Page 50 of Keldori By Daybreak

The earthquake subsided, but rock continued to fall and crack. The rotsbane fought against the slabs of rock on top of it, desperate to unearth itself and devour me, but I skirted around its outstretched claws to run towards Ciarán.

He lay on his side, horribly still and bleeding, but if he were dead, I wouldn’t be here as a Nightmare anymore. I rolled him onto his back, and he groaned in pain.

I’d expended nearly all my magick in the earthquake, but there was a bit of Skal left in one of Ciarán’s bottles. I unhooked it from his belt, trying not to look at the bloody mess the rotsbane had made of his side.

The Skal was warm in my throat and stomach, and it stoked the quiet hunger that buzzed in my veins.

“Careful,” Ciarán murmured. “Too much magick will kill you.”

“I know.”

Magick burned in my back muscles, dissolving the clothing and armor that covered my skin there as I lifted Ciarán in my Skal-strengthened arms.

He groaned something again, but I couldn’t make out what he said through the crashing of rocks as the rotsbane freed itself. I sprinted for the lip of the shaking cliff.

The rotsbane screeched after us, but I held Ciarán’s bleeding body close and leapt from the cavern into open, mountain air as twenty feet of feathered wings erupted from my exposed back.

There was a brief moment of weightlessness, and my wings unfurled.

Then the rotsbane’s claws tore into my calf.

12. Radiobiology

The thin air howling past us ripped the scream from my throat, and I thought I might be suffocating as I spiraled downwards, still clutching Ciarán’s body.

The rotsbane hanging from my leg was too heavy. My wings couldn’t support the weight of all of us. A second pair of claws dug into my thigh, and I choked on another cry of pain.

“Drop the leg.” Ciarán’s voice was distant in my mind, and I focused on reabsorbing the Skal in my left leg and letting it turn to dust.

The rotsbane shrieked as it dropped, and we steadied in the air. A sudden updraft caught my wings, shooting us upwards and almost ripping Ciarán from my arms.

The lake spun below, and I risked drawing more Skal from Ciarán to reform my missing leg and redistribute my weight.

“Blue, I’m…” Ciarán’s voice gasped in my head, then faded before he finished the thought.

“You better stay awake, dammit.”

Wind buffeted me from the side, and my wings folded. We were falling again, faster this time, and sideways. I managed to force my wings back open, narrowly avoiding slamming into the rock face of a peak.

The lake glittered below, reflecting the brightening horizon back up at the sky. The shore along the mountainside all looked the same, and I wasn’t entirely sure where my body was with Fana, but I could get us close. Probably. Maybe.

I glided on an eddy until it dropped us, stealing the wind from beneath my wings. Another gale slammed into me from the side, but I managed to keep my wings extended this time.

“Are you still there?” I asked, but Ciarán was barely holding onto consciousness.

“Wren…”

He was using my real name. That had to be a bad sign.

I scanned the lakeshore for somewhere safe to land, but gray beach mixed with gray water, and tears, procured by cold, wind, and stress, made my vision blurry.

The water spiraled closer, and I let my wings expand, feeling air rush beneath the feathers. We were gliding, but I couldn’t control our descent.

“Hold on!” I yelled the words out loud as I held Ciarán tight and wrapped my wings inwards to shield him as I braced for the water.

It hit harder than I expected, punctuated by the sudden silencing of the wind that had been howling in my ears. Under the water, everything was muted, and the world came to a standstill amid a flurry of bubbles. My wings dissolved, floating up as glowing dust particles that wove between suspended strands of long blue hair, and for a quiet moment, I paused to look up at the orange of the rising sun filtering through the water’s surface.

The color matched the shade of Ciarán’s eyes as they fluttered open to glow softly in the water in front of me.