40. Office Hours
Everything was light. Searing, metallic, too-bright light, and I fell through it like a stone through air.
And there was plenty of stone, too, dropping through the Skal all around us as the cavern collapsed overhead.
A sharp current tried to rip me from Ciarán’s arms, but he held tight, which was good, because I couldn’t bring myself to hold onto anything.
Tiernan was supposed to come with us.
Skal burned my eyes, but I kept them open against the searing stream. Ciarán’s dark hair was dyed a golden brown in the omnipresent light, and his face stark white, making his dark sclera stand out all the darker. His eyes were narrowed and full of wrath and fire above the hem of his cowl.
The Skal turned heavy, pressing against me as darkness closed in.
I grabbed onto Ciarán as Skal turned to water and the tunnel turned dark the farther down we were sucked into its depths.
The current jerked us to the side, then spit us out, pushing us forward once more to slam us into a wall. I hid against Ciarán’s chest as my own chest screamed for air.
The water stilled. Ciarán fingers dug into my back, and his body against mine was the only thing that existed in this oppressive, dark space.
I wasn’t sure which way was up or down, I only knew that Ciarán was still here, so I held tighter.
Something brushed against my leg and then pushed between us, nosing her way between our chests until we draped over her muscled back.
Water gushed past, then broke.
“There they are!” a voice cried.
The sound of splashing reverberated through the space, and I tried to wipe water from my eyes as Una dragged Ciarán and me to the edge of the pool where we’d surfaced.
“We’re okay,” Ciarán grunted, pushing wet hair back from his face. He reached for me across Una’s back, but I pushed him away.
“No, we’re not,” I rasped.
He was right, of course. We’d made it. Caitria would not be following us. No one could after Tiernan had collapsed the cavern. Lyria’s doorway was sealed.
But Tiernan…
Hands heaved us out of the pool and onto smooth rock.
In one direction, the calm, dark water stretched into shadow.
In the other, the rock rose in a smooth wall dotted with climbable outcroppings.
The light of Iseult’s leg was duller here, and the light of our Skal bottles non-existent all together, but sunshine tinged the distant cavern ceiling in rays of muted gold.
Orla’s arms wrapped around me. I leaned into her, shifting forward on my knees, but I couldn’t find it in me to embrace her back.
“Where’s Tiernan?” Fana’s voice, small and wavering, reverberated off stone and water.
I brought my arms around Orla to press my hands against my eyes, but I would not cry. I dug my fingernails into my skin, then dragged my hands away from my face and stood up.
I found Fana holding Jonquil against her chest. Water weighed on my clothes and left sopping foot prints in my wake as I crossed the rock to her. I bent down on one knee like I’d seen Tiernan do, and Fana stared down at me with a chin she tried to keep from quivering.
“My Lady Fana Fireld,” I said through a tightening throat. “Tiernan has fulfilled his duty to you as your Eldguard. Caitria will never bother you again. You’ll be safe here.”
Fana shook her head.
“Where’s Tiernan?” she asked, softer this time.
I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
“He’s gone,” Ciarán murmured. “I’m sorry, Fana.”
Fana turned rigid, her eyes too cold for someone so young.
“I told you,” Fana whispered. “None of you believed me before we went to the Second Sentinel. But I told you he was good.”
“You were right.” I pulled her in, and while she was perfectly quiet, her tiny frame shook with silent sobs.
Fana refused to leave the cave, and Orla refused to leave her side, so I left Iseult to watch over them and climbed the rock wall with Ciarán to survey where we’d landed. I’d stripped off my armor and boots, but my wet clothes still made climbing difficult.
We climbed into a chamber dusted in fine sand that clung to my shins, knees, and hands when I pulled myself over the lip of the rock.
The smooth walls of the ocean-hewn rock reflected daylight from around a bend up ahead.
Seagulls squabbled in the distance, their screeching cries echoing through the cave.
I staggered forward in the sand and turned the corner.
Waves crashed against a sandy beach at low tide, and a sea lion barked somewhere out of sight. A man played fetch with a golden retriever in the white wash, keeping out of the way of the surfers that carved paths in the waves fifty yards away.
Sand slipped between my toes as I walked out into the rising sun. The bluff that housed our cave cast long shadows across the beach, but despite the early hour and the sea breeze, the air was warm and the world so much brighter than I remembered.
Palm trees towered atop the cliff and I craned my head back in time to see a pelican soar between their swaying trunks.
“Is this Keldori?” Warm light tinged Ciarán’s cheeks in orange. He froze at the sight of a boardwalk extending into the ocean another mile down the beach. Beyond that, buildings glinted in the rising sun where a city overlooked the ocean. “Did we make it?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“It doesn’t look much how I remember it.”
“We’re in California. It’s farther south than we need to be,” I admitted, “but that’s okay. I know where to go.”
I dropped to my knees and lifted a fistful of sand just to watch the grains slip through my fingers and catch on the wind. I pressed my lips together.
“I’m sorry, Wren.” Ciarán sat in the sand next to me.
“Don’t be. I made it home.” The words were cold in my heart and hollow in my mouth.
“There was no saving him. We were outnumbered. Even if we’d killed Caitria, her men would’ve followed us, and eventually Ferrin would’ve come too. Tiernan knew what he was doing when he brought the whole place down.”
“Ciarán?” I whispered through our tether.
“Yes, Wren?” he whispered back.
I closed my eyes, letting the morning light percolate across my eyelids. “Nothing. I just wanted to make sure the connection still works on this side of the Rift.”
“I’ve told you before. You will never be rid of me,” he said aloud.
“Right,” I sighed. “Because Tiernan destroyed Lyria’s doorway. You’re trapped here now.”
“Does that make you happy?”
“No.” I leaned my head against his shoulder and blinked at the surf.
“And why not, my Lady?”
“I want you to stay with me because you want to. Not because you’re forced to.”
“Then I guess it’ll come down to what side of the Rift I’m standing on when you reseal your grandmother.”
I dug my fingers into the sand.
He could still leave me. It was strangely reassuring. His role of Grimguard had left him with so little agency. I did not want to be a reason he had even less.
“You chose this location because you recognized the coastline in the stone, correct?” Ciarán asked. “Have you been here before?”
“Never.” As much as I wanted to stay in the sand, leaning against Ciarán as the sun rose behind us, we still had work to do. I stood and brushed sand from my pants, scanning the bluff. “But I know someone who works nearby.”
“Who?”
An unwilling grin tugged on my lips.
“You’ve met him before, actually.” I turned from the bluff to look into Ciarán’s glowing eyes. He’d have to mute them if he wanted to blend in here, but for now, the orange and dark sclera emboldened me. “Would you like to visit my father?”
Iseult, Orla, and Fana were to stay in the cave with Una and Jonquil. We’d draw less attention if just Ciarán and I ventured out, and while he only had twenty-four hours worth of memories in Keldori, it was better than nothing.
I tried to fix our looks the best I could with what we had.
I gave him back his blue Von Leer hoodie—it was his after all—and managed to brush out the tangles the doorway water had left in his hair.
If I ignored the leather trousers, boots, and the massive, patched-up hole in the hoodie, he passed as decently presentable.
I opted for my green dress from Willow’s Grave. It stood a better chance at being passed off as avant-garde fashion than my brown tunic, though both looked like they belonged at a fantasy festival. Liam’s old backpack slung over my back helped to ground the overall look.
“We’ll probably be a few hours,” I warned. “But I promise, when we come back, we’ll have food, fresh clothes, and a way north.”
“I’m very excited to see Keldori,” Orla insisted, but she was putting on a brave face for Fana, who still hadn’t been able to bring herself to speak.
“You’re going to love it.” I hugged her goodbye, and she stepped back.
Her hand brushed against Iseult’s, and then their fingers hooked together. I nodded at them, assured in the fact that they had each other, and then climbed back to the beach with Ciarán.
We walked along the shore in the opposite direction of the pier, though another one loomed miles ahead in this direction as well. Houses that I would never be able to afford stood at the top of sea cliffs, and Ciarán watched them with widening eyes.
With his eyes amber again, and wearing the Von Leer hoodie, he did look so much like Liam. Sure, he was paler, slightly shorter, and his hair dark in its bun, but other than that, he looked just as his Nightmare had.
We passed early-morning beach goers, and I sighed in relief when none of them looked too hard at us.
The air was thick with salt and Skal. I had never noticed it before, how heavy our atmosphere was and the way it buzzed it against my skin as it brimmed with magick. It collected in my cells with every breath I drew in, just a little bit at a time, but enough for me to feel it burn in my stomach.
If I held the magick in, my ulcers would eventually return, but if I let the magick out, I wasn’t sure the volcanoes surrounding Gams could take it.
“Does your father live in one of these buildings?” Ciarán murmured, taking in a particularly lavish oceanside mansion with stone columns and sweeping windows.