Book 1, Chapter Seven: The Ascent, Pages 173 and 174

Kynge Alisaunder stirs as he returns to consciousness. He groans, he coughs,
and he sits up. The world still spinning.

“Ugh. Wh-what happened?”

The Servant replies, “You fell, Your Majesty.”

Alexander brushes the red curls away from his face.
“But how did I…?”

He grabs the Servant by the shoulders.
“The chariot – it worked! The meat stick too! Servant! I was so high up my griffins were like Poseidon’s steeds! And the Ocean! I saw it! It was so beautiful.

And then…”

He rises. He does not want to speak about the strange voices he heard during his ascent, the ones which told him to look down.
No.
It can be explained another way.

“Maybe a wind blew. Maybe the chariot was structurally unsound.
I felt a lurch.
Then we…”

Alexander turns to finally confront
the carnage he has wrought because of his lofty ambition.
The chariot is now nothing more than a thousand fragments of metal and wood scattered around like sick offerings
to the broken bodies of the griffins
dead.