31. Intro to Tides and Currents #2
He bowed his head in respect. “I do not ‘let’ the Saergrim do anything, my Lady. She commands me. I obey.”
“Oh-ho! Is that right?” A sardonic grin spread wide across Mom’s face. “I’m her mother. What I say goes, alright? You hear me, Wren? If I say you go back to Sorcha, then you go back to Sorcha!”
“We are.” I turned away, unable to look her in the eye. “We’re going back to Sorcha. I’m not coming home.”
A pregnant pause fell over the cave, pressing against its confines, until Mom broke through.
“Oh. Well, good.” She couldn’t hide her tone’s disappointment, and I wondered how much of her had been hoping I’d disobey. “Wren, that’s good. You’ll be safe. I—have you been crying?”
Fresh tears bit behind my eyes, but I kept them contained. “I wanted to come back.”
“I know.” She pulled me against her, wrapping me in her arms. I’d lived with her my entire life. I never would again. “I wanted you home, too, but it’s better this way. Okay? I promise. You’ll be safe.”
I nodded wordlessly against her chin. I wouldn’t let her see me cry. She would be sad too. I didn’t want to burden her with my grief on top of hers.
She kept her own emotions at bay as well and pulled away to scan the cave. “Where are your other friends, then? I assume they’ll be going on to Lyria’s doorway. I didn’t get the chance to write the last bit down. I imagine they’ll want to hear it.”
“The notebook wasn’t complete?” Ciarán’s voice turned sharp, and Mom struck a face at his tone.
“It was mostly complete, and excuse me, I was fighting off a small army as I tried to finish it.” Mom narrowed her eyes at me. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? You look pale.”
“You tried to finish it?” Ciarán pressed.
“I did finish it!” she amended. “The notes I gave you will get your friends to the sea cave where Lyria’s door is located, but I need to warn them about the tides.”
My heart pounded painfully in my chest, and I rose to my feet too quickly and clung to the cave wall to steady myself as the floor tilted beneath me. “What about the tides?”
“It’s fine! I mean, if they don’t time it exactly right, they’ll drown, but that’s why I need to speak to them. So where are they?” She turned in the cave, then froze when her gaze landed on Una. “Where the hell did you get an onchú?”
“Drown?” I repeated.
Ciarán’s face reflected my own horror back at me.
“Lyria’s secret door to Keldori is located in a system of sea caves off the soutwestern coast. There’s a string of islands there,” Mom explained as Una approached to sniff her hand.
“They’ll be able to access the caves, but unless they enter at the correct time, the tide will rise, trapping them inside and drowning them. ”
“And the notebook you gave me, it doesn’t include any of that?” My voice shook. I’d tried to play the martyr and had sent my friends to their death in doing so.
“No, Wren. A crazy woman with a rope dart attacked me before I had the chance to write it down,” Mom snapped, but then her face softened, and she looked around the cave again, more slowly this time. “Your friends. Where are they?”
I leaned against the wall, trying to quell my rising panic.
“They went on ahead with the notebook,” Ciarán said. “We stayed behind to help Willow’s Grave. That’s why we were returning to Sorcha.”
“Then go after them!” Mom snapped.
“They’re two days ahead of us!”
Mom’s face turned pale. “And is there no way to contact them?”
Ciarán shook his head.
“But you’re a nocturmancer,” I said. “You know their names! You can contact them that way!”
“But I don’t know their names,” Ciarán reminded me. “Not their full names, anyway. I already told you. Eldguard, Quill, and Fireld, those are all titles.”
“How far can they have gotten?” Mom asked.
“As far as the nearest steamtrail station,” Ciarán admitted. “Which means, they could be anywhere.”
“But we know where they’re going.” My voice hitched. There had to be a solution. We hadn’t come this far just so our friends could drown. “And we have Una!”
“Wren—”
“We have to try! Ciarán, they’ll drown!”
“They might not if they go into the cave at the right time!”
“That’s a big if! And if they die, then the Rift doesn’t get resealed, and Gams—”
I cut off. Gams would die too. The volcanoes would blow, and Ferrin would eventually tunnel through the resulting rock and into Keldori. This would all be for nothing.
Mom sighed, and her braid fell forward as she put her face in her hands. Her shoulders heaved, and she straightened back up, pushing her hair back.
A new notebook and pen appeared in her hands, and she braced them against the wall of the cave as she scribbled instructions, mumbling as she went.
“Is that—” I started, but Ciarán held a finger to his lips behind Mom’s back.
She was writing out the missing instructions. My heart hammered.
We’d have to be fast to catch up to the others. Hopefully Una was up for the journey, because we’d never make it on foot.
And Mom—she trusted me to take care of myself. Finally.
She’d been so adamantly against me leaving Sorcha, but now, she had no choice but to believe that I could do this. That I would do this.
Mom clicked her pen closed and whirled to face Ciarán. She pressed the notebook into his chest. “Take Wren back to Willow’s Grave. She’ll be safe there until I’m able to tell Sorcha and Aoife to send someone for her. I understand the citadel is a hospitable city.”
“Wren’s a wanted criminal in Willow’s Grave,” Ciarán said.
“I’d rather have her alive in jail than dead in a sea cave. Besides, you’ll travel faster alone, especially with an onchú.”
“Wait.” I staggered forward, holding onto a protruding root of glowing opal for support. New panic washed over me. Going back to Sorcha was one thing, but going back without Ciarán? And while my friends were in danger? “You can’t leave me.”
“I care about two things right now,” Mom said. “Avoiding the end of the world as we know it, and keeping my daughter alive. And you know which one I care about more, Wren? Go ahead. Take a guess.”
“I’ll be fine,” I insisted even as my head spun from standing for too long.
The longer we argued, the less time we had to catch up to the others. Every second wasted here was a second closer to their deaths in Lyria’s caves.
Mom kept her back to me, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “Lyria knew her doorway. She knew the tides. She knew how to get to Keldori and back, and I understand she did so frequently. And do you know what happened to her?”
I shook my head, but Ciarán answered.
“She disappeared,” he said. “And then she washed up dead on the shores of the New Kingdom.”
“Lyria’s doorway wasn’t even safe for Lyria,” Mom spat. “And you still have half a continent to cross. I wish you could come home, but I’d rather have you alive. The Grimguard goes alone.”
“Mom—”
“Do not test me, Wren!” She still had her back to me, but her voice was tight. “I would love to be selfish and bring you back home to me, but what sort of mother would I be if I sent you to your death?”
She wanted me home. I wanted to be there with her. I could save my friends, the worlds, and Gams, and get back to her.
I’d never questioned my mother’s judgement.
Until very, very recently.
“Mom?” Resolve settled like steel in my stomach. “Look at me.”
She hesitated, then slowly turned back so I could see the red that rimmed her eyes and the tears that rolled down her cheeks. She’d been trying so hard to hide it from me.
“Wren—” she started, but I cut her off.
“I’ll see you soon.” I had no Skal left in my system, but it was easy to pull Ciarán’s magick down the bond when he wasn’t expecting it.
Blue fire burst in my hand, solidified into a knife point, and drove into her chest. Mom, plush robe, slippers, and all, dissolved into dust at my feet.
Una pawed at the ash with a talon, and Ciarán and I stared at the space where my mother’s Nightmare had just been standing.
“She’ll be fine,” I said before he could reprimand me.
“She’s going to kill you.”
“I have to survive the trip home if she wants to do that.” I glanced around, taking stock of our provisions. Orla, Fana, Iseult, and Tiernan needed us. “When do we leave?”
Ciarán heaved a labored sigh and ran his hands through his hair, shaking out his bun so he could retie it in a tighter knot.
“Whenever you are ready, though I’m assuming that’s now.”
Blue embers sparked in my hands. I hated how much I’d missed the buzz of Skal in my veins.
“In a moment,” I said. “First, I think we might need more blood.”