Page 140 of Keldori By Daybreak

“I can’t summon the Nightmare of a dead person. If she were dead, you wouldn’t be here. She is alive.” He balled my real body’s bloodied tunic in his fist, still not looking at the me I currently occupied. “Now save her.”

I looked back at my body, taking in her slack jaw and vacant brow. I frowned. Maybe I’d watched too many movies, but I thought I’d look cooler after going down in a brutal fight to the death.

But no, I looked so…

Stupid.

I wished Ciarán would look away and let me die ugly in private.

Instead, he stared at my face as if trying to memorize every detail before I faded out of existence. As if looking away might make me die faster. As if he’d never seen something so perfect and beautiful in either of the two worlds.

It didn’t make sense.

A numb acceptance of the circumstances settled over me. I was dying. I was watching it happen. Some of the blood in the dirt was Kamryn’s, but I knew most of it was mine. My left lung was collapsed. I could feel damage to my other organs.

No amount of healing magick could save the girl on the floor in front of me, but there was one last thing I needed to do before it was too late.

“Ciarán,” I said gently. “I would like to say goodbye to my mom. You can summon her, can’t you?”

He shook his head. “If I do, I won’t have enough magick left for you to heal yourself.”

“I can’t. Ciarán, look at me, I—”

“In Vanderfall. I should’ve died, but I didn’t,” Ciarán croaked. “You did something to me. You need to do it again.”

“That was different! You were dying of an infection, not holes in your vital organs!”

“Then figure it out!” he begged.

“I— my body, I mean…” I stared at my pallid skin, my slack jaw, and the pool of blood I rested in. “Ciarán, even if I fixed my injuries, I don’t have enough blood.”

“Make more!”

“I don’t know how!”

“Then take mine!” He clutched at my unconscious body’s tunic as he sobbed at my side. “Take it. All of it. It’s yours.”

“I need my mom. Please. I want to see her before—” I cut off to try to calm myself with a shuddering breath. I’d died so many times as a Nightmare, but I’d always come back. This time it would be final. And Mom—

I needed to see her. For me and for her.

“I won’t waste my magick,” Ciarán said.

“It’s not a waste to let me hug my own mother one last time!”

“She’d rather I save my magick so you can heal yourself.”

“I demand it.” I choked back a sob. “Ciarán, as your Saergrim, I command you to summon my mother.”

“No.”

“You’re my Grimguard. You have to listen.”

“Then I revoke my duties and title of Grimguard,” he said through a soft, wavering laugh, still looking at my slack-jawed body.

“I don’t accept.” I fell to my knees at his side. “Now summon my mom.”

“No.”