Page 23 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

In that horrible half-second of darkness between realms, I wasn’t sure who would be waiting for me when I opened my eyes. Galahad’s voice had been the one to call me across the Rift, but what if Ciarán managed to intercept my consciousness and pull me to his side?

“Welcome to the Wisting Wilds, Wren Warrender.”

Galahad’s exhausted face materialized in front of me, and Liam’s warmth sapped away from my side, replaced by the nighttime chill that rolled over the bluffs where I stood. A calm sea lay before us with wind currents sending ripples across its dark surface. It stretched on for what looked like miles before blending into a darkening mess of hills and cliffs on its opposite shore. Beyond that, jagged, rough-edged mountains cut into the night sky. Three peaks stood higher than the rest.

“Are we taking another boat?”

My relief at waking up with my usual friends instead of Ciarán was short lived. Fana was curled up between Orla and Tiernan in the shadows that sat heavy along the edge of the birch forest, and all three were haggard and dirty. I wondered if they’d had any rest since I’d last seen them.

“Boat?”

Ferrin paced in front of a crudely-drawn map in the dirt, and looked up to give me an amused smile.

“Miss Just-Wren, look again.”

I spun back towards the sea, my blue ponytail catching on the wind. The dark water continued to ripple, but the longer I stared, the more it looked like wind blowing over grass than it did an ocean breeze stirring water. It wasn’t a sea at all, but a massive field. Tall, grassy fronds bowed and bent in unison, sending streams of glowing blue pollen into the air like embers from a fire.

“The Umberdust Plains,”

I said, finally understanding.

“Like you mentioned last night.”

“Tiernan saw Titus following us just a few hours ago,”

Galahad explained, coming up next to me on the bluff.

“The grass of the plains is tall enough to make it nearly impossible to follow anyone through, but the Skal in the pollen will make it easy to track our progress from up here.”

“The wind and the migrating ramstag herds will disrupt the pollen enough to hide our path,”

Ferrin assured me.

“but we are going to split up to better our chances. We’ll reconvene on the other side, which we should reach by morning.”

“Right.”

I watched the plumes of glowing spores disappear into the star-studded sky.

“And ramstags are…?”

“More afraid of you than you are of them,”

Galahad grunted.

“You’re the only Nightmare I’m making tonight, so should the need arise to draw from my powers, there will be magick there for you to take. But don’t take too much again, understand?”

He poked my leather-armored chest with a gnarled finger, and I nodded.

A burst of wind sent me staggering back from the bluff’s edge, and Orla steadied me by my shoulders. Her new cloak fluttered behind her in the gale.

“I’ll miss you tonight, Just-Wren!”

she said.

“Travel fast, and I’ll see you on the other side!”

“I’m not going with you?”

I asked as Orla lowered herself over the lip of the bluff to climb down.

“You’ll be with the Sovereign and Tiernan,”

Ferrin said.

“Orla, Galahad, and I will go our own ways to confuse Tamora’s trackers as much as possible. Keep Skal use to a minimum to avoid being seen.”

I watched Tiernan from the corner of my eye, and I got the sense that he was doing the same to me as he fretted over Fana’s cloak. He added her pack to his and turned to Galahad.

“Use the Nightmare as bait,”

Tiernan said.

“I don’t need its help.”

“Fana needs extra protection,”

Galahad explained while he watched Orla climb down the cliffside. I leaned over to track her progress with him. A small plume of blue pollen floated upwards where she disappeared into the tall grasses.

I pulled backwards to watch the glowing particles drift up past our vantage point on the cliff to join the stars. A metallic click brought my gaze down to my waist where Ferrin was fastening a lead to my belt.

“This will keep you from getting separated in the plains,”

he explained, linking Fana’s belt to the other end of my lead. She was already connected to Tiernan on her other side.

“Galahad,”

Tiernan growled.

“as the only Riftkeeper to a living Sovereign—”

“You don’t outrank me, boy. The Nightmare goes with you,”

Galahad asserted.

“Now move. Remember the rendezvous and protect the Sovereign. And Wren Warrender? Control yourself. Take too much magick from me, and I’ll make sure it hurts.”

Ferrin and Galahad watched us clamber down the bluff. I took solace in the fact that as long as I was attached to Fana by the lead, Tiernan wouldn’t try to knock me off the cliffside. Unfortunately, it meant I couldn’t do the same to him, though I let myself fantasize about it as we descended.

Fana proved a skilled climber, and my Nightmare body made the task easier than I would’ve thought. Wind pressed us against the rock face, and the unpredictable gales pulled on my cloak and hair.

I wondered if Liam was back at home keeping his promise to carry me upstairs as I maneuvered down the cliff face in Skalterra. Maybe someday, if I knew he’d believe me, I would tell him about Skalterra and the tiny role he’d played in saving both realities by taking me to my bed each night.

The grasses had tall, broad stems that fanned out in tufts of fluff that reminded me of dandelions at their heads. I bumped against the tufts as I descended past the tops of the grass, and bits of fluff broke off to rise overhead, glowing blue.

Tiernan reached the ground first and helped Fana down after him. I took stock of our surroundings as I followed and quickly understood why Ferrin had linked us together with leads.

The grass wasn’t just tall, towering twice my height, but it was also dense. Tiernan craned his head back far enough for his hood to slip from his dark locks, and I followed his gaze to the two silhouettes that looked down at us from the lip of the bluff.

“Keep up, Nightmare,”

Tiernan growled.

“I’m not waiting for you if you get lost in the grass.”

“I’m pretty sure Ferrin made that impossible to happen.”

I tugged on the lead, and Fana giggled between us. Tiernan yanked on his end, and Fana stumbled after him.

A haunted, bugling cry sounded in the distance to our right, and I froze.

“What was that?” I asked.

“A ramstag?”

Tiernan looked back to glare at me.

“Don’t you have those?”

“I’m pretty sure we don’t.”

Tiernan tried to scowl at me, but a sneeze racked his body, and he sniffed loudly.

“Allergies?”

I asked, looking up at the blue spores.

“I’m fine,”

he said through a stuffy nose, and then turned to forge forward, pushing grass out of his way. Our leads and the density of the grass stalks made it difficult to move too quickly, and more than once Tiernan would bat a stalk out of his way just for it to spring back and smack Fana or me.

The poor girl stumbled between us, struggling to keep her footing on the uneven ground. A bit of pollen fluff had drifted down to stick itself in her hair, and it glowed blue in her curls. Tiernan sneezed again.

“We made it to the Umberdust Plains, I see.”

I tripped at the sound of Ciarán’s voice in my head, and Fana and Tiernan both looked back.

“Sorry,”

I mumbled.

“I told you to keep up.”

Tiernan continued the path forward, and I held back a sharp quip. It wouldn’t be fair to Fana if I picked a fight with Tiernan while she was between us.

Besides, his battle with pollen allergies kept his attention off me as we made our way through the plains. He was forced to resort to using the hem of his cloak as a tissue and couldn’t go farther than a few yards without sneezing.

Ciarán stayed quiet in my head, but I knew he was there, watching. I kept my eyes on the ground, afraid he might be able to track us better if I gave him a glimpse of the stars.

“How much farther?”

Fana asked after what felt like hours of fighting our way through stalks.

Tiernan slowed to a stop, took a few heavy breaths through his mouth, and uncorked a bottle of Skal. He swirled the liquid inside, and then sipped at it in silence.

“Tiernan?”

Fana asked.

“Are you okay?”

“Watch out, Blue.”

Ciarán’s voice seeped back into my head.

“Watch out?”

I repeated. Fana gave me a questioning look, but Tiernan pulled her attention back.

“We should be far enough away now,”

Tiernan murmured.

“Stay out of the way, Fana.”

Gold light erupted in Tiernan’s hands, and red burns split the stalks around him in a glowing arc.

“Ferrin said no Skal—”

I started, but then Tiernan turned and launched at me with his glowing sword raised.

Instinct brought a silver flail to my hand, and I swung it to wrap the chain around Tiernan’s blade and force it to the side.

“Nice block,”

Ciarán chuckled.

“What are you doing?”

I hissed at Tiernan.

“I’m lightening our load!”

He kicked me in the stomach, but when I stumbled backwards, my lead brought Fana after me. Tiernan lurched, knocked off balance by the tug on his own tether.

“Stop it!”

Fana cried, putting her hands between Tiernan and me.

“Ferrin said—”

“Ferrin got Caitria killed”

Snot oozed down Tiernan’s face, and he tried to wipe it away with his leather bracer. It smeared across his face instead, and the golden light of his blade highlighted red-rimmed eyes.

“And if this Nightmare hadn’t been so useless that night, maybe we could’ve saved her.”

He swung the blade down, and I rolled on top of Fana, turning the leather of my armor to kevlar and thickening the skin of my back into heavy scales that Tiernan couldn’t cut through.

The blunt force of the strike knocked the air from my lungs, and I spun away from Fana, arcing my flail with the movement. Tiernan leaped out of its reach, and Fana cried out as his lead pulled her after him.

“You’re hurting her!” I yelled.

Stalks of tall grass slapped across my face as I lunged at Tiernan, pushing him into the dirt. He bucked beneath me and rolled us so he came out on top. Clouds of glowing spores silhouetted his dark twists of hair against the starry sky.

“Galahad thinks I need your help, but I don’t.”

He pressed his hand against my throat. Fana clawed at his arm.

“If you yield to me, Blue, I can get you out of there,”

Ciarán purred in my head.

“Just say the word, and you’re mine.”

“Go to hell,”

I choked out at both Tiernan and Ciarán.

“Tiernan, please,”

Fana begged.

“Get off her! She didn’t do anything!”

Tiernan pressed harder against my trachea. Galahad had given me permission to use his magick tonight. Did that count if it was against Tiernan?

“My sister is dead because of her.”

Tears that had nothing to do with allergies streamed down Tiernan’s face, and I went limp under him.

“Sister?”

I gasped beneath his chokehold.

“If Orla hadn’t stopped to help you the night the Grimguards attacked Cape Fireld, she would’ve gotten downstairs earlier. We would’ve caught up with Ferrin and Caitria, and Caitria—”

I was so stupid. Orla and Ferrin had explained that Riftkeeping ran in families. If Caitria and Tiernan both worked for Fana’s family, then of course they were related.

Ciarán laughed darkly in my head, and the Skal in my blood boiled at the sound.

“She was my only family.”

Tiernan’s fingers tightened.

“You’ll get us all killed in the end.”

I could’ve fought back. I could’ve drawn from Galahad’s power and made bone spikes, or replaced my hands with eagle talons. But as tears and snot dripped off Tiernan’s face and onto my chest, I could only think of Liam and his grief for Riley and his parents.

Tiernan’s fist glowed gold, and he drew it back, preparing to strike me in the face, but Fana fell on top of me.

“Stop it!”

Her curls pressed against me as she turned to look up at Tiernan.

“Caitria is dead because of her!”

Tiernan cried.

“And Galahad expects me to forget that?”

“Caitria is dead because of me!”

Fana said.

“No, she died for you, it’s different.”

He tried to pull Fana away, but she wrapped her arms tighter around my neck.

“It doesn’t feel different,”

Fana whispered.

“I don’t want anyone else to die.”

Tiernan’s shoulders heaved, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“Is that an order, my Lady?”

“Yes.”

She mustered as much authority as she could into the single syllable. Tiernan took a heavy breath, and then gave in to the girl’s command. He stood up and glared down at me, still wiping snot from his face.

“I hope to the Three Magicians that the road to the Second Sentinel is short, Nightmare, so I can bury my memory of you, which is more than I was able to do for Caitria.”

Another cry split the night, but unlike the bugling call of the ramstag, this one was a haunted howl that sounded like it was choking on its own scream. My veins turned to ice, and I froze where I lay on the ground, unable to so much as think through the panic the sound filled me with.

“A rotsbane.”

Tiernan extinguished his gold light.

“What do we do?”

Fana whispered.

“I— I don’t know.”

“Wren,”

Ciarán’s voice was sharp now.

“Wren, you have to yield to me. A rotsbane will kill you.”

I shook my head, trying to breathe. I would not yield. I would let Tiernan kill me before the rotsbane could devour my consciousness. I still had three lives left. I could spare one.

The ground trembled beneath my back, and a distant roar grew louder as the trembling turned into a violent quake.

“Get down!”

Tiernan pushed Fana to the ground next to me, shielding her body with his.

A beast with antlers that spiraled out in dizzying patterns broke through the wall of grassy stalks, and I rolled over to join Tiernan on top of Fana as a barrage of hooves rained down around us. I dared to lift my head just a little to watch the stampeding ramstags pass around us.

If they were running away, we needed to run too, but it was impossible to move with so many massive animals speeding past. Fana shook beneath me, and I focused on Tiernan’s haggard assurances to her that it would be okay.

“Come on, Blue,”

Ciarán growled.

“You’ll be safer with me.”

When the dirt finally stilled and the last bleating ramstag galloped after its herd, we pried ourselves off of Fana. The ramstags had flattened the tall grasses around us, blazing a trail away from the direction of the rotsbane.

Blue pollen hung in the air around us, illuminating the crouched form some twenty yards away.

I put a warning hand on Tiernan’s shoulder and silently pointed. He followed my finger as the figure slowly stood up.

Titus, Tamora’s mountain of a bodyguard, stretched out his arms as he straightened. We had indeed been followed into the plains.

“So much for using the others as distractions,”

Tiernan growled.

“You made it too easy.”

Titus’s grin glowed blue in the light of the spores.

“Ramstags don’t sneeze.”

Tiernan’s golden blade reappeared in his hand, and he charged.

The lead that connected him to Fana and me yanked him backwards, and Titus turned to run back into the safety of the tall grasses.

“Don’t lose him in the plains!”

Ciarán commanded.

“Otherwise he’ll keep following you!”

I echoed the words out loud for Tiernan, and pulled him to his feet to sprint after Titus.

Tiernan, with his bearings gathered, summoned a golden javelin and hurled it at Titus. The tip of the weapon pierced through his shoulder and knocked him face-first into the ground with a muffled cry.

We charged forward with Fana between us, but Titus remained immobile on the flattened grass as if pinned there by Tiernan’s upright javelin.

“Is he dead?”

Fana whispered. I knelt down next to Titus as Tiernan’s javelin dissolved. Maybe the blue spore light was making the wound look strange, but there was something familiar about the way his blood gathered and clumped where the javelin had pierced his shoulder.

“Careful, Nightmare,”

Tiernan said, sniffing loudly.

I ran my hand over the shoulder wound. What should have been warm with blood was buzzing with used Skal, and my fingers came away with a coating of thick, ash-like dust.

“It’s dirt,”

I murmured, and realization dawned on me too slow.

The behemoth of a man rolled over, eyes flashing red over an open-mouthed grin. His hand shot out from under him, and I pushed Fana out of the way. Fingers morphed into claws, and Titus’s tattooed hand transformed into a massive talon that gripped me around my chest, and dug into my armor.

I cried out, grabbing at the wolf and scimitar tattoo on his forearm to keep myself steady. I swung my arm upwards as my favorite bone spikes shot from beneath my skin. They sliced through Titus’s talons. Dust poured from the appendage until he stemmed it with a new lethal claw.

Fana, Tiernan, and I staggered backwards as one.

“He’s a Nightmare,”

I breathed.

“No shit,”

Tiernan spat. Twin swords appeared in his hands.

“It was nice of you to teach me those pretty tricks of yours back on the Baron’s boat.”

Titus flexed the sharpened points of his regrown talons.

“I never would’ve known this was possible without your help.”

Wings sporting brown plumage expanded behind him, and he beat at the air. The force of the wind knocked us backwards in a tangle of limbs and rope.

From the air, Titus would be able to track our progress across the plains. He and Tamora would follow us all the way to Galahad’s old home.

I ripped the rope of my lead with my bone spike, freeing me from the others, and I ran after Titus. I willed all the strength I could muster into my legs and sprang after him, digging claws of my own into his thighs.

“Wren!”

Fana cried after me.

“Go!”

I pulled on Galahad’s magick to make myself heavier and dragged Titus back to the ground.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t follow you!”

Fana hesitated, but Tiernan pulled her towards the cover of the grass. The rotsbane howled again, closer this time, and Tiernan stopped his and Fana’s retreat to look back at me with wide eyes.

“I’m fine!”

I shouted.

“Get Fana out!”

Titus beat his wings harder, but I was too heavy. He landed on top of me in a mess of wings, and Ciarán crooned in my head.

“Birds have hollow bones, Blue. Break him.”

“I know how birds work!”

I turned my fist to steel as I brought it swinging into his side. His ribs snapped in my wake.

He screamed in pain, and the sound blended with that of the howling rotsbane. I ignored the approaching monster and managed to pin Titus beneath me.

Bits of blue hair had escaped my ponytail to hang in his face. He blew them away as he glared up at me.

“How long have you been Tamora’s pet then?” I asked.

“I’m not her pet, I’m her partner!”

Titus erupted in porcupine-like quills, and I was forced to leap off him. He made another break for the grasses. I lunged at his unprotected legs and slashed my bone spikes into his ankles. He collapsed as his tendons severed.

“Titus is a fake name, right? To keep you safe from other nocturmancers?”

I stood over him so he could watch his blood turn to dust on my spikes.

“I’ve met dogs named Titus. They’re always lap dogs for some reason.”

“I’m not a pet.”

“Then who are you? How are you lucid?”

He grinned.

“No clue, but here’s a word of advice. Don’t question it. You can be anyone you want here, so enjoy it as long as they let you.”

“Does the name Maxwell Brenton mean anything to you?”

My estranged father was still my number one theory on how I was lucid.

“Is this really the time for an interrogation, Blue?”

Ciarán asked.

“The rotsbane is getting closer.”

Titus’s face screwed up.

“Never heard of him,” he spat.

“Where do you live?”

I ran through Ferrin’s other theories on lucid Nightmares in my head.

“I live here, at Tamora’s side,”

he asserted.

“Whatever life I have in Keldori is only so I can keep living this one.”

“Then why are you working against us?”

I asked.

“We’re trying to save both Keldori and Skalterra. If you ruin that—”

“I’m not going to hurt the girl.”

Titus pushed up onto his hands.

“Tamora only wants the Skal from the old man’s hometown. How does that put your mission at risk?”

Admittedly, it didn’t, but I didn’t need to know much about the Baron or Skalterran politics to know she didn’t need any more Skal than she already had.

“You’ll leave us alone,” I said.

“I’ll do whatever Tamora tells me to do so I can keep coming back here every night.”

“He’s about to attack,”

Ciarán warned.

Sure enough, a red knife appeared in Titus’s hand, and he threw it at my head. Ciarán’s warning gave me the time I needed to duck out of its trajectory. I procured a silver flail, ready to retaliate, but the weapon dissolved before I had the chance to so much as swing it.

“What—”

I looked at my empty hand, trying to figure out where my flail had gone, but then a screeching howl ripped the night.

A rotsbane towering as tall as the waving grass, all shadow, bone, and claws, broke through the foliage and charged into our clearing. Titus leapt to his feet and threw another knife, but the rotsbane sucked it into the black hole of its mouth.

I turned and ran. I couldn’t fight a rotsbane. I didn’t want to die.

“You can’t outrun it, Blue!”

If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought Ciarán sounded worried.

“Yield to me! Let me save you!”

A strangled scream brought me to a stumbling halt at the edge of the clearing, and I turned around in time to see Titus trying to take to the sky with regrown wings.

However, four sets of dark claws clamped around his torso and dragged him back down.

“Tamora!”

he wailed, struggling in the rotsbane’s grip.

“Tamora, please!”

But Tamora was too far to hear Titus.

The rotsbane unhinged its jaw and screeched its unearthly wail, preparing to devour Titus, consciousness and all.

“No,”

I breathed, taking the first shaking step back towards Titus.

“He’s already dead, Blue! Now yield so you aren’t next!”

Ciarán demanded.

I ignored the splitting pain as I snapped a bone spike off my arm. I forced strength and power into my legs, ignoring Galahad’s warning tug on his end of our connection.

“Dammit, Blue,”

Ciarán growled.

“at least aim for its mouth if you’re going to be this stupid!”

Fallen stalks of grass slipped beneath my boots as I ran, then leapt, at Titus and the rotsbane.

The rotsbane’s howl turned my insides to lead, but I mustered up every bit of strength I had left into my arms as I drove the end of my spike through the back of Titus’s head and into the rotsbane’s gaping maw.

Titus gave a gargling gasp and turned to ash beneath me. I fell to the trodden grass, and the rotsbane collapsed over me, squealing a sustained note that sounded like a screaming tea kettle. Its horrible, shadowy limbs twitched like a dying spider, and the pinpricks of lavender light in its deepset eyes dimmed as it choked on my bone spear.

I dragged myself out from under cold, twitching limbs, and it continued to watch me, reaching out with its claws to scrape at the dirt between us. Its boney blackened jaw opened and shut over my spear, gasping for air and Skal. The rotsbane gave a final gurgling wheeze, and its shadowy form dissipated, evaporating upwards in a cloud of dull, multicolored dust that mingled with the glowing pollen that still hung in the air.

The clearing stilled, and I sat staring at the pile of dust that had been Titus, hoping I’d been fast enough to send him safely back to bed in Keldori.

I staggered to my feet, and gut-wrenching pain ripped me open. I hadn’t noticed the rotsbane carve its claws through my chest and abdomen, but dark dust spilled from the gashes in my armor. I fell back to my knees, gasping through the pain.

“Ciarán?”

His name was a weak rasp on my lips.

Ciarán sighed in my head.

“I’m here, Blue, but I think this might be goodnight.”

I grasped at Galahad’s magick, but it was too late. The wounds across my torso hemorrhaged Skal faster than I could draw it in. I rolled onto my back and watched blue pollen stream across the star-studded sky until the image faded to the darkened ceiling of my bedroom.

Something sharp cut across the palm of my hand.

I was down to two lives left in Skalterra.