18. Geological Climatology II
The frostbitten wind of the Bay of Teeth was all the more painfully cold after the heat of the bath. I fought back against wind-whipped blue hair, catching glimpses of my grandmother through the dancing tresses.
“Gams!” I yelled over her storm. It crashed and burst overhead in a ceaseless display of dark clouds and forking lightning, highlighting my grandmother’s shape in flashes of blue.
She hadn’t moved from her spot ahead of the Rift, but sustaining the storm was clearly taking its toll on her, even in the few days since I’d last seen her.
While she still appeared much younger than she had in Keel Watch Harbor, new lines wrinkled the skin around her mouth and eyes.
After four hundred years in the ice, her real body was finally aging.
“I’ve been calling your name!” Her glasses caught the light of the sparks dancing between her fingertips, making her expression unreadable.
The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up, and lightning crashed into the ice twenty yards away.
Ice shards and water sprayed into the air, but Gams didn’t seem to notice, too busy pursing her lips at me disapprovingly.
“I didn’t hear you,” I said blankly. I hadn’t been sure I’d get to see her again, and I drank her in, unsure if this would be our last meeting.
“I should think you didn’t! You’ve damn near got a fortress built around your subconscious. Are you locking me out on purpose?”
“That’s probably Ciarán.”
“Ciarán?” Gams’s eyes narrowed. “You mean Liam? What is that boy doing in your head?”
“He’s keeping Ferrin out.” I fought the blush in my cheeks as I remembered just where I’d been when Gams had summoned me. Either Ciarán would have to let me drown, or…
I hoped he let me drown.
“You should be less worried about Ferrin’s mind getting into your head and more worried about where the rest of him is going.” She nodded at my feet, and I stepped back to take in the tiny spikes of ice that surrounded Gams in a half circle.
The shards clumped together, conglomerating in random bunches. I tilted my head to the side to try to better understand the pattern.
“Half his forces have retreated to the southeast, and a quarter of the Baron’s troops are going directly south.
” Gams juggled her electricity in one hand to point at a collection of ice clumps farther from the rest. “More armies show up every day, but they don’t worry me nearly as much as that Quillguard. ”
I stepped back again to better take in the shapes.
“They’re people?” I asked. “These represent the soldiers on the shore? Can you see them?”
I twisted around and fought back my hair to look into the sheets of ice, snow, and electricity that raged around us. I couldn’t see fifty yards away, let alone all the way to the shore.
“No,” Gams beamed, “but I’m the most powerful nocturmancer Skalterra has ever known.
I can sense their minds on the shore, and it’s easy to transcribe their location here.
And Ferrin’s troops, including the Eldguard woman, are on the move.
They’ve had two days already, and they’re out of my range.
Tell me you got south of the mountains and are somewhere safe. ”
I hesitated. Ferrin calling Caitria away from the Rift was definitely a bad sign. Tiernan’s sister was his co-conspirator in all this.
“I’m south of the mountains,” I confirmed.
“And you’re safe?” Gams glared.
“Sure.”
“Who are you with?”
“The other Sovereigns. A couple guards. Ciarán.” Heat returned to my cheeks as I said his name. Gams’s eyebrows rose.
“I told you once to be careful with Liam,” she warned.
“His name is Ciarán,” I reminded her. “And there’s nothing to worry about.”
“There are rules regarding Grimguards and Saergrims.”
“I know,” I said, too quickly.
“Wren—”
“Jonquil is with us too, if you care. I guess she peed on Sorcha’s pillow, so we took her with us in case Sorcha decided to cook her into a soup. And there’s a dog thing.”
“A dog thing?” Gams asked. “And what do you mean you took Jonquil? Why aren’t you with Sorcha and the others?”
“Because we’re coming to save you,” I blurted.
The electricity between her fingers sputtered out for a brief moment, and then exploded all at once, reigning an onslaught of forking lightning down from every angle.
I fell to the ice with my hands over my head to protect myself from the ensuing spray of ice shards, and when I lowered them, Gams glared at me with renewed fire in her eyes.
“You’re what?”
“You said that we can’t reseal you because we can’t make it through the storm!” I pointed to the cavern behind her. “But there’s another way to get to you!”
“That’s not possible! You can’t get to Keldori!”
“Yes! We can! You said it yourself! Find a Lyrian!”
“So they could reunite you with your mother after the Rift is blocked!” Gams squawked. “Not so you can risk your lives on my account!”
“That’s too bad.” I crossed my arms in a show of defiance, though I was sure I looked more ridiculous than anything as I was still on the ground. “We’ve already found a Lyrian, and she’s agreed to help us. We know Lyria used to visit her daughters in Keldori, now we just have to find her journals.”
“Leave me, Wren.” Gams’s anger faded into regret that hung heavy on her face. “I’ve lived my life. I want you to have the chance to live yours too.”
“Not without you.”
“Wren—”
“I had no control over my dream college waitlisting me,” I said. “I had no control over the fact that my father left me before I was even born. No control over my own consciousness for the last three months! But I’m doing this!”
I fought against Gams’s winds to stand up and face her. I was taller than she was. I had been since I’d turned eleven years old.
“I’m a Saergrim too,” I seethed. “I’m a Magician, and I can bend reality to my will just the same as you can. And I will do whatever it takes to keep you alive.” Magick cracked overhead, and a dull hunger growled inside me. “You can’t stop me.”
“I suppose not.” Gams’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “Perhaps it’s a good thing Ferrin’s troops are on the move. They’ll keep you occupied while my volcanoes brew. Stay safe, and remind that Grimguard of his oaths. He reminds me too much of Darragh.”
“Gams—”
“Too late, dear. You’re released.”
“Dammit!” I was yelling before my eyes were fully open. The air of the bathhouse felt heavy after being at the center of Gams’s storm, and I fought against it in an effort to sit up.
Wet hair slapped against my back, and a gentle hand on my shoulder lowered me back down before the cloak covering my body could slip off.
“Careful,” Orla hissed. “You’re not decent.”
I growled at the ceiling and held the hem of the cloak against my collar bone with one hand as I flung my other arm over my eyes.
Gams couldn’t stop me. I would do what I wanted. I would do what I could. But I needed her to stop talking as if this was the end for her. She’d lived four hundred years. She could spare to live a few decades more for my sake.
“Was it your grandmother?” Orla asked. “Ciarán said you’d said her name. She summoned you again, didn’t she?”
I groaned and pulled my arm away from my face to stare at the ceiling’s low barrel vault through the thick steam of the bathhouse.
“Where’s Ciarán?”
“Lurking in the stairwell, I think.” Orla lowered her voice. “I know you and your people are shy about bathing, so you’ll be happy to know he didn’t see anything. He kept your head above the water and called for help.”
It was a small relief.
“Thank you, Orla.” I held the damp cloak against myself as I sat and looked around the room, searching for my clothes. “My grandma said some of Ferrin’s troops have left the Bay of Teeth, including Caitria. He knows we’re looking for a back way into Keldori. You’re positive he won’t come here?”
“There’s always a chance,” she conceded, “but I don’t think he’ll check unless he has reason to do so. For all he knows, we could be anywhere.”
I’d been hoping for something more reassuring than that, but I nodded, and gestured for my clothes. She looked away as I pulled them on.
Ciarán was, in fact, lurking in the stairwell. He cast his eyes down when Orla and I rounded the corner.
“My Lady.” The tight bow of his head felt too formal after the bath we’d shared before Gams had interrupted. “Sorry for eavesdropping, but the others will want an update.”
He turned to retreat up the stairs before I had the chance to so much as nod, and a strange embarrassment rose in my gut. Yes, there were bigger things to worry about—much bigger, Earth-shattering things—but why couldn’t Ciarán look at me when we’d been so close just minutes before?
Fine.
If he wanted to be weird, I could be weird too. I spent the climb up the stairs running Gams’s words back over in my head, pushing thoughts of Ciarán to the furthest recesses of my mind, which was just as well, because that’s where he liked to lurk anyway.
Fana, Iseult, and Tiernan waited in the main chamber. Iseult paced in front of the copper wall plate while Tiernan tapped his foot listlessly against the stone floor.
Fana’s head jerked up from where she held Jonquil in her lap.
“Did you drown?” she blurted.
“Don’t worry,” Orla assured her. “Just-Wren is just fine.”
She flashed me a grin, but I couldn’t find the energy to return it.
“What did the Saergrim want?” Iseult demanded. “Your Grimguard said she’s the one who summoned you.”
I recounted most of what Gams had said, leaving out the parts about dying grandmothers.
“They probably went back to the Second Sentinel,” Orla offered. “Maybe to get supplies.”
She glanced at Tiernan, as if hoping he could somehow confirm his sister was just on a prolonged snack run and not coming our way.
“Ferrin knows we have a plan,” I said. “And he knows Gams isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He’s going to try to stop us or figure out this secret door himself.”
“And the Saergrim said they left two days ago?” Iseult repeated softly. “How far can Caitria have gotten in two days?”
“Far,” Ciarán said.
“This far?”