Page 43 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

I waited for Gams to tell me that Ferrin was mistaken. He was lying. He had to be. He’d lied about so much already.

But Gams silently kept my gaze with her chin held high.

“You’re the Frozen God,”

I said blankly.

“The Saergrim.”

Not Gams. It couldn’t be Gams.

“To think I thought you were Galahad’s nobody Nightmare,”

Ferrin laughed at me.

“Oh, Wren! You took to your Nightmare form so quickly, I should’ve known. Too bad Galahad couldn’t be here to see this. He’d never believe it.”

“You turned my granddaughter into your Nightmare?”

A careful anger simmered across Gams’s face. She had the same look of indignant rage Mom had borne in the porch video.

“The old Lyrguard turned her into a Nightmare, not me. Don’t worry. He’s dead and rotting. But let’s not get hypocritical, Gams,”

Ferrin simpered.

“You’re a Nightmare too, and I’m guessing you’re one of your own making.”

“That’s different!”

“Oh? And what about all the Nightmares you filled that cute little town of yours with? Was that different too?”

I stared at Gams, searching for signs that she was in fact a Nightmare. Her hair wasn’t blue. Her skin was wrinkled with age. She was just Gams.

But she’d just admitted it herself. She, along with the rest of Keel Watch Harbor, were Nightmares. They were all her Nightmares.

“And Wren here!”

Ferrin pressed onward.

“You should have seen her the last few weeks. I thought she’d be useless when we first picked her up, but she was instrumental in getting the Divine Sovereigns here.”

He beckoned at the curved wall that encircled the space. The Skal trapped in the ice made the walls blindingly bright, but shadows shifted behind Ferrin.

Gold and green Skal weapons glinted on the other side of the frozen surface, and my chest constricted at the dozens of cloaked figures held on their knees at sword point.

The two figures closest to the barrier brought my heart into my throat, and hot Skal threatened to burst from my veins. The frosted surface dulled their features, but Orla and Fana sat on their knees, bound and gagged on the other side of the ice.

The other side of the Rift, I realized.

“No!”

I ran to the wall and pressed my hands against the barrier. Orla’s eyes grew wide over the rag in her mouth. Caitria loomed behind her, golden knife in hand.

“Would you like to tell your grandmother what you’ve been up to all summer?”

Ferrin asked.

“Or should I?”

“Wren, I’m sorry. You were never supposed to—”

Ferrin pulled on Gams’s hair to shut her up.

“I told you not to hurt her!”

I cried, still kneeling next to Orla.

“Wren was such a good Nightmare,”

Ferrin said.

“Not at first, mind you. She kept killing herself to get away.”

“You should’ve told me,”

Gams whispered to me.

“Says the centuries-old Magician.”

Unshed tears burned behind my eyes like the magick swirling in my veins, but I refused to let Ferrin see me cry.

“Enough of this.”

Ferrin waved a hand.

“I’ll give you one chance, Saergrim, to open the Rift without me doing so by force.”

By force.

He meant by sacrificing Orla and Fana.

“You don’t want to free me, Quillguard,”

Gams said evenly.

“Keldori isn’t compatible with Magicians.”

“I’ve been living in Keldori using your same self-projected Nightmare trick, and I promise, Keldori is plenty compatible.”

“There’s too much Skal,”

she continued.

“Have you ever seen what happens to a Magician that uses too much Skal at once? It devours them from the inside out, and then it devours whoever it can find next.”

“Rotsbane,”

I gasped. I thought I saw a flicker of uncertainty pass over Ferrin, but he shrugged it away.

“Lies,”

he grunted.

“Rotsbane are Nightmares, not Magicians.”

“Before Skalterra, Magicians were getting too greedy,”

Gams explained.

“It spiraled into an epidemic. Rotsbane were ripping apart towns, cities, and countries. So Lyria, Quill, Fireld, and I put an end to it. We combined our magick to build Skalterra in a reality parallel to Keldori where the Skal is limited. Magicians can still use their magick, but in amounts that make it harder to turn into monsters.”

“And you left the rotsbane in Keldori?” I asked.

Gams gave me a smug smile, as if proud of me for asking the right questions.

“We learned how to project ourselves back into Keldori as Nightmares, and we hunted them down until there were none left.”

My grandma. Magician. Frozen God. Rotsbane hunter.

I looked back at Orla and Fana through the ice. Their ancestors had been my grandmother’s closest friends. She had helped them create Skalterra. They’d risked their lives hunting rotsbane together.

“Then why did they trap you here?”

I demanded. Ferrin must’ve wanted the answer too, because he waited patiently for Gams to answer.

“Because I asked them to.”

She frowned.

“When we formed Skalterra, this glacier acted as an umbilical cord of sorts. It keeps Skalterra tethered to Keldori, but that meant Magicians could escape back through this ice cave. One of us had to seal the Rift, and Fireld, Lyria, and Quill, they all had families.”

Her voice caught on the last word.

Gams had sacrificed everything, and she’d been rewarded with a reputation of evil and deceit.

My sweet, kind grandmother.

Skalterra didn’t just hate her—they feared her.

“Why does everyone say you want to claim Keldori as your own and start a magick war? And why do they all think you’re a man?”

I looked back at the silhouette under Jonquil.

“No one wants to release a power-hungry god.”

Gams’s smile was sad.

“And a frozen man demands more respect than a woman. The rumors my friends started kept us all safe. As an extra layer of protection, they bound me here with their blood. As long as their family lines survived, I would remain frozen in the Rift, and both realities would be safe.”

“But you aren’t frozen.”

I refused to think my grandmother was anyone other than the woman who stood in front of me now, and I refused to look at the shadow in the ice any longer.

“I grew restless, so fifty years ago, I created a Nightmare for myself in Keldori. Outside this glacier, on the Skalterra side, there is a colony of Magicians who have sworn themselves to protecting me.”

She glanced at the figures Caitria and her soldiers held prisoner on the other side of the ice.

“It’s dark and cold and not a life worth living. Keldori is so full of Skal, and I was lonely. So I built Keel Watch Harbor, and filled it with semi-lucid Nightmares made from the brave Magicians protecting me so that at least while they slept, they could live a comfortable life, and I could have their company.”

“Semi-lucid?”

Ferrin demanded. The way he cut in, I had the sense he’d only let our conversation go on so he could get answers to his own questions.

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t force a Nightmare to be completely lucid, but I discovered if I gave them Skal-filled totems, they’d retain their identities and Keldorian memories from day to day, though they rarely remember Skalterra while in Keel Watch.”

Gams shot Ferrin a scowl that she usually reserved for particularly annoying shop customers.

“I’ve made thousands of chickens, and I’ve given out hundreds of them.”

I held out my hand so she could see Liam’s chicken in my palm.

“Oh, Liam.”

She frowned.

“His family has dutifully acted as my most elite protectors for generations, but he is too gentle.”

“Is gentle the word you would use, Just-Wren?”

Ferrin goaded.

“Didn’t the Grimguard kill you?”

“Did he?”

Gams tutted.

“He didn’t mean it, Wren. Liam’s a good boy. If he’d known—”

“His name is Ciarán,”

I said.

“And his cousin was Daithi.”

“Riley.”

“Riley wasn’t real!”

I didn’t mean to raise my voice at Gams, but I couldn’t help the sense of betrayal at it all.

“And you knew he was dead, but you let Liam—I mean, Ciarán—”

“I tried to help him move on,”

she insisted.

“The same I did when his parents died.”

My stomach lurched with Skal and realization.

“Liam’s parents,”

I said slowly.

“they were Grimguards too.”

Gams didn’t reply, but the tight press of her lips told me all I needed to know.

“You.”

I turned to Ferrin.

“You killed them the night you murdered your sister. And you killed Riley!”

Heat flickered in my palms.

“And?”

Ferrin shrugged.

“This ends with me killing all of you. Don’t waste your tears on Grimguards.”

“This ends with you realizing this is a death-mission!”

Gams snorted.

“You’ll let me, my granddaughter, and my cat go back upstairs to our home where I’ll call back all my Nightmare neighbors, and we’ll continue to keep both realms safe.”

“About the granddaughter.”

Ferrin put his arm around Gams as if they were old friends.

“I didn’t know Nightmares could have grandchildren. Or children for that matter.”

“Nightmares are our ideal selves, and I was lonely,”

Gams said matter-of-factly.

“So my ideal self became pregnant with an exact genetic copy of myself. I am a Nightmare, but the baby I had was real.”

“Mom.”

My voice shook.

“Does she know?”

But I already knew the answer. It had been Mom who first told me to remove Riley’s posters.

And she had raised me away from Keel Watch Harbor.

Away from the town of ghosts.

“Nightmares can create life?”

Ferrin mused.

“Only those who are also exceptional Magicians,”

Gams sniffed.

“So a hack like you shouldn’t get any smart ideas.”

Gams had to be wrong though, because I wasn’t an exceptional Magician. I scratched at my arms, thinking about the penicillium mold I’d spread across Ciarán’s chest.

That had been life too.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I whispered.

Gams put her hands out to her sides as far as Ferrin’s hold on her would allow.

“Look at us, Wren. This is not a world I ever intended to burden you with.”

I stared through the ice at Orla and Fana with their mouths gagged and hands bound. Skalterra wasn’t a burden. Skalterra was wonderful and full of wonderful people, and when I’d been there, I’d been wonderful too.

Ferrin pushed Gams away with sudden fervor and took a fistful of my hair to drag me back from the ice separating me from Orla. Her muffled cry called out, and her eyes widened in fear.

“And there it is, straight out of the Frozen God’s mouth!”

Ferrin shouted in triumph.

“Skalterra is a burden, yet she would keep Keldori for herself!”

“Keldori is a mess. You should know that if you’ve been living there as a Nightmare.”

The green blade at my neck had brought a new edge to Gams’s voice.

Ferrin shook his head. He had his arm around my chest, and I could feel his Nightmare heart hammering against my back.

“It’s a mess because I’m living a half-existence there, splitting my time between two worlds. If I could come to Keldori as my real self, imagine what I’d be able to do with my magick and Keldori’s technology.”

Gams gave a derisive laugh.

“Spare me the savior act, Quillguard. We both know you only want power.”

Heat singed the skin of my neck, and I let out an involuntary whimper. Gams’s eyes softened behind her glasses.

“I’ll kill her,”

Ferrin said.

“You know I will.”

“You need her,”

Gams asserted.

“How else do you intend on controlling me if you break me free? If my granddaughter dies, do you really think you won’t incur the Frozen God’s immediate wrath? I’ve killed so many monsters, but it’s weak men like you who always fall the easiest.”

Ferrin breathed hot air against my neck and pointed his blade of emerald at the ice wall.

“Start with my niece, Caitria!”

he bellowed.

“I don’t want her seeing what comes next.”

“No!”

I broke free of Ferrin’s hold and collapsed against the ice. Orla cried out as Caitria undid her gag so Gams could better hear Orla beg for mercy.

But it wasn’t Gams that Orla begged.

“Uncle!”

she shrieked. “Please!”

Ferrin remained stony with his eyes on my grandmother.

“I’ll kill her and the Fireld girl if that’s what it takes to open the Rift. Or you can spare innocent blood and dismantle your prison from the inside yourself.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,”

Gams hissed.

“Oh, but I do, and I’m willing to kill my own blood for it, so don’t lecture me about weak men.”

Caitria grabbed Orla by her hair.

“Don’t do this,”

Orla cried. “Uncle—”

“Is this a bet you’re willing to make?”

Gams said coolly.

“That those are the only two Divine Sovereigns? Four hundred years, that’s a lot of opportunity for secret children.”

“I’m willing to try,”

Ferrin growled.

“Really?”

Gams gave him a look of disdain.

“Your own niece? You’d kill her knowing there’s a chance it wouldn’t work?”

Caitria looked at Ferrin, waiting for his signal to run Orla through with her knife. Tears streaked Orla’s face, and her shoulders heaved with rapid breaths, and her muted words came through the ice.

“Don’t look, Fana,”

she sobbed.

“It’ll be okay. Alright? Just don’t look. I’ll be waiting for you. You’ll be okay.”

Fana screamed through her gag, and I dared take my eyes off them long enough to look at Ferrin. He stared back at his niece, cold resolution etched into his face.

“If there are more, I will find them,”

he whispered.

“Every last Sovereign. And I already promised to kill Orla first.”

“Wren, thank you for trying.”

Orla’s wide eyes found mine through the ice, and I pressed against the barrier, trying to reach her.

“Your real face is so beautiful. I don’t know why you changed it for your Nightmare.”

She closed her eyes and braced for Caitria’s killing strike.

“No!”

I hit at the Rift, and the skin of my knuckles split, streaking the frost with flecks of blood. I looked to Gams for help, but she shook her head at me.

“Gams! Please!”

“I tried, Wren. It’ll be okay.”

“No, nothing will be okay!”

“Caitria—”

Ferrin’s green sword flashed as he raised it.

I’d watched Galahad and Liam die in front of me. My entire world had stripped away over the course of the last twelve hours. Everything I’d ever known was a lie, and I’d lost all sense of reality.

I would not lose Orla too.

“I said NO!”

I screamed, and every bit of Skalmagick I’d been holding back since destroying Ferrin in the woods exploded outwards.

Ice cracked and groaned, splitting Orla’s image. The floor shook, someone was shouting, but now that I had released the Skal, I couldn’t hold it back. It ripped through my veins, burning blue and bright, and I thought I might be dying, but through the pain and heat and light, I could see Orla as the ice around her fell.

And then as quickly as I’d combusted, I collapsed, shaking on the shattered floor.