Page 35 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

I fell through the darkness, searching for the tether that had existed between me and Galahad just a moment before. The tether that had dragged me back to Skalterra night after night. The tether that had frayed and burst when Ferrin’s sword had run Galahad through.

A different bond reached out towards my collapsing consciousness, and I reached back. Ciarán’s presence buzzed weakly in my periphery. I tried to yell his name, but I didn’t have a mouth. I was a collection of dust swirling in the ether, but Ciarán’s magick, as weakened as it was, surged through my particles, and my form snapped back into place.

A dull glow cut the darkness, and I sprung upright.

“Galahad!”

I didn’t know where I’d landed, but I couldn’t be dead. I had a body, shaky and sweaty, but alive. I stared at my hands in the dark, trying to see the scars Galahad had left on my palm.

They were there. I couldn’t see them but they were there. They had to be. I refused to believe they weren’t.

Because if they were gone, then so was Galahad. And if Galahad was gone, Ferrin would kill Orla and Fana, which was terrible in and of itself, but it also meant Ferrin would come bursting through the barrier between our worlds and continue to hurt the people I loved.

So the scars had to be there, as smooth and unscarred as my hand looked. Maybe they were hiding beneath my skin.

I clawed at my palm, ignoring the bite of my nails, unable to see through the haze of hot tears that spilled down my cheeks.

“Galahad, please!”

I was alive, but the world was collapsing around me. I’d fought so hard. I’d made it across Skalterra, I’d fought Grimguards and rotsbane, I’d carried Orla up the inside of a mountain.

And I’d lost.

Blood and skin gathered under my fingernails, but I kept digging at my hand. I needed to find the scars. I needed to prove to myself that Galahad was alive. Everything was okay.

“Wren!”

Hands, strong and gentle, tried to stop my frantic clawing. I shoved them off, screaming in protest.

“Wren, it’s okay!”

Liam’s face took shape in the dark, catching the dull green glow of a digital clock. He had my wrists in his hands and perched in front of me. The mattress beneath us sank under our combined weight, and the unfamiliar corners and lines of the dark room started to take shape around me.

I was still in Liam’s bedroom, on his bed, tangled in his comforter.

“We’re in danger,”

I cried.

“My friends, they’re going to die. Orla—”

“It was just a dream.”

It was hard to see him through the film of tears.

“You’re okay, alright?”

I choked on a sob and fell into his arms.

I’d failed.

I’d failed.

I’d failed.

And who would believe me if I tried to explain?

Liam’s arms tightened around me, and his fingertips brushed the buzzed hair at the nape of my neck.

“I’ve got you,”

he promised.

“Just breathe.”

I shuddered in his arms, trying to feel for both Galahad and Ciarán. Both connections were dead. I had no way back to Skalterra.

I balled my fists against Liam’s back.

With no way back, I’d just have to be ready to face Ferrin when he reached this side of the Rift.

Ferrin who had been kind and helpful and fatherly, though that last one was embarrassing to admit even to myself.

I didn’t care what he and Ciarán said about me not being a killer. If he hurt Orla, I’d make sure Ferrin choked to death on his own blood and bile.

“You’ve been asleep all day,”

Liam murmured.

“I found you on the floor, but you were covered in goosebumps, so I put you in bed. Sorry, I promise I just washed the sheets.”

I pried myself away from Liam’s embrace.

“I was looking for you. You were late for Riley’s memorial, and I thought maybe…”

I trailed off. That morning felt like a lifetime away.

“I skipped it,”

Liam admitted softly.

“The reception is still going on at Siobhan’s, but I didn’t want to leave you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,”

Liam insisted. Fresh tears welled in my eyes, and I tried to wipe them away, but the wound I’d gouged into my own hand stung.

“Do you want me to call Ethel?”

I froze. Gams would only worry. She’d call Mom. She’d be angry I let myself pass out in Liam’s room and had kept him away from Riley’s reception.

“Yes, please.”

He gave me a smile and took his phone into the hall. I gathered Liam’s blankets around me, trying to stifle the shivers that continued to wrack my body, trying to get that final image of Galahad out of my head. But it was there, imprinted on my mind so vividly that I could smell and taste the iron of the blood that trickled from between his lips and ran into his silver beard.

“Ethel, it’s about Wren.”

Liam’s muted voice echoed from the hallway.

“Yeah, she’s here, but she seems a bit shaken…”

I pressed my fingers against my ears, shame and panic both fighting for my attention.

Orla and Fana were going to die, and I had no way to stop it.

“Here.”

Liam reappeared at my side with a glass of water. He clicked the bedside lamp on, and I turned away so he wouldn’t see my red eyes and the tears I’d smeared across my face.

“Can I see your hand?”

He sat back down on the bed and placed gauze and bandages on the blanket between us. I hesitated with my fingers curled inwards to hide my palm, but then relinquished my hand to Liam.

In the light of the lamp, I could see how much damage I’d managed to deal to my palm, but through the angry, bleeding marks, there was no sign of Galahad’s cursed scars.

“You weren’t kidding when you said your nightmares are bad.”

Liam swabbed an antiseptic over the wound, and I hissed at its sting.

“I don’t think I have to worry about nightmares anymore.”

Liam gave me a wry smile as he pressed a square of gauze over my hand.

“And why’s that?”

“Just a feeling.”

I watched him fasten the gauze in place with a bandage that he wrapped carefully around the back of my hand. His fingers were warm against mine.

“Why did you skip Riley’s memorial?”

“Because he isn’t dead.”

I nodded. I figured he’d say as much.

“Do you think your aunt and uncle wanted you there?”

He kept his eyes on my bandages as he folded his fingers over them, holding my hand in his.

“Probably.”

His thumb brushed against mine.

“They’ll come around, though, once he comes back.”

“Right.”

My friends were in the same limbo Riley existed in. I didn’t know if they were alive, or for how long they’d remain that way, and I had no way to check.

Galahad was dead. Of that much I was certain. I’d felt his life snuff out as clearly as if it had been my own. I wasn’t sure I would still be alive myself if not for Ciarán’s connection, however weak it had been.

“You scared me today,”

Liam said, still looking at my hand in his.

“But I guess I’m getting used to that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

He raised his eyes to mine and gave an apologetic smile in the low light.

“It’s selfish, but it was a nice distraction, watching over you.”

A door creaked somewhere outside, and heavy steps echoed on a wooden staircase.

“Liam?”

Gams’s sharp bark preceded her footsteps hurrying down the hall.

“Wren? Where is she?”

The bedroom door burst open, and there was Gams in a glaze-stained Keel Watch Harbor t-shirt.

“Gams?”

I didn’t want her to worry, but every emotional wound I’d been trying to run triage on since waking up reopened, and tears sprung to my eyes.

Gams shoved Liam out of her way to throw her arms around me, only to immediately let go so she could cup my face in her hands.

“Liam said you’re sick. Is that why you felt so cold this morning? I knew it. Do you have enough blankets?”

She bunched Liam’s comforter in my lap, and then tried to feel my forehead, but I took her hand in mine to lower it.

“I’m okay now.”

I managed to hold the tears back. Hopefully Gams couldn’t see them swimming in my eyes. She’d left her glasses at home.

“What’s wrong?”

she whispered.

“Is that video online again? Did someone write a mean comment about your mother? Whatever it is, I promise I’ve said worse to her. She’ll be okay.”

I choked on a watery laugh. If Ferrin made it through the Rift, I didn’t know what his plans were. He’d have all the Skal he’d ever need. He would be able to use magick freely. Maybe that would be enough to satisfy him, and he’d choose to live a quiet life.

But I couldn’t trust Ferrin, and whatever hole he tore in the fabric between Skalterra and Keldori would be open for anyone and anything to come through.

I’d been halfway to becoming a rotsbane. I had felt their hunger. I’d almost been destroyed by it. I knew they would stop at nothing to devour as much Skal as they could. They would wreak chaos and destruction and death, even if Ferrin decided to keep his head down in Keldori after murdering Fana and Orla.

“Wren?”

Gams squinted to see me better in the light of the bedside lamp, and the dam broke. Hot tears cascaded down my cheeks, and I sobbed ugly, desperate sobs.

Galahad was dead. My friends would soon follow. And if Ciarán tried to stop Ferrin, as he was sure to, he’d probably die as well.

Gams pulled me in, and I cried into her messy hair.

“What is it?”

she murmured.

“Everything.”

“Linsey?”

she asked.

I didn’t reply. There was nothing I could say. No one would believe me.

“Whatever it is,”

Gams said.

“whether it’s Linsey, your interview, all this Riley nonsense, or even a small summer sickness, you are your mother’s daughter, and she is mine. And I know you are just as capable at kicking lawn gnomes as she is. You are strong. You will be okay.”

The tears fell harder. She didn’t know how wrong she was, and yet I wrapped her words around me like a shield. I didn’t feel capable of kicking anything, let alone lawn gnomes, but if Ferrin came to my world, I would make sure he lived to regret it.

“Would you like me to call your mom?”

Gams asked softly.

“She’s probably awake by now because of the time zones.”

I shook my head.

“No,”

I croaked.

“This is good.”

And I let my grandmother hold me there on Liam’s bed.

Liam walked us home to Gams’s apartment and fell asleep on the couch for the night. I paced the confines of my room. There had to be a way back to Skalterra. There had to be.

“Ciarán?”

I hissed into the dark. He’d said he’d been unable to pull me to Skalterra before, but maybe without Galahad, he’d be able to do it.

“Ciarán, please!”

There was no response, and I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling until the sky outside lightened and filtered in through my curtains.

I could at least take comfort in the fact that Ciarán knew Ferrin’s end goal. He didn’t need my warning to do whatever he needed to do to stop the Frozen God from being released. Besides, he’d probably lord it over me that he’d been the good guy this entire time.

I held my pillow over my face.

It didn’t matter that Ciarán was an ass. He’d been right and good, and I wanted to be there to help him stop Ferrin.

And I would make sure I found a way.

I’d slept nearly the entire day before, but standing behind the register a few short hours later in Gams’s shop, I felt dead on my feet. While my body had slept, I hadn’t had real rest in over twenty-four hours.

Liam’s haggard expression reflected mine from across the store. Guilt forced me to look away. He’d been too busy fussing over my unconscious body to sleep much the evening before, and I’d taken up his bed space. Of course, he probably wouldn’t have slept anyway with Riley’s memorial so fresh.

The bell over the shop door rang out, and I jumped to attention with my heart beating in my throat. Every sudden sound and every sudden movement convinced me that this was it. This was the moment Ferrin came barreling through the Rift.

However, it was only Stanley, the banker from the next town over, surveying the chicken options to add to his ever-growing collection.

“Still all blue, then.”

He frowned.

“All the best artists go through phases.”

I rubbed at my eyes with the heel of my hand as I leaned against the bulletin board behind me. Usually I’d worry about smudging my make-up, but I hadn’t felt like putting any on after looking in the mirror and noticing there were hardly any eyelashes left for me to slather with mascara.

“Can’t say I’ve been too fond of this color lately.”

Stanley picked up a chicken to turn in his hands.

“They’re Von Leer colors. Gams thinks if she paints every chicken blue, the university will have to take me off the waitlist.”

Stanley gave me a sympathetic smile.

“In that case, I’ll happily make an exception for the color blue today.”

He chose three chickens off the shelf and carried them to the register.

“Could you wrap them for me?”

I bent down to grab the tissue paper from the shelf beneath the register, and straightened up to survey the chickens Stanley had selected this time.

One was a solid blue with a bit of white swirled through the glaze like hazy clouds. Another was several shades of blue painstakingly painted into a plaid pattern, and the third—

I froze with my eyes on Stanley’s hands. He held them at the lip of the counter, tapping out a listless beat while he waited.

It was a particularly hot morning, and while he usually wore the sleeves of his button-up down to his wrists, today he’d rolled them to his elbows.

For a banker, he had a lot of tattoos. Roses, a wolf, a band of pine trees that circled his forearm just beneath his elbow. The way they sat on his arms felt familiar, and I could’ve sworn I’d seen them before despite having never seen Stanley’s bare arms before today.

The familiar scimitar that ran from his elbow to his wrist was what made it finally click. I had seen these tattoos before, and I knew Tamora’s weapon of choice well.

Galahad had told me over and over that Nightmare’s were their idealized version of themselves, but the juxtaposition of the mousey banker in front of me and the broad warrior that Tamora kept as a lapdog didn’t make sense in my head.

“Titus,” I hissed.

Stanley stared at me for a moment with his mouth slightly open and his head cocked. Then his eyes widened, and he took a half-step backward.

He tried to form words, opening and closing his mouth, before giving up and bolting for the door.