Page 86 of Keldori By Daybreak

But I had a job to do and a rat to drown.

I focused on the moss growing out of a crack in the canyon wall. There couldn’t be that many places that looked like this, and Ferrin was familiar with the Keep of Realta Fiel. He would know its surroundings. He had to.

“Whatever it is you need from me, make it quick,” I said. “I’d like to go back to ignoring you.”

“I only wish to offer you one last chance,” he sighed in my head.

“One last chance to what?”

“Deliver my niece back to me unharmed and tell me what your little troupe of misfit warriors is up to. I’ve worked a long time towards this, and while I’m sure you'll be unsuccessful in whatever it is you’re attempting, I’d like to avoid even minor inconveniences.”

“Orla wants nothing to do with you.” I tried to make my laugh sound as cruel as his, but my legs shook at having Ferrin in my mind. “And I’d never tell you anything.”

“I figured as much.” A face materialized in the steam ahead of me, and glowing blue spores glinted off Ferrin’s wide grin.

I staggered backwards, and Ciarán pressed against my shoulders to keep me upright.

Ferrin wasn’t really there. A spore wafted straight through his head and came out the other side, but the illusion looked so real that I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from shouting for Iseult and Tiernan to release the reservoir and drown us all.

“Don’t worry,” Ferrin assured me, steam disappearing into his chest. “Even if you won’t talk, there’s been something I’ve been dying to try. Unfortunately, I do think that means this is your final farewell. But first, let’s get rid of the eavesdropper.”

Electricity buzzed in my ears as the magick between Ciarán and me splintered and frayed. He grabbed at my shoulders, so he must’ve felt it too.

Then something snapped, like a boat untethering from its mooring before reeling away on the tide, and that ever-lurking presence in the back of my head snuffed out.

Ciarán was no longer in my mind.

“Wren?” Ciarán spun me around to face him, his orange eyes alight with panic. “Wren, get out! Cut him off!”

“I figured the Grimguard was nearby.” Ferrin’s apparition appeared behind Ciarán’s shoulder. “I’d hoped he might be. He’s going to enjoy this next part. Farewell, Just-Wren. Try not to fight it, alright? It’ll all be over soon.”

Skal, nauseating and overpowering, flooded my system. I doubled over in Ciarán’s arms as muscles contracted against my will, and the taste of metal washed over my tongue.

“No—” I gasped, unable to stem the flood of Skalmagick from Ferrin. But even as Skal overwhelmed, a dark, familiar hunger roared in my gut.

The magick wasn’t enough. It never was. I needed more.

And Ferrin had more. I could feel it on the other end of our connection. He was waiting for me to take it.

“Try to be quick with Orla, though I’m not sure how much control you’ll have over the matter,” Ferrin called. “Still. I do love my niece, and I hope she doesn’t suffer.”

I couldn’t be changing into a rotsbane. It was impossible. I wasn’t a Nightmare. Not right now, anyway. This was my real body. My real form.

But the more magick that poured from Ferrin to me, the more I felt my body shifting. Transforming. Devolving into something driven by primal hunger and insatiable pain.

“Ciarán!” I screamed through gritted teeth. Magick surged through every blood vessel, every neuron, every fiber of my being. It was too much and not enough all at the same time. “Ciarán, make it stop!”

He was yelling at me, but a ghastly roaring in my ears drowned out his voice. I tried to find him in my head, but only found Ferrin.

“I told you not to fight it,” he snarled.

I remembered the way his Nightmares in the Second Sentinel had burst out of their own skin as they’d morphed into rotsbane. I didn’t want to look like that. They’d been asleep, not lucid, and they’d had no choice but to let Ferrin strip them of everything they were until they burst.

I was at least awake enough to fight it.

Part of me, the stronger part, didn’t want to. The Skal turned my insides warm with power, and I knew if I took more, it would keep me whole. If I took more, I would feel better.

It was a feeling I was familiar with, not just because I’d almost turned into a rotsbane once before, but because it was a feeling that I grappled with every day when I ripped hair from my head and face, thinking it might somehow make all the other feelings go away.