Page 25 of Keldori By Daybreak

The rotsbane howled again, sounding like someone screaming inward with air grating over strained vocal cords. Orla shifted closer to me.

“It’ll be okay,” I insisted, though she knew I had no reason to be so certain.

“I don’t want it to hurt you.”

“I’m not a Nightmare.” I forced a breathy laugh, but my palms had turned slick with sweat. “It can’t devour my consciousness.”

“It can still rip you apart.”

“And you,” I reminded her.

“No one is getting ripped apart today.” Ciarán settled on the floor to lean against the cave opening. Jonquil abandoned Fana to curl in his lap, swishing her tail in apprehension. “Sleep. All of you. We have until sunset.”

I settled back against Liam’s backpack with my travel cloak over me like a blanket, but it was a long time before I fell asleep.

Rotsbane and their insatiable appetite for Skal were terrifying, but worse than being torn apart by one, I couldn’t shake the memory of my own body being stripped away when I’d almost given in to that same hunger.

I’d be a rotsbane, too, screaming that painful howl, if Ciarán hadn’t stopped me.

Ciarán woke us soon after nightfall, and our silent trek towards the Second Sentinel continued, taking us down precarious trails of sleet-covered rock towards the glacier field.

Jonquil watched me as we walked, her squished face peeking out from over Fana’s shoulder. She always looked angry, but something about her permanent scowl tonight felt extra pointed, like she knew all this was my fault.

Jonquil and I had never been close, but I was secretly glad Fana had grabbed her. She was Gams’s cat, after all. Gams would want her returned home.

The glacier field at the base of the Second Sentinel did seem bigger the closer we got, just as Orla had warned. The snow glowed in the silver light of Skalterra’s two moons, and the distant cliffs jutting into the night sky cut a chasm into the sea of stars that sparkled overhead.

The moonlight caught the waterfall hiding the entrance into the Second Sentinel, turning the distant cascading water into a thread of silver stuck to the side of the mountain.

Ciarán’s thoughts buzzed against my skull, like they had earlier, and they hummed louder as we neared the glacier field. The sound melded with something new, and I realized it wasn’t just Ciarán’s rushing thoughts I could hear, but the gurgling of a river.

Ciarán hastened forward, and Orla grabbed my arm to help me up a steep embankment of loose rocks.

“There’s your river, Blue.” Ciarán gestured down towards the other side of the embarkment, and satisfaction rose in my chest as we joined him and Fana.

I’d been right. There was a path beneath the glacier.

The cave ahead of us was different from the one that had imprisoned my grandmother. That ice had been pristine, ethereal, and glowing with frozen Skal. This one was rough and spotted with rocks and dirt it had picked up from the mountainside. Its massive maw stretched over a rushing river and exhaled frozen air from beneath the glacier.

Ciarán led the way down the other side of the embankment to approach the cave mouth with careful steps and an orange skalflame held aloft to better survey the icy walls.

Shades of blue leaked through the frozen ceiling to play against Ciarán’s orange light. Orla slid her goggles into place and lit her own green flames. Their combined light only stretched so far into the ice cave before being swallowed by the dark.

“Is it safe?” Fana squeezed Jonquil as she shivered in the icy air rushing out of the cave.

“Safer than being spotted by the Second Sentinel.” Ciarán’s dry laugh quaked in a way that was less than assuring.

Orla’s fire flickered awkwardly in her hands, dancing between shades of green and purple. She grimaced at the colors, shook the flames out, and tried again.

“Are you okay?” I asked in a whisper.

“It’s fine.” Her creased brow over her goggles told a different story. “My magick hasn’t been the same since the lake.”

She cast Ciarán an anxious glance. He and Sabrina had been the ones attacking us when the stress of the fight had stripped away the green of Orla’s magick and replaced it with the amethyst hues she now struggled to control.

“Oren’s magick?” I asked. Orla frowned at her father’s name. The reaction was warranted. She hadn’t known she was the man’s daughter until her magick had shifted colors.

“Yeah.” The purple in her hands flared, and I shielded my eyes from the burst of light. “Sorry. It’s just so dark in there.”