Page 159 of Keldori By Daybreak

She let go of the rotsbane’s noose, and it charged.

The rotsbane might have looked real, but when I flung my flail at its face, it reared backwards instead of absorbing the magick like a true rotsbane would have.

And then I ran.

The sponge-like dirt made it difficult, but the rotsbane must’ve been struggling too, because while I braced for its claws digging into my back, they never came.

“Ciarán!” I screamed at the spores. I needed to find him. I needed to get us out.

A body slammed into mine, and we fell in a tangled mess. I landed on bottom and ogled up at Orla. She stared back through cracked goggles. Barnacles clung to her face, and the arm of a sea star peeked from beneath the collar of her tunic.

“We always win. Ergoth always feeds.” Seawater spilled from Orla’s mouth when she opened it to speak in that same oily voice as the apparition.

She was another nightmarish construct. I released a burst of blue flames, but they wicked off Orla’s armor and skin. She was made of my magick, I realized, so my magick wouldn’t affect her. I had no way to fight back.

“You will assimilate with Ergoth. You are powerful. We will feed on your nightmares for years to come.” It was Ergoth’s voice again, but it came from behind Orla.

Galahad stepped into view. His tanned skin stretched tight over the contours of his skull, and his eyes, once silver and bright, now rolled back in their sockets. His neatly braided beard ran with dried blood, and the front of his tunic showed off the ghastly hole in his chest where Ferrin had run him through.

He took me by my ankles as Orla slipped off my chest to hold me under my arms. They lifted me from the ground, and I screamed and twisted in their grips, but they were unnaturally strong.

“Let go!” Blue fire swathed my arms and legs, but neither construct seemed to notice.

Panic and magick swelled, and I screamed in rage and fear, releasing more blue fire that dissipated into nothing.

“Do not worry, Magician.” More water spilled from Orla’s mouth as she spoke. “You will be with your friend. You may rot together.”

My magick surged, and while the nightmares remained unbothered by its flames, a quiet groaning filled the oppressive quiet of the forest.

It grew into a rumble, then a roar, and the earth jolted to the side. Galahad and Orla collapsed, and I managed to rip myself free of their grips as the earth continued to shake.

I pulled Ciarán’s scythe, the corporeal one he’d made into metal the morning before, from my belt and tried not to look as I sliced Orla from her shoulder to her opposite hip.

She was easier to slice through than I imagined a real human would be, and her flesh was more like that of a mushroom’s insides than a person’s. Tendrils of white mycelium broke through the dirt to wrap her remains in roots.

“You can resist,” Galahad growled in Ergoth’s voice, “but you will assimilate.”

He lunged at me, but a dark figure darted from the shadows to cut him down with a two-handed scythe that glowed orange against the blue of the spores.

Galahad’s remains joined Orla’s in the dirt, and the roots twisted around him as well.

Ciarán spun to face me, relief breaking across his face.

“Wren!” His arms wrapped around me as his weapon dissipated. It was selfish, but I allowed myself a moment pressed against his chest, holding him tight.

“You’re okay. I thought—I thought—you were screaming and—” My voice quaked with relief and panic alike.

“I’m fine. You know I’m strong, Blue.” His casual ego, even if it was only a front, quelled my fear just a little bit, and I felt my heartbeat calm against his chest.

“Strong isn’t necessarily good. You said it yourself. The stronger we are, the stronger the nightmares are. That’s why no one ever leaves the strath.”

He wrested himself out of my grip to take me by the shoulders. “Then tonight we become the first. You were the first Magician to open the Rift. You can do this too.”

I took his hand in mine, and we raced towards what was hopefully the exit. I glared into the mist as we ran. It was only a matter of time before the next hallucination appeared. “What happened to Una?”

“Not sure,” Ciarán admitted. “Hopefully she got out. She’s not a Magician, so she can’t make nightmares and will be safer the farther she is from us.”

The fungal towers thinned, turning sparse and spindly, and for a brief moment, I thought we’d done it. We’d made it through. We’d leave Ergoth behind, and find our friends, and save Gams and both of the worlds with her.