9. Environmental Physiology #2
“And don’t use Skal if you can help it,” Orla said. “It’s going to be hard to pretend to be a Quillguard if you’ve got orange magick.”
“No Skal. Got it.” I looked to Ciarán, but he continued to refuse to look my way and leaned against the wall for support. “Are you good?”
“Get out of here, Blue,” he growled. “We want to be fast.”
“Forgive me for asking,” I snapped back and strode around the corner and out onto the walkway.
The Second Sentinel opened up beneath me as I walked towards the railing. I craned my head back to look at the stairs that glittered in the swath of sky visible through the open mountain top.
“Alright, Ferrin,” I murmured to myself. “What could be so difficult about a prison break?”
I ran a hand through his swooped brown hair and then scratched at my neatly trimmed beard. Facial hair, I decided, was an absolute sensory nightmare. I pulled a strand from my chin, and the tiny bit of hair turned to Skaldust in my fingers.
As terrible as the habit was, plucking the hair steeled my resolve and settled my nerves. I pushed away from the railing and marched towards the sweeping steps ahead.
“Shoulders back,” Ciarán hissed in my head. “And longer strides.”
I adjusted my gait but scowled as I took the first stairs.
“Are you done pouting then?” I hoped my mental voice sounded like my own in Ciarán’s head instead of Ferrin’s.
“You mean because I wouldn’t look at you? You’ll have to forgive me. The Quillguard killed my parents.”
My stomach tightened. “He killed Orla’s mother, too. She was just fine.”
“She’s still fond of the man, even after everything.”
“No,” I asserted. “She’s definitely not.”
Ciarán hummed noncommittally in my head.
I reached the top of the first staircase, but I still had another floor to ascend before I reached the prison suite. I tried to peer into the darkness that shrouded the off-shooting corridors, but Ciarán chided me.
“Stop gawking and try to look like you know what you’re doing.”
“How about you stop lurking in my head and focus on trying to catch your breath?”
“Aw, Blue, are you worried about me?”
“I’m worried about Orla,” I snapped. “If you pass out, I’ll disappear too, and Orla will be left alone to fend for herself.”
“Lady Quill is stronger than you give her credit for.”
I bristled. Orla was wonderful and talented and maybe just a tiny bit of a disaster, but I knew what she was capable of better than Ciarán did.
I didn’t dignify him with a response and instead focused on the way the sky seemed to open up more the farther up the stairs I traveled.
Up here, the mountain came to a narrow peak, only about fifty yards in diameter.
The prison cells lined the perimeter of the wall, each one made of bars and stone.
“Lord Ferrin.”
I jumped at the voice and turned around to see a guard in simple, leather armor standing near a wall. His bow was sloppy, and askew goggles suggested he may have been sleeping leaned up against the stone.
“Yes, hi.” I returned the bow, though not nearly as deeply, and cleared my throat, still unused to Ferrin’s voice. “I’m, uh, here to…”
I trailed off. I should’ve rehearsed this in my head on my way up, but I’d been too distracted by Ciarán.
“My Lord?” the guard prompted. A green pike made of Skalmagick buzzed in his hand, scoring a mark into the stone where he rested its butt.
“Were you sleeping on the job?” I forced authority into my tone.
The guard’s cheeks reddened. “No, my Lord. You caught me unprepared is all. You haven’t visited the prisoner all week, and it’s late—”
“This late hour is when you should be most alert,” I snarled, “because it’s when our enemies are at their most active.”
“Of course. Sorry, my Lord.” The guard bowed deeper this time.
“Nice work,” Ciarán chuckled.
“It’s fine, um, soldier,” I said, though the guard cocked his head at the title. I cleared my throat again. “The prisoner, though. Where’s…”
I pivoted, taking stock of the twenty or so empty prison cells.
“This way, my Lord.” The guard led me down the walkway, passing empty cells as we went.
“You don’t need to keep saying ‘my Lord’,” I said.
“It’s what you asked us to call you, my Lord.”
“Sure, but using it every time you speak is sort of overkill, don’t you think?”
“I’m not sure you pay us to think.” He hesitated, and his lips twitched then twisted in a wry smile when he omitted his ‘my Lord’.
I tried to make my laugh sound genuine. Ferrin was always laughing. I’d thought that made him kind, but then he’d laughed when he’d been cruel too.
My forced laugh came out too loud, and the guard winced.
“Oh. Sorry.” I cleared my throat again, hoping I came off as casually likable as Ferrin. “And things have been quiet lately?”
“Things are always quiet up here.”
“Oh, I mean in general.”
“Stop making small talk.” Ciarán growled. “Get Iseult, and get out.”
“In general, my Lord?”
“You know,” my cracking voice betrayed my nerves, “with everything happening that’s been happening.”
“‘With everything happening that’s been happening?’” Ciarán repeated in a mental hiss.
“Everyone believes in what you’re doing, if that’s what you mean,” the guard said.
“And what is it I’m doing?”
“Destroying the Frozen God and taking Keldori for the Second Sentinel, my Lord. We have long watched over Skalterra and kept it safe. It is time we did the same for Keldori.”
“Yes. Right.” Ferrin had at least given his people some version of the truth, then. The thought was less comforting than I’d hoped it would be. “Very good. You, um, you pass.”
The guard cocked an eyebrow at me over his round goggles, and I did my best to appear as self-assured as Ferrin always looked.
“The prisoner, as requested.” He stopped at the bars of the only occupied prison cell and stepped aside so I could better see Iseult where she curled against the far wall with her head against her knees.
The gloom of the cell made it difficult to discern her features, and I thought the green glow of the guard’s pike must’ve been playing tricks on my eyes because instead of Iseult’s long silver hair, I was looking at dark, twisted locks.
The prisoner raised their head to watch us, and green light cast shadows that highlighted the bruises and scrapes that marred the face of Tiernan Eldguard.