Page 92 of Keldori By Daybreak

“Get upstairs now,” Ciarán growled through our link. “My Nightmares are opening the reservoir gate. If you don’t leave, you’ll be caught in the flood.”

“And what about you?” I hissed back.

“I’m making sure Ferrin stays down here to drown.”

“You’ll drown too, idiot!”

Ciarán’s free hand played with the jar of ashes at his belt and said out loud, “Run, Wren.”

“Oh, no, the Saergrim will stay right there,” Ferrin called out. “Unless she wants her father and friend turned into rotsbane, of course.”

Ciarán’s head swiveled between the two Nightmares. He’d seen my father in his last day as Liam. He would remember him.

Except Maxwell Brenton, acclaimed geophysicist, hadn’t exactly left a good impression.

“Do it,” Ciarán said.

“No!” I staggered down the steps to pull on Ciarán’s cloak.

I hated my father, and I hated Linsey, but I didn’t want either one to become a rotsbane. I didn’t want them to die.

“Then stop playing and come back to the Rift with us,” Ferrin called.

“They want you as collateral to use against your grandmother,” Ciarán murmured, a protective arm still keeping me back.

“I’m concussed, not stupid,” I snapped.

“I have to say, I’m shocked. Did you really think you’d be safe from me here of all places, Grimguard?” Ferrin taunted. “Surely you aren’t so eager to die where your parents did.”

He placed a hand over his vest, and I remembered the twisted scar Ferrin had sustained in his fight against his sister and Ciarán’s parents.

A mighty creak groaned inside the keep, and muddy water surged around my ankles, cascading down the steps around us. Neither Ciarán nor Ferrin seemed to notice. I tugged on Ciarán’s cloak, watching the water spill over my boots as more creaking echoed behind us.

“Would you like to hear how they died?” Ferrin called. “I made sure to draw it out. They were the last Grimguards. I wasn’t sure when I’d have the honor again, so I made sure it lasted.”

“Stop it.” The words quaked as Ciarán said them.

“Your mother died first,” he said. “You look like her. Not that I knew her long, but that image of her on the floor, begging for my blade to put her out of her misery? It’s stuck with me.”

“I said stop it!”

Ciarán ripped free of my grip on his cloak and flew at Ferrin. Nightmares bearing weapons of orange rose in his wake and joined him in his charge.

Ferrin grinned and held up a fist.

A spasm rocked Maxwell and Linsey, and a sudden surge of magick sparked in the air. They doubled over as their bones snapped and splintered.

“No!” I couldn’t let them turn into rotsbane. “Ferrin! Stop! I’ll go—I’ll—”

Ciarán’s staff sharpened into a javelin that struck Maxwell in the chest. My father, still human, crumbled to dust.

But Linsey—

Her shriek was poison in my stomach, turning my limbs heavy and churning what was left of my last meal. I tried to summon a weapon, any weapon, even a flail, but my brain was sludge.

An earth-shattering crack rang out, and water thundered through the keep behind us as Ciarán’s Nightmares finally opened the dam.

Ferrin shouted for his squadron to retreat to high ground, and Ciarán doubled back to barrel into me.