6. Wilderness Expedition Management
When the farewell song of Darragh’s Watch faded, diluted on the mountain winds, the doubt crept in.
Ciarán carried the music himself for a time, singing quietly as he led us through gulleys, up bluffs, and over landslides dislodged by the earthquake, but something about his low voice wrapped around the haunting quality of the song made me more nervous than anything.
I’d wanted this. I’d demanded this.
But every step deeper into the mountains, crunching over ice and snow, piled on more simmering panic.
I’d seen the dangers Skalterra had to offer, and I’d barely survived that as a Nightmare. Now I was in my real body. My real, broken, ulcer-ridden body that could hardly manage hiking rocky inclines and clambering over boulders, let alone fighting Magicians and monsters.
The sun sat directly overhead when Ciarán finally let the song die.
Nervous humming at the back of my mind took its place, vibrating along the tether that connected me to Ciarán.
He was keeping his thoughts to himself, but I could feel them like electricity coursing along the edges of my skull.
Whatever it was he was mulling over in his head, it had his thoughts in a flurry, and their accompanying anxiety leaked through our bond to weigh heavy in my stomach.
We’d been walking for the better part of the day when Ciarán finally came to rest at a shallow cave carved into a cliffside. Its wide mouth offered a view of a glacier field, and we crowded around a crackling fire to stare at the Second Sentinel where it rose, steep and austere, into the sky.
“The glacier field is bigger than it looks from here.” Orla reached for her toes where she sat, stretching after a long day of hiking. “Probably another day of walking before we make it to the entrance, but the city is hidden inside the peak, carved out of the mountain.”
Fana whispered to herself, then clutched her pack tighter in her lap when we all turned her way. “Why are you all looking at me?”
“You said something,” Orla prompted.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Anyway.” Ciarán stood to better survey the landscape below. “Where’s the mountain entrance?”
“We came out behind a waterfall when Ferrin brought us to the Bay of Teeth.” Orla scanned the mountain, then pointed, but I couldn’t see the waterfall from where I leaned against Liam’s backpack on the cold floor of the cave. “Our city looks out this direction, so Ferrin will probably be watching.”
“Then he’ll definitely see us crossing that glacier,” Ciarán mused.
“The city is high enough that low clouds could cover us.”
“We can’t waste time waiting for bad weather.” Ciarán shook his head.
“What about Wren?” Orla asked. “Her grandma can make storms, so maybe she can too.”
“Wren can’t even make a proper sword.” Ciarán gave a low laugh. “If she tried to make clouds, they’d probably drop flails on us.”
I wanted to snap back, but he was probably right. Instead, I asked Orla, “Where does the water from the waterfall go?”
“All the way to the Bay of Teeth, I’m pretty sure, but we couldn’t see the river because the waterfall disappeared under the ice.”
“And if a river can run under a glacier, so can we.” Ciarán grinned. “Maybe you’ll prove useful on this journey after all, Blue.”
I sneered back as I snaked my hand up my shirt to rest on my bruised ribs. Sorcha had made healing magick sound simple. It was just about creating a matrix to help the existing cells grow.
I could do that. Maybe. I’d made mold once. This couldn’t be that much more difficult.
Heat flared in my palm, and I flinched at the familiar pain that always accompanied healing Magick.
But it had to be a good sign that it felt the same way it had when Sorcha had tended to the injuries.
Plus, I was able to tap into my own pain to guide the magick to where I needed it the most. I forced myself to relax against the stone ground, and the pain of the magick loosened.
“Once we’re in the mountain,” Ciarán continued, “how do we get to the city?”
I grimaced. I knew from experience how taxing of a walk up the inside of the Sentinel Second was.
“There’s a lift, but that’s out of the question if we’re sneaking in.” Orla sighed. “We’ll have to stick to maintenance shafts, and Wren and Fana can wait by the lake on the other side of the mountain.”
“What?” I tried to sit up, but my ribs protested, and I collapsed back against Liam’s backpack. Ciarán scoffed where he kept guard at the mouth of the cave, and I tried to glare at him from the corner of my eye.
“We’re grabbing Iseult and getting out,” Orla explained. “I’ll go because I know the way, and Ciarán can come with me in case things go south and I need the backup.”
I knew I was in no condition to sneak into Ferrin’s hidden mountain fortress, and a month ago, I would’ve been more than happy to sit out any adventures, but my palms itched with anticipation.
“Careful, Blue,” Ciarán hissed in my head. “You’ll catch fire.”
I curled my fingers into fists to snuff out the tiny blue sparks of Magick I hadn’t noticed coming off my palms. I pressed my hand back against my ribs to put the itching magick to a more productive use.
“But we want to help,” Fana asserted. “And what about Tiernan?”
“Tiernan?” Ciarán asked.
“He’s the one who blew you up,” I snorted. “We don’t know what Ferrin and his sister have told him, so he might try blowing you up again.”
“He wouldn’t,” Fana insisted.
“And,” Orla continued, “Iseult might try to blow you up too, considering you attacked her home not that long ago.”
Ciarán itched at his chest armor, possibly remembering the burn scars Tiernan has left splashed across his torso there.
“Then it’s settled. Fana and I will come up the mountain with you,” I said. “Everyone wants to blow you up, so you'll need us.”
“We need you out of the way,” Ciarán snapped.
“But I want to help.” Fana set her chin down on her bag and glared at the camp fire.
“You will help,” Orla assured her. “Just-Wren worked hard keeping you safe this summer, and now you get to keep her safe while you wait by the lake.”
“Then promise me you won’t let him hurt Tiernan.” Fana pointed a finger at Ciarán.
“If Tiernan is a good boy who stays out of the way and lets us take the Lyrian, I won’t touch him,” Ciarán promised.
Fana frowned at Ciarán and hugged her pack tighter.
A muffled meow made Fana’s eyes grow wide, and she stared resolutely at the fire as we all turned to look at her again.
“Fana?” Orla prodded. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Fana feigned innocence and fought to keep a straight face as another meow sounded from inside her pack.
Ciarán crossed the cave to rip the bag from Fana’s thin arms. A cloud of fur leapt out and bolted to hide in the far corner of our cave. Once there, Jonquil tried to reclaim her dignity by sitting back on her haunches and licking a blonde paw while she glared at us over her flat nose.
“You stole my grandmother’s cat?” I forced myself into a sitting position, aching ribs be damned.
“I don’t want her to get volcanoed.” Fana shrugged. “Sorcha said we packed food.”
“Yes, for us!” I seethed. “We can’t take a cat with us!”
“Why not?” Ciarán scooped Jonquil into his arms, and she batted at a bit of leather string that hung from his vambrace. “We’re already traveling with a child and whatever you want to call yourself. What’s one more helpless creature tagging along?”
“I’m not a helpless creature,” I retorted
“Oh, please.” Ciarán grinned. “At least the cat can fend for herself.”
“I can make a better flail than Jonquil.”
Ciarán laughed, though I wasn’t sure if it was with me or at me.
I opened my mouth to follow up with a better retort, but a haunting, grating howl, like claws raking down a stone wall, silenced all of us.
My heart jumped into my throat, and Ciarán dropped Jonquil into Fana’s lap as he returned to the mouth of the cave.
“That was a rotsbane,” Orla hissed.
I turned cold at the thought of the horrible, shadow-shrouded, four-armed beasts that scoured Skalterra in search of magick to devour.
“They almost never come north of the mountains,” Ciara hissed.
“Except for that one, apparently,” I snapped back.
“The Rift is open,” Ciarán said. “They can probably smell Keldori. They want the Skal.”
“Are we safe here?” Orla asked.
“Keep the Skal bottles closed. No magick.” Ciarán looked at me, and the warmth in my palms dissipated. “It’s daytime, so it’s stuck in the shadows of the ravine. We can rest without it bothering us as long as the sun is up.”
The rotsbane howled again, sounding like someone screaming inward with air grating over strained vocal cords. Orla shifted closer to me.
“It’ll be okay,” I insisted, though she knew I had no reason to be so certain.
“I don’t want it to hurt you.”
“I’m not a Nightmare.” I forced a breathy laugh, but my palms had turned slick with sweat. “It can’t devour my consciousness.”
“It can still rip you apart.”
“And you,” I reminded her.
“No one is getting ripped apart today.” Ciarán settled on the floor to lean against the cave opening. Jonquil abandoned Fana to curl in his lap, swishing her tail in apprehension. “Sleep. All of you. We have until sunset.”
I settled back against Liam’s backpack with my travel cloak over me like a blanket, but it was a long time before I fell asleep.
Rotsbane and their insatiable appetite for Skal were terrifying, but worse than being torn apart by one, I couldn’t shake the memory of my own body being stripped away when I’d almost given in to that same hunger.
I’d be a rotsbane, too, screaming that painful howl, if Ciarán hadn’t stopped me.
Ciarán woke us soon after nightfall, and our silent trek towards the Second Sentinel continued, taking us down precarious trails of sleet-covered rock towards the glacier field.
Jonquil watched me as we walked, her squished face peeking out from over Fana’s shoulder. She always looked angry, but something about her permanent scowl tonight felt extra pointed, like she knew all this was my fault.