He remembers falling, his body twisting in the air, unable to make his wings beat, to fly up and up, instead nothing but down and down and down into the water, his rider locked in death with him, and both of them twisted up with the others, the killers, the ones his rider said they must end.

They have ended them, but they have ended, too, but he does not remember the impact; he only knows that he is awake, and his rider is here, whispering to him, his hands on his neck, and it is wrong, wrong, he has not been in the pit for long enough for his rider to grow and to have eggs of his own that grew into riders.

“We are leaving, Caraxes,” his rider is whispering to him, and does not seem to know that it is wrong, that they are ended, and he wonders if maybe, maybe, maybe he can save his rider from ending, instead of failing again.