Page 34 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

Ferrin’s fingers dug into my shoulders, and I froze, watching the woman at the doors. She leaned against the heavy wood and shook dark curls away from her face. Her resemblance to her brother, with the same haughty chin and identical gold and amber eyes, was unmistakable.

“You can’t kill Orla.”

The words felt ridiculous as I said them. Of course they weren’t going to kill Orla. This couldn’t be real, not if Caitria, who I’d seen dead on the floor, was standing in front of me now.

Caitria’s lips twisted, and her eyes narrowed.

“You weren’t kidding about the blue hair, Ferrin.”

She smirked.

“But what do we do? We can’t kill her. Galahad will bring her back.”

“Can I trust you, Wren?”

Ferrin’s voice was soft in my ear, but his fingernails bit at the skin of my shoulders. Every instinct screamed for me to run, but I was rooted to the spot, choking on a half-formed response.

“One of the sentries reported a rotsbane roaming around the base of the Third Sentinel.”

Caitria lilted forward, and her dual-slitted skirt billowed with every stride. Her head fell to the side as she surveyed me with cold interest.

“I suppose we could feed her to it, but that’s half a day’s journey away.”

I shivered in Ferrin’s grip as he reached around me to grab my left hand. His fingers forced mine to unfurl, and his thumb stroked the scars Galahad’s curse had left on my palm.

“You wouldn’t tell Galahad, would you, little Nightmare?”

he whispered, his cheek lightly pressed against mine as he studied my hand.

I did not want to be fed to a rotsbane. I wanted even less to live if it meant Orla would die.

“Wouldn’t tell Galahad what?”

I jerked my hand from his and staggered away. I tried to keep both Ferrin and Caitria in my field of vision. Their reflections in the polished, stone floor swam as my head spun.

“Wouldn’t tell him that you’ve been lying this whole time? That you’re going to kill Orla?”

“And Fana,”

Caitria said blithely. Ferrin shot her a look, but she shrugged.

“What? We’re about to feed her to a rotsbane. It doesn’t matter if she knows we’re releasing Saergrim.”

“The Frozen God?”

I looked between the two Riftkeepers, still expecting Ferrin to bust up laughing and tell me it was all a joke.

A terrible, dark joke.

Ferrin’s glower, however, remained in place, and my stomach dropped further. I shook my head.

“Fana and Orla should be honored to be so instrumental in ushering in the next great age of Magicians,”

Ferrin said.

“I thought we were protecting Fana,”

I croaked.

“Fana was never in any danger.”

Ferrin said it as if that should be consolation for what he was planning.

“I needed her here, closer to the Frozen God, but Galahad is so damn stubborn. So we faked Caitria’s death by Grimguard to scare him into letting us move her here.”

“But she is in danger. From you! And so is Orla. And I helped you bring them here!”

Ferrin sighed and shook his head at his reflection in the floor with his hands on his hips.

“Ah, Wren. I’d hoped if anyone were to understand, it would be you. It’s cruel of you to ask me to wet my hands with more blood than need be.”

“The rotsbane, then,”

Caitria said.

“It’s probably still in the area. If we move quickly—”

“We don’t need a rotsbane.”

Green firelight sparked in Ferrin’s hand, reflecting off the black obsidian floor.

“Galahad cursed her, and she’s on her last life.”

“How about that?”

Caitria grinned.

“The old miser was good for something after all.”

Ferrin took a careful step towards me, and I took another back.

“It’s alright.”

Ferrin’s frowned in concern, and I hated how sincere the expression looked.

“You’ll be okay, Wren.”

“No.”

I shook my head as Ferrin pulled his goggles into place.

“It’ll be just like all the other times. The only difference is that you won’t wake up. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you don’t feel a thing.”

“I thought you were my friend.”

I hated the crack in my voice. I hated that the look on his face made me feel like I was somehow the one in the wrong.

“Don’t do this,”

he murmured.

“Please. I’m prepared to sacrifice my own niece. Do you think killing you will be even a fraction as hard as that?”

“You’re supposed to be good. You were good!”

“There is nothing more good than what I’m trying to do!”

He retreated to the open wall that looked out over the silver-dipped clouds and tried to beckon me to his side. When I remained where I stood, he sighed and rolled his neck.

“That out there is the Frozen God’s domain. There’s a lagoon full of icebergs and glaciers. They call it the Bay of Teeth because of the way the ice cuts the sky. That’s where Saergrim is frozen in the space that divides our worlds. That’s where we will free him from his glacier and cross over into Keldori.”

“How is that good?” I hissed.

“You have seen Skalterra, Wren. You’ve seen our monsters, rotsbane and human alike. Don’t let our shiny magick romance you. You know your world is more comfortable. You know Keldori is the kinder reality.”

“We have monsters too.”

“And they will bow to my Skalmagick,”

Ferrin growled.

“Because unlike Skalterra, Keldori is more than monsters and magick. You have electricity and cars and airplanes and infrastructure and medicine that Skalterra could never dream of! I’ve spent nearly every day of my miserable life in this mountain, keeping guard, making sure the Frozen God doesn’t move from where he’s spent the last four centuries in the Bay of Teeth, and quite frankly, Wren Warrender, if a better existence than this one is feasible, then why not make that existence mine?”

Iseult’s story about Galahad and his brother echoed at the back of my head, along with her warnings to not talk about my home in too much detail. I’d never mentioned half the things Ferrin was talking about, and a cold truth settled in my stomach.

“I’m not the first lucid Nightmare you’ve met.”

Ferrin’s lips curled.

“No, Wren. I’m afraid not.”

An arm reached around my chest from behind, and dark curls pressed against my cheeks as Caitria held me in a headlock.

“It should be you, Ferrin,”

she said.

“Kill her and get it over with.”

Ferrin’s eyebrows lifted above his goggles when I couldn’t help the smile that slid across my face.

“Get off her!”

Ferrin barked, but spikes of sharp, saber-like bone were already bursting from my arms to pierce Caitria’s legs.

She howled in pain and let go, but I swung both my arms upwards to rip through as much flesh as I could.

“What you’ve heard about Keldori doesn’t matter!”

I lunged at Ferrin, but a shield of green Skal erupted between us.

“You can’t free the Frozen God, because you can’t kill Orla and Fana!”

“How is it fair?”

Ferrin demanded through his shield.

“How is it right that four Magicians decided to cut us all off from our homes, and now Keldori has everything? Think of what I could accomplish, with your technology and my power! And you could’ve helped me!”

I turned my hands to steel and pressed against his shield. It was hot to the touch, but I pushed harder, forcing Ferrin to stagger backwards towards the wide window.

“You told me you didn’t want Orla to see you become the person you’d been when you killed the Grimguards,”

I seethed.

“but now you’re talking about killing Orla!”

“Then I’ll kill her first so she doesn’t see what comes next.”

The shield burst beneath my hands, and I pushed through the shards as they dissolved into sparks in the air. Ferrin was ready with a sword, but I batted it away with the silver flail that formed in my hand.

“You can’t kill Orla! You love Orla!”

Some part of my mind still rebelled against the idea that this could be Ferrin. Ferrin was kind. Ferrin was good.

“And I loved her mother, but I still did what I had to when she got in my way.”

He held his free hand over the twisted scar I knew was hiding under his tunic.

“She almost got me first.”

The story he’d told me about his sister’s death had been so horrible and so tragic. Somehow, this cruel truth was so much worse.

“The Grimguards don’t want the Frozen God freed at all, do they?”

Everything had been a lie. But then how had Galahad not known.

“They were trying to save Oren, not kill him. And Fana’s family—”

Ferrin gave an apologetic shrug.

“The Firelds were miserable hiding in their castle. What we did was a mercy,”

he assured me.

“You murdered them! And then you blamed the Grimguards!”

“Caitria and I didn’t mean to be mistaken for the Frozen God’s servants, but those optics worked for us. We left Fana alive, figuring she’d be the easiest to bring to the Bay of Teeth, and I returned home to kill Oren. But while I was gone, Galahad took it upon himself to go to Cape Fireld and take charge over Fana. It took years before the real Grimguards showed up, giving us the excuse we needed to move Fana north.”

I thought back to every conversation I’d had with Ciarán. He’d never once actually said he was going to kill Fana, just that he was going to get to her.

“Ciarán wasn’t hunting us. He was trying to save Fana. From you.”

“Ciarán?”

Ferrin barked a disbelieving laugh that brought the corners of his neat beard upwards.

“Are you on a first name basis with the Grimguard, then?”

“You spared him in Vanderfall because you didn’t want Orla thinking less of you!”

My voice rose, but I couldn’t help it. Panic and anger were in control, not me.

“What happened to that Ferrin? The Ferrin who loves his niece, who has mercy, and is kind?”

“Kindness and mercy had nothing to do with me sparing the Grimguard. How wasn’t that your first iota of a hint that maybe there was something else going on? Wren, you’re smarter than that. In what reality would I have let the Grimguard live if he was trying to kill us?”

Heat burned in my cheeks, and I hated the shame that rose in my gut at having disappointed Ferrin. I couldn’t help it. Part of me was still hoping that as horribly real as everything about Skalterra was, this would be the bit that turned out to be a dream.

“Then why?”

My voice shook with rage and disgust.

“I needed a villain,”

Ferrin said simply.

“If the Grimguard died, Galahad would’ve brought us straight back to Cape Fireld. Not only would that have set back my timeline, but it’s unlikely I would’ve discovered Orla’s secret heritage. So thank you, Wren, for keeping precious Ciarán alive. Otherwise, who knows how long it would’ve taken me to figure out the role Orla is to play.”

I pulled at Galahad’s reserves of magick. He stoppered our connection nearly immediately, but not before I managed to draw enough Skal to bolster my muscles, turn my spikes to steel, and lunge at Ferrin with outstretched claws.

He tried to fend me off with his sword, but I crushed it in my metal talons and forced him to the floor. We slid across its polished surface, coming to a stop near the low wall that looked out over the cloud-covered domain of the Frozen God.

The heavy steel of my clawed fist reflected the green of Ferrin’s fire, and I brought it swinging downwards.

He managed to roll beneath me, and my fist collided with the floor instead of his head. The black stone cracked beneath my hit, and gold light reflected in its broken surface as Caitria attacked me from behind.

At first, I thought she was wielding a flail like mine, but then the rope of the weapon extended, and the dart on the end licked my arm before retracting back towards Caitria on its swinging leash.

Ferrin came at me from the side, swinging dual blades. I tried to pull more Skal from Galahad, but he held firm on his end. I was forced to dance out of the way of Ferrin’s blades as Caitria unleashed her rope dart at me again.

I was ready this time, and I ignored the heat that seared against my metal hands as I grabbed the rope of Skal and twisted it around my wrists and fingers. Caitria lurched forward when I pulled, and she let her rope dart dissipate so she could better tackle me against the low wall of the window.

She pressed her forearm against my neck, and the mountainside wind grabbed at my hair through the window. Her free hand grabbed my wrist, and gold sparks flew as a current of electricity wracked my body.

Lights burst in my vision, and the Skal that made up my Nightmare form sizzled against the current of electric magick she sent coursing through me. Every muscle tensed against the shooting pain, and I screamed.

Maybe Galahad would hear me. Maybe help would come.

The electricity passed, leaving me out of breath and weak under Caitria’s arms.

“There’s a good girl,”

she growled.

“Now sit still. This will be over in a second. Ferrin?”

Ferrin approached with his blades, and I struggled feebly against Caitria’s hold.

“It was a pleasure, Miss Warrender,”

Ferrin said softly.

“I wish you could’ve seen things my way.”

He held a blade over my neck, and I mustered enough energy and feeling into my legs to buck under Caitria. It was the same move Ciarán had used on me on the frozen lake, and it proved just as effective now.

Caitria flipped overhead and shrieked as she tumbled out the open window.

Ferrin cried out and brought his swords arcing downwards. I grabbed each one in a clawed fist and forced my way to my feet. His face contorted behind the green glow of his weapons.

“Galahad forced me to work for the Riftkeepers because he knows I’m stronger than you,”

I snarled.

“You can’t beat me. That’s the entire reason I’m here.”

“Nightmares have their limits, Just-Wren.”

His boot collided with my stomach, and I staggered backwards.

“Even you.”

Silver sparks flickered and died in my hands when I tried to arm myself. Galahad’s magick had dried up, and the connection between us was still stoppered.

Ferrin, meanwhile, geared up for another attack, merging his dual swords into a single massive blade.

I drew magick from the one avenue I had left. The connection was weak, and the stores of Skal there were low, but the magick buzzed like electricity in my fingertips.

Orange fire erupted between us, flaring bright and hot enough to force Ferrin to abandon his attack. He stared at the orange skalflame, his expression unreadable under his goggles.

Then he grinned at me through the neon light of Ciarán’s borrowed Skalmagick.

“Wren Warrender, you wonderful idiot. You’re bound to the Grimguard?”

The orange fire dissipated as I leapt through it to grab Ferrin by the collar of his vest and pin him to the floor. The spikes of my left arm skewered Ferrin’s right, and he grunted in pain.

The heavy doors of the hall slammed open, ripping my attention away from Ferrin. Galahad, leaning heavily on Iseult and with Tiernan as his side, stood in the doorway with the pool of Skal lighting him from behind.

“You want to tell me why you’re trying to kill me a second time tonight, Nightmare, pulling my magick away like that?”

he demanded.

I had done it. I had won. Help was here. Ferrin would—

“Help!”

Ferrin cried out beneath me.

“Galahad, she’s trying to kill me!”

“What? No!”

I gawked between Ferrin and Galahad.

A golden throwing knife whistled through the air and lodged in my shoulder. I fell off of Ferrin, tearing his arm open as I did. Tiernan’s knife felt like fire in my flesh, and I ripped it out.

“He’s going to kill Orla and Fana!”

I threw the knife at Ferrin, and he backpedaled away from me, clutching his injured arm to his chest.

“He’s working with Caitria!”

This couldn’t be happening. They needed to believe me. They had to believe me.

“Caitria is dead, Wren Warrender.”

Galahad limped forward.

“She’s not. She was here!”

I looked between Iseult and Tiernan, but they regarded me with the same cold anger as Galahad.

“We have to kill her, Galahad!”

Ferrin scrambled across the polished floor to join them. Tiernan helped him to his feet, and Ferrin pointed his uninjured arm at me.

“The Grimguard knows her name. She’s compromised.”

“No.”

I shook my head at Galahad.

“Don’t listen to him.”

“She found him injured in Vanderfall,”

Ferrin gushed. His goggles slipped down his face to hang around his neck.

“She took him in, treated his wounds, and gave him her name.”

“Yes, but—”

I pointed a finger at Ferrin, trying to stutter out Ferrin’s own involvement in Ciarán’s fate that night.

“I suppose that’s how he found Tulyr.”

Ferrin grinned at me now that no one was watching him.

“He used her to follow us. She was probably in on it.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“So you admit it?”

Ferrin demanded, still smiling. Panic swirled in my veins alongside the Skal I’d take from Ciarán.

“No, it’s not like that!”

Iseult extracted herself out from under Galahad’s arm to take heavy steps forward.

“You put my home in danger on purpose?”

she whispered.

“Ciarán was trying to stop him!”

I pointed at Ferrin, still on my knees.

“He killed the Firelds! And Oren and Bryony!”

“How dare you accuse me of murdering my own sister,”

Ferrin pretended to seethe.

“Maybe it’s a mercy Orla is incapacitated, so that she doesn’t have to witness this betrayal.”

“Galahad,”

I begged.

“Galahad, you have to listen. Ferrin is going to release the Frozen God!”

Galahad’s face might have been carved from stone beneath his silver beard. His expression hadn’t changed since he’d found me with my spike at Ferrin’s throat.

The tiniest deepening of his frown was the only warning he gave me before throwing a silver javelin across the room.

I acted instinctively, pulling an orange flail from the air to deflect the attack.

Iseult and Tiernan cried out in tandem and charged as one.

“You are with the Grimguard!”

Tiernan howled and shoved passed Iseult so he could be the one to do me in. His rapier crackled against my flail, and Iseult shoved passed him with an outstretched hand.

The magick that made up my every molecule buzzed and vibrated as she drew nearer.

A single brush of her hand, and Iseult could unmake me with her Skalbreaking powers. I would be dead.

I pivoted, trying to keep Tiernan between us, but she managed to make contact with our weapons, and they disintegrated into dust on the floor. I brandished my arm spikes at them, but Iseult was undeterred by the threat of something she could easily destroy.

I danced out of her reach. If Tiernan wasn’t so hotheaded, he might’ve had the sense to stand back and let her work. Luckily for me, he insisted on attacking me with a new rapier. I deflected the attack with a bone spike, and shoved Tiernan into Iseult.

They sprawled on the floor together.

“Galahad, make them stop!”

I could jump out the window and try to hollow my bones and sprout wings like Titus had when I’d fought him in the Umberdust Plains, but Ciarán’s magick was running low and our connection was faltering and weak. There was a good chance I’d plunge to my death if I tried to turn into a bird.

I had my back against the wall, both literally and figuratively. My arm blades dissolved so I could reabsorb what Skal I could from them. I pressed against the smooth wall of the Obsidian Hall and forced the last of my magick into my hands.

I didn’t want to hurt my friends, but if they killed me, Ferrin would win.

Iseult was nearly on top of me when I darted out of her reach, spun around, and slammed two metal fists into the perfect surface of the wall. A massive crack ran up to the ceiling. Tiernan managed to avoid the falling obsidian rocks, but Iseult cried out as they rained down on her.

I tried to reach her through the cloud of black dust.

“Iseult!”

I hadn’t wanted to hurt her. I only wanted to slow her down. I needed her to be okay.

My tunic choked up against my throat before I could reach the rubble, and the room spun as Tiernan threw me to the floor and pinned me under him.

“Is she okay?”

I choked as I craned my neck, trying to see Iseult where she lay unmoving under the rocks.

“I can’t believe I felt bad for blowing you up.”

Tiernan’s goggles had been knocked askew, and dust and dirt clung to his twisted locks.

“Tiernan.”

I tried to rally whatever Skal I could find lingering in my veins and along the weak bond between me and Ciarán, but there was nothing left. My strength was gone. My hands had reverted back to human flesh. I had no magick.

“Your sister. Caitria…”

“You dare say her name when you’ve been working to undo everything she died for?”

He pulled on my collar so he could slam me back into the hard floor. Pain shot through my skull, and black spots dotted my vision.

“She isn’t dead.”

“Don’t—”

“She’s going to kill Fana.”

Gold flashed in Tiernan’s hand, and he held a knife pointed between my eyes.

“I said don’t.”

“She killed the Firelds. Ferrin helped. Tiernan, you have to believe me. If you don’t, Fana will die.”

“Then where is she? Where’s my sister if she isn’t dead?”

I gulped.

“I threw her out the window.”

Tiernan’s amber eyes widened, and his nostrils flared. Maybe chucking the only proof that Ferrin was lying off the mountainside had been a tactical error.

“She might still be out there.”

I stared up at him, fixing him with a look of defiance, daring him not to believe me and reap the consequences.

“Hanging to the side of the mountain, trying to climb back up.”

“Stop it,”

Tiernan hissed.

“She’s your sister, and she might need your help.”

The golden knife in his hand shook, then dissolved.

“Dammit, Wren, if you’re lying, I’ll throw you out the window.”

He hesitated a half-second longer, and then leapt away to run to the room’s ledge.

I rolled to my side and pushed up to my knees as Galahad limped forward. I had no Skal left to fight with, but I wouldn’t give up. I would make sure Galahad saw the truth, even if it meant he killed me.

I had trusted them. Even Tiernan. They were my friends. We’d traveled and fought together for weeks.

I thought we’d been a team.

They’d turned on me so quickly.

“What did the Grimguard say to you that would have you sell out both our worlds, Nightmare?”

Gray eyes bore into me.

“What could he have possibly promised?”

“Ferrin is going to kill Orla and Fana. Galahad, you have to listen.”

“How dare you suggest I would kill my own niece,”

Ferrin growled behind Galahad.

“We cared for you, Wren. We loved you! Just for you to betray us!”

“I have no reason not to trust Ferrin. He swore an oath to protect the Rift,”

Galahad said evenly.

“So did your brother.”

The color drained from Galahad’s rugged face, and he leveled a silver sword with my neck.

“Bold of you to speak to me of Balin,”

he hissed.

“after you brought the Grimguard to my home.”

“The home Balin destroyed.”

I leaned forward so that my throat pressed against the tip of Galahad’s sword.

“If you’re going to kill me, then kill me. I did my job. I warned you about Ferrin. Now it’s your job to make sure he doesn’t murder Orla and Fana.”

Galahad hesitated, his gray eyes searching mine.

I needed him to see the truth. He and the others could hate me all they wanted, but I needed him to save Orla and Fana.

“Get it over with, Galahad,”

Ferrin pressed.

“I need to check on my niece, and I’m sick of looking at this traitor.”

“I’m not going to fight anymore,”

I said.

“Orla nearly died to save me. If I have to die to save her, if that’s what it takes to get you to listen, then fine. I die.”

Galahad remained frozen with his sword against my throat.

“Galahad!”

Tiernan’s cry echoed through the chamber, and I dared to twist around so I could see Tiernan helping to hoist Caitria into the room. Her hair was tussled, and scrapes covered her arms, but she was alive and standing. “Caitria!”

Tiernan threw himself at her, sobbing and wrapping her in an embrace that she didn’t return. Instead, she cast Ferrin a wild look of panic through her mess of hair. She brought a careful hand to the back of Tiernan’s neck.

“Shhh,”

she crooned.

“It’s alright. I’m here.”

Golden electricity sparked between her fingers. Tiernan cried out, convulsed, and fell, landing with a thud at Caitria’s feet, either unconscious or dead. It was impossible to tell which.

“Tiernan!”

I tried to get up to rush to help him, but a soft gasp rattled behind me.

When I turned back to Galahad, he had an emerald blade sticking out of his chest.

“Then I suppose that’s that.”

Ferrin pulled his sword back out through Galahad’s back and let it dissipate.

“No!”

“Wren Warrender. I—”

Galahad’s voice grated over my name. Blood bubbled between his lips, spilling into his silver beard, and his eyes turned glassy. He reached out for me with a gnarled hand, and then lurched forward.

I tried to catch him.

If I could catch him, I could undo this. I could stop Ferrin. I could keep Galahad alive.

But Galahad’s body fell through mine as I collapsed into dust and darkness.