Page 179 of Keldori By Daybreak

This was stupid—impossibly stupid. But if we wanted a boat, then stupid would have to do.

“Hey!” I screamed at the rotsbane, but it was too focused on trying to rip open the metal roof.

Wind pulled at its shadowy form, revealing the skeletal body hiding at the monster’s center. Its long claws dug gashes in the metal, but it still hadn’t torn through when I was just a single carriage away.

Adrenaline propelled me forward as I leapt over the final gap between carriages, and the beast finally looked up when I crashed onto the metal in front of it.

“Bottle, Wren! Bottle!” Ciarán commanded, and my nerves got the better of me.

I flung the bottle with all the strength I could muster, and the bottle arced through the air, tracing a golden curve as it sailed well beyond the reach of the rotsbane and over the lip of the train roof.

37. Ballroom Dance IV

It was an impressively terrible throw.

The jar, embarrassingly far from my intended target, burst on impact with the ground and exploded in a magnificent array of golden hues. It at least drew the rotsbane’s attention. It jerked around and scurried back a carriage-length, tracking the explosion as it faded into the distance.

“What was that?” Ciarán hissed in my head.

“I’m bad at throwing!”

“Then let me do it!”

“Fine!”

I wasn’t sure what Ciarán could do from inside his prison carriage, but a shiver ran down my spine and the near-constant buzzing at the back of my head snapped into sudden clarity as Ciarán’s every thought became known.

Two on the engine…one ahead, another approaching from behind…at least three—no, four—running alongside.

Something took control of my arms, and they worked outside of my bidding to launch another bottle. This one sailed directly towards the rotsbane with perfect aim, and the beast lunged to snap its jaws over the glass. Golden light and metal shards burst through its skull, and I slid across the roof to avoid the shrapnel as well as the second rotsbane that leapt at my back.

Metal disappeared from beneath me as I slipped over the edge of the roof, but I caught myself on a metal ridge and watched the second rotsbane soar overhead. It landed in the dirt with a wailing grunt and receded into the distance.

I clung to the side of the carriage, still unsure how I’d moved like that.

Because it hadn’t been me in control.

“Your arm strength is abysmal.” The words came out of my mouth, but I hadn’t been the one to speak them. My body kipped upwards, and my arms pulled me back onto the roof.

“What the hell is happening?!” This time, it was me who spoke.

“I’m not entirely sure,” my body replied. My fingers flexed, and I forced them back into fists. “If I had to guess, I’d say we’re both in control of your body.”

“You—” I cut off, realizing. “Ciarán, are you moving my body?”

My body moved through a quick series of fighting forms that I definitely did not know.

“Yes, Blue.” Ciarán’s words rolled off my tongue. “I am.”

His half-formed thoughts, laid bare, spoke plainly at the back of my head.

No precedent for this—definitely not proper—we were connected before, but did Ergoth—Don’t think about Ergoth. If it keeps us alive until morning, then fine—Tiernan killed the rotsbane on the engine—two more on the left side—This might actually work because—

“I’m a better warrior than you,” Ciarán said through my mouth. “Sit back. Let me take care of this, and then I’ll let you have your body back.”

“You’ll let me have my body back?” I parroted. “You are a guest in my body, and I’ll kick you if I feel like it.”

“And do you feel like it?” Ciarán purred in my voice.