10. Persuasive Communication
Tiernan’s amber eyes glinted from the shadows that played across his dark face.
His twisted hair locks hung loose, missing their usual gold ornaments.
He’d been stripped of both armor and boots, left in a dirty tunic and trousers that were ripped at the knees, and his prison cell smelled of something I’d rather not name.
“Ferrin.” His voice was hoarse with disuse. “You finally come all this way to see me and choose to do it in the dead of night? Coward.”
“Where’s the girl?” Ciarán demanded in my head.
I didn’t have the wherewithal to answer. I was too busy trying to make sense of Tiernan, bruised and filthy, in the prison cell where I’d been expecting to find Iseult.
Fana had been right about him after all, because if Tiernan were imprisoned, he was definitely not aligned with Ferrin and Caitria.
“Open the door,” I demanded in Ferrin’s voice.
The prison keeper hesitated, looking between Tiernan and me, before stepping forward to insert a heavy, iron key into the lock. The metal door creaked as it swung outward.
Tiernan gripped at the air instinctually, as if to draw a Skal weapon, but he must’ve had no magick left in his system, because his hands remained empty. Weaponless, he shrank back against the stone wall.
“Tiernan,” I said, careful and slow. He clearly didn’t trust Ferrin, but I needed him to come with me without a fight. I’d reveal my real identity when we were a safe distance away. I just had to get him—
His eyes narrowed, and a half-cock smile chased away the fatigue that weighed on his bruised face.
“You’re not Ferrin,” he said.
And here I thought I’d been doing an okay job.
“You don’t—I mean—” I glanced at the guard and put on a show of imitating Ferrin’s laugh. “Of course I am!”
“I lived with Ferrin for two years.” Tiernan brushed a lock out of his face to better smirk at me. “You aren’t him.”
“Well, that’s—” I looked between Tiernan and the prison keeper, scrambling for a response, but Ciarán’s growled warnings sounding in my head made it difficult to concentrate long enough to find one. “Dammit, Tiernan.”
I lunged at the prison keeper. He raised his pike in defense, but I batted it away with a glowing flail of orange. His Skalweapon shattered, and I grabbed him in a headlock with my hand pressed over his mouth and nose.
“Thank you, Tiernan.” I grunted with the effort of containing the guard. “I definitely wanted you to announce I’m not Ferrin. That was absolutely part of my plan.”
“Wren?” Tiernan hissed incredulously.
“Obviously. Who else do you know that uses a flail?” I willed my Nightmare muscles to be stronger as the guard continued to struggle in my arms. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“You could—”
“I’m not talking to you,” I snapped at Tiernan, then focused on my tether with Ciarán.
“Knock him out, and lock him up,” Ciarán instructed. “And fast.”
“Okay. Right,” I said, psyching myself up. “Just knock him out. Easy.”
I turned a fist into metal and delivered a blow to the back of the guard’s helmeted head. The sound rang out louder than I’d hoped, but the man slumped in my arms, unconscious.
“Why are you here?” Tiernan rasped.
“We’re looking for Iseult.” I dragged the guard into Tiernan’s prison cell and dropped him in the opposite corner.
Tiernan shrank away, and I frowned at him.
He’d been a callous and fierce warrior just a few weeks ago.
Now he tried to disappear into the corner of his cell, bruised, filthy, and absolutely reeking.
Worse than all that, however, I’d never seen Tiernan truly afraid.
Not like this. I didn’t recognize this cowering boy.
I let go of the magick I’d used to alter my appearance. Heavy blue hair fell over my shoulders, and my beard flaked off. Tiernan’s shoulders relaxed as Ferrin’s face gave way to my own, though he tensed again as my clothing reverted back to something that more suited a Grimguard.
“It’s okay,” I said, back in my own voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You’re with the Grimguard.” Distrust colored Tiernan’s tone, but he at least wasn’t pressed against the wall anymore.
“Yes, and we’re stopping Ferrin. You’re free to join unless you’d rather stay with your new roommate.” I extended my hand.
Tiernan hesitated, then took it, and I heaved him to his feet. His knees buckled, but I caught him under his arm and let him lean against me as I led him out of the prison cell.
“How’d you know I wasn’t Ferrin?” I locked the door behind us.
“No Skal-goggles.” Tiernan’s entire body quaked against mine as we retraced my steps back to the stairway. “Two years, and Ferrin only ever took them off to bathe.”
“Oh.” It was an embarrassingly stupid detail to forget. “You haven’t seen Iseult, have you? We need her.”
“I haven’t seen anyone in over two weeks.”
Two weeks. It was hard to believe only two weeks had passed since I’d last seen Tiernan. Our fight had culminated in him unconscious and Galahad dead.
“What happened?” I asked. “After we fought.”
Tiernan hesitated at the top step of the stairs to give the city below us a wary look. He took a deep breath, and then urged me onwards.
“The last thing I remember from our fight was Caitria’s face, and then her Magick coursing down my spine to knock me out,” he spat. “When I woke up, she was there.”
“And?” I prompted when he fell quiet.
“And I was so excited my sister wasn’t dead,” he said.
“Until she started to explain. She told me Orla and Fana would have to die, that we’d be leaving the next morning to take them to release the Frozen God.
She thought I’d be on her side, but instead, I wished she’d stayed dead.
I’d rather her be a martyr than a murderer. ”
Tiernan had loved his sister. He’d grieved her when he thought she’d been killed. He’d hated me for the role he thought I’d played in her apparent death.
But not even a resurrected sister could uproot his loyalty to Fana.
“I’m sorry.” We’d never been fond of each other, me and Tiernan, but Ferrin’s betrayal had collapsed his world as catastrophically as it had mine.
“I waited until night to slip out of the infirmary and warn Fana and Orla, but Ferrin was waiting. I tried to fight him, but he’s stronger than he’s been letting on. I’ve been locked up since.”
“And now we’re getting you out.”
“By we, you mean you and the Grimguard.” He winced as I pulled him down the steps. “You’re using his magick. He’s your new nocturmancer.”
“His name is Ciarán, and he’s not your enemy. Don’t worry, Orla’s here too.”
Tiernan stopped on the stairs and pulled away to gawk at me. Tears filled his bloodshot eyes, and his knuckles paled where he gripped the obsidian railing.
“But Orla’s dead,” he rasped.
“Oh. Tiernan, no.” My heart dropped at the realization that he’d spent the last several weeks believing his friends were gone. “Orla’s alive.”
“But the Frozen God is free.” He shook his head. “The Rift is open, so Orla must be dead.”
“If she’s dead, then her corpse is doing a very good impression of a living body.”
“And Fana?” His lips trembled over the words, as if afraid to ask them.
“She’s waiting for us at the lake below the mountain.”
Tiernan’s knees buckled again, and I caught him before he could collapse on the stone steps.
“She’s not… I thought…” His body shook with relieved sobs.
“You need to keep moving. If someone sees us up here, or if that guard wakes up and calls for help—”
Tiernan’s fingernails dug into my shoulder as he used me to heave himself back up to his feet. A pair of orange eyes glowed at us from the dark of the next floor, watching our descent. When we reached the bottom step, Orla flung herself out of her hiding spot and rushed to Tiernan’s other side.
“By the Three Magicians, you look terrible.” She choked on a watery laugh.
“Orla,” he breathed. “You’re alive… I thought… I promise I tried to stop him.”
“It’s okay,” she insisted. “I’m glad you’re alive too.”
Ciarán’s form took shape as we approached the shadows, giving a body to his glowing eyes. Tiernan tried to draw away, but I tightened my grip on him.
“Ciarán won’t hurt you. He’s not the one who had you in a jail cell,” I reminded him. “Ciarán, this is Tiernan. Tiernan, Ciarán.”
“You blew me up.” Ciarán tried to push off the wall to stand taller, but lifted a hand to the stone to steady himself.
“You were trying to kill us,” Tiernan replied.
“I wasn’t.” Ciarán narrowed his eyes.
“It doesn’t matter who blew up who. We’re all on the same side now, and that side needs to find Iseult quick. As soon as that guard upstairs wakes up, we’re finished.” I tried to look at Orla around Tiernan’s chest. “Any new ideas where she might be?”
Orla bit her lip. “Not really, but I know someone who might be able to help. Come on.” She nodded us in the direction of the main stairway. “No use sticking to hidden stairwells and back corridors anymore if we need to be fast.”
Orla took the bulk of Tiernan’s weight, helping him hobble forward, so I fell into step with Ciarán where he trailed behind.
“Feeling okay?” I asked.
“I want off this damn mountain,” he hissed.
“Then go. We can handle this.” I meant the words, but a thrill of irritation that wasn’t my own nagged at the back of my head. I rubbed my hair, as if I might feel Ciarán’s emotions tangled in the strands.
I knew he could feel my feelings through our connection, but this was the first time I’d felt his.
“I’m fine,” he said. “But maybe no more transformations if you can help it.”
“Drink some Skal. If we run into trouble, transformations are sort of my thing.”
Ciarán ran his fingers over the bottles at his hip. He’d already drained one of them, probably to bring me here, and he glanced wistfully at the Skalspring at the bottom of the city.
Faint blue light emanated from the pool, accentuating the edges of the city’s black stone as it reached upwards. Carefully carved railings, stairs, and arches intermixed with natural rock formations so that the city was a masterfully crafted mosaic of man-made edges and lava-formed ridges.