.
Elara turned slowly, searching the empty sky as if the helicopter might be hiding behind the clouds. “Where are they?” she whispered.
Then the first scream rose from the other side of the beach. “Help! Somebody help!”
A man had found the older employee's body. Others ran toward the rocks, calling out names, stumbling over driftwood and each other. The woman from PR lay curled near the remains of the fire. The young salesman was sprawled at the foot of a boulder, blood dark against the sand.
Five bodies. Five people who had been alive the night before.
Elara's mouth went dry.
Behind her, Kael kept staring at the ground. He looked less like a man in charge than someone trying to remember exactly what he had done, and which witnesses were still alive to tell the story.
The sky was clear. The sea was calm enough to show the wreckage.
And no one was coming.