Page 210 of Keldori By Daybreak

“We’ll cover our eyes,” Orla suggested.

“Not enough,” Fana said.

I looked around the room, and my eyes landed on the kitchen.

“There’s a freezer back there, right?” I was already running for the back.

“Was that the cold room?” Iseult asked.

“Yes!”

I found the walk-in freezer in the back of the kitchen and started salvaging what food I could from its shelves. I wasn’t sure exactly how powerful Fana was, but I knew enough to know the freezer probably wasn’t going to survive.

Orla ushered Fana forward ahead of Iseult and Ciarán, and Fana’s eyes widened. She hugged herself in the cold air that spilled out of the freezer.

“Will this work?” Iseult asked.

“It keeps the cold in,” I said. “It should keep the light in too, shouldn’t it?”

“You tell us, Saergrim,” Iseult said, helping Fana to fasten a thick strip of wool around her eyes. “None of us knew what a freezer was an hour ago.”

Orla put her goggles on Fana over the woolen blindfold, and Iseult added Lyria’s helm over that.

“Can you see anything?” Orla waved a hand in front of Fana’s face.

“No,” she whimpered back.

Orla led her into the freezer. “Remember, Skal is easy to wield. Concentrate it in your hands and let it go.”

“Okay.”

Orla stepped away and closed the door behind Fana. “Whenever you’re ready!”

Silence hung over the kitchen.

“How do we know if she’s doing it?” Ciarán hissed.

“I’ll tell you when I am!” Fana snapped back from inside the freezer. “I'm trying to figure it out!”

“Imagine the light, and it’ll come,” Iseult instructed.

“Feel it in your hands!” Orla said again.

Fana’s scared whimper sounded distant from behind the freezer door. “I want Tiernan.”

Orla and Iseult glanced at each other with crestfallen looks. I leaned against the freezer door.

“Breathe, Fana,” I said. “You’ve been holding all that Skal in. Let go. It’ll do what it needs to, but you need to let it go.”

“I can’t.”

“I know you think that, but I promise you can. Just breathe.”

More silence.

And then the lights overhead flickered, and a thin strip of light bled from under the freezer door. We stepped back, and the light faded.

“Fana?” Orla prodded. “Do you feel better?”