Page 41 of Keldori By Daybreak

Tiernan stopped on the stairs and pulled away to gawk at me. Tears filled his bloodshot eyes, and his knuckles paled where he gripped the obsidian railing.

“But Orla’s dead,” he rasped.

“Oh. Tiernan, no.” My heart dropped at the realization that he’d spent the last several weeks believing his friends were gone. “Orla’s alive.”

“But the Frozen God is free.” He shook his head. “The Rift is open, so Orla must be dead.”

“If she’s dead, then her corpse is doing a very good impression of a living body.”

“And Fana?” His lips trembled over the words, as if afraid to ask them.

“She’s waiting for us at the lake below the mountain.”

Tiernan’s knees buckled again, and I caught him before he could collapse on the stone steps.

“She’s not… I thought…” His body shook with relieved sobs.

“You need to keep moving. If someone sees us up here, or if that guard wakes up and calls for help—”

Tiernan’s fingernails dug into my shoulder as he used me to heave himself back up to his feet. A pair of orange eyes glowed at us from the dark of the next floor, watching our descent. When we reached the bottom step, Orla flung herself out of her hiding spot and rushed to Tiernan’s other side.

“By the Three Magicians, you look terrible.” She choked on a watery laugh.

“Orla,” he breathed. “You’re alive… I thought… I promise I tried to stop him.”

“It’s okay,” she insisted. “I’m glad you’re alive too.”

Ciarán’s form took shape as we approached the shadows, giving a body to his glowing eyes. Tiernan tried to draw away, but I tightened my grip on him.

“Ciarán won’t hurt you. He’s not the one who had you in a jail cell,” I reminded him. “Ciarán, this is Tiernan. Tiernan, Ciarán.”

“You blew me up.” Ciarán tried to push off the wall to stand taller, but lifted a hand to the stone to steady himself.

“You were trying to kill us,” Tiernan replied.

“I wasn’t.” Ciarán narrowed his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter who blew up who. We’re all on the same side now, and that side needs to find Iseult quick. As soon as that guard upstairs wakes up, we’re finished.” I tried to look at Orla around Tiernan’s chest. “Any new ideas where she might be?”

Orla bit her lip. “Not really, but I know someone who might be able to help. Come on.” She nodded us in the direction of the main stairway. “No use sticking to hidden stairwells and back corridors anymore if we need to be fast.”

Orla took the bulk of Tiernan’s weight, helping him hobble forward, so I fell into step with Ciarán where he trailed behind.

“Feeling okay?” I asked.

“I want off this damn mountain,” he hissed.

“Then go. We can handle this.” I meant the words, but a thrill of irritation that wasn’t my own nagged at the back of my head. I rubbed my hair, as if I might feel Ciarán’s emotions tangled in the strands.

I knew he could feel my feelings through our connection, but this was the first time I’d felt his.

“I’m fine,” he said. “But maybe no more transformations if you can help it.”

“Drink some Skal. If we run into trouble, transformations are sort of my thing.”

Ciarán ran his fingers over the bottles at his hip. He’d already drained one of them, probably to bring me here, and he glanced wistfully at the Skalspring at the bottom of the city.

Faint blue light emanated from the pool, accentuating the edges of the city’s black stone as it reached upwards. Carefully carved railings, stairs, and arches intermixed with natural rock formations so that the city was a masterfully crafted mosaic of man-made edges and lava-formed ridges.