Page 22 of Keldori By Daybreak

The final remaining singing voices lurched to a halt, and the bluff fell silent. Siobhan broke from the ranks of villagers to approach her daughter.

“Think about what you’re doing,” she hissed. “In four hundred years, no Grimguard has ever abandoned their duty.”

“Then I guess I’m the first.”

“Only if Wren allows it.” Sorcha gestured to me with a sweeping gesture.

Sabrina’s face flushed, the first rays of the rising sun highlighting the freckles that stood out against the red of her cheeks. She regarded me with wide, angry eyes.

She was strong. As awful as her attitude was, she would’ve been helpful on the journey ahead. However, I couldn’t bring myself to force her to come with us. Not if she hated me.

Still, my own cheeks burned with shame and embarrassment. I’d been a Saergrim for a week, and the people who’d been so loyal to my grandmother for centuries were already seeing me for the fraud I was. Sabrina may have been the first Grimguard to quit in four hundred years, but I was the first Saergrim to make that happen.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Sure.”

Her tight lips twisted into a sneer, and she gave me an ostentatious bow that felt more like ridicule than respect.

“Thank you, my Lady. May you find your way back home and never bother us again.” She turned on her heel and stalked back towards her people. Siobhan went to meet her, but Sabrina shouldered past and disappeared into the hovel.

Wind whistled through the silence that followed, and shame rose in my gut.

I was selfish, and I was a false god. Granted, I’d done my best to make that clear, but none of them had listened. Maybe this, maybe Sabrina, would finally convince them I wasn’t who any of them believed me to be.

Odharnait’s voice rose in a quivering note, and she took the farewell song back up. The people of Darragh’s Watch joined in, and the eerie melody somehow made me feel worse.

Ciarán bowed his head to his aunt in thanks, and she brushed hair back from his face to kiss his forehead. Something about the interaction made him look more like Liam, but then he stepped away and his cold, glowing eyes met mine. He pulled his black cowl up over his nose, and the Grimguard took the place of my friend.

Sorcha surveyed me with her hands on her hips.

“Sabrina’s right, of course,” she said. “You’ll be a liability.”

The festering guilt and Sorcha’s words almost changed my mind, but Orla grabbed me around the elbow and stepped closer. At least one person here was on my side.

“I have to go home,” I said. “You know I can’t stay here.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Sorcha sighed then glanced around. “Where’s the small one gone?”

Fana poked her head around Sorcha’s cloaks, still holding her over-stuffed bag. “Here!”

Sorcha flinched away, and Fana flashed us a panicked smile. I frowned at her, wondering if the prospect of another cross-continent journey was what had her so nervous, and she looked away, her dark cheeks turning darker with blush.

“Right.” Sorcha clapped her hands together. “Not much left to say. The rest of us leave soon for the Eastern Pass, but you’re headed straight into the mountains, so say your goodbyes if you haven’t.”

“We’re ready,” Ciarán assured her, and Odharnait stepped away to join the rest of the villagers, her song melting into the collective voice of Darragh’s Watch.

Sorcha nodded.

“Then that’s that. The fate of two worlds rests on…” Sorcha trailed off and grimaced. “Well. Good luck to us all, I suppose. And if you do make it all the way to Ethel, tell her she owes me a pillow free of cat pee.”

Ciarán nodded, then turned to lead the way into the mountains with the farewell song rising at our backs to spur us towards whatever danger waited ahead.

6. Wilderness Expedition Management

When the farewell song of Darragh’s Watch faded, diluted on the mountain winds, the doubt crept in. Ciarán carried the music himself for a time, singing quietly as he led us through gulleys, up bluffs, and over landslides dislodged by the earthquake, but something about his low voice wrapped around the haunting quality of the song made me more nervous than anything.

I’d wanted this. I’d demanded this.

But every step deeper into the mountains, crunching over ice and snow, piled on more simmering panic.