10. Persuasive Communication #3
I followed close behind with Ciarán at my heels, and the curved ceiling swallowed the patch of night sky that looked down into the mountain city.
New stars glittered straight ahead, and I couldn’t bear it any longer.
I hurried ahead of Orla and Tiernan, needing to know if Iseult was there or not, with Ciarán right behind me.
I exited into a roughly hewn cavern from between the two, massive stone feet of the Quill statue that towered overhead.
Stone lanterns cast jagged green shadows across the floor and up the lava pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling.
Green Skal-light fluttered in the breeze that rolled in from the open wall ahead.
There, with her legs dangling through the open wall over the cliff side and her long silver hair shining in the light of the dual moons, a young woman looked out at an expanse of stars hanging over the glittering lake below.
“Iseult!” My relief and surprise brought her name to my lips.
The young woman turned to lock eyes with mine, her hair twisting in the breeze. Her silver knight’s armor clinked as she stood, and her left leg, replaced with a Skal-made prosthetic, cast a silver halo around her.
“You.” She somehow managed to make the single syllable sound like a threat.
“I know.” I looked sideways at the stairs that disappeared into rock. Our exit was so close, but Iseult’s tone implied there was still work to do before we’d be allowed to leave. “I’m back, and you need to come with us. We can explain—”
Iseult didn’t give me a chance to explain. Instead, she charged.
Ciarán intercepted her path, drawing a pair of orange scythes from the air.
“Wait!” I tried to warn him. “She’s a Skalbreaker!”
But Ciarán was already swinging his scythes at Iseult. She grabbed the blades midair, and they dissipated into steam. She pivoted on her right foot to bring her leg of Skal crashing into Ciarán. He tried to hook his arm around her replacement knee, but Skal sizzled against leather and flesh.
He kept his bearings, however, and swept Iseult off her foot, bringing her collapsing to the ground.
“We can knock her out,” Ciarán suggested grimly. “Carry her down the mountain.”
“You killed my grandfather!” Iseult shrieked up at me. I stepped back. If she touched me, I’d dissolve as easily as Ciarán’s scythes had. “You killed Orla!”
“No, she didn’t! I’m right here!” Orla staggered out of the tunnel at the statue’s feet, still supporting most of Tiernan’s weight.
“Orla?” Iseult’s face paled, and her shock was so great that her leg of Skal flickered out of existence. She backpedaled on the heels of her hands, shaking her head. “But that’s not possible. They said—Ferrin—”
“They’ve been lying to you,” Orla said. “They lied to all of us.”
Iseult’s eyes softened, and I wondered for a moment if perhaps Orla’s one-sided affection for Iseult wasn’t so one-sided after all.
“Tiernan.” Iseult’s leg reformed as she gathered your bearing. “You’re alive too? Then is my grandfather—”
“Galahad’s dead,” I said. “Ferrin killed him. He tried to kill the rest of us too.”
“Ferrin told me that you’re working for him.” She pointed a quaking hand at Ciarán. “You say Ferrin’s a liar, but obviously that was the truth”
“Technically, Ciarán works for me, but it’s a long story and one I’d rather tell you outside the Second Sentinel.”
“But you opened the Rift! The Frozen God is free!”
“That was Ferrin too!” I said.
“The Grimguard attacked my home.”
“That was more of a misunderstanding than anything, and nobody died!”
“And he just suggested knocking me out!”
“Only because we can’t beat Ferrin without you!”
“You’re lying.” Iseult’s voice wavered, and she climbed back to her feet. “It’s a trick.”
“Ferrin told you I was dead,” Orla said. “You know that was a lie.”
Iseult’s brow softened again when Orla spoke. She at least hadn’t dissolved me into nothing yet, and that counted for something. We were getting through to her, and Orla was right. Her being here was proof that Ferrin had—
Lied.
Ferrin had lied. But—
“Orla.” My stomach knotted. “Orla, Ferrin told Iseult you were dead.”
“Yes.”
“And he said the same thing to Tiernan.”
“He did,” Tiernan confirmed.
“So why did Cade know you were still alive?”
Heavy silence fell over the cavern, and Orla’s face screwed up.
“Oh. Well—” She struggled for an answer, but a quiet panic furrowed her brow, and her shoulders heaved as her breathing hitched.
Why would Ferrin tell Cade the truth when he was lying to everyone else?
An echoing laugh interrupted the uneasy quiet, and all the color drained from Orla’s flushed cheeks.
“That’s what I’ve always loved best about you, Just-Wren!
” a voice called out from the entry tunnel.
Green light flickered in the tunnel’s depths, glinting off the circular rims of Skal-goggles and playing with the upturned cockatoo hair of Ferrin Quillguard.
“You notice the little things that no one else does!”
Ferrin stopped between the stone feet of the giant statue and crossed his arms as a second figure formed in the shadows behind him.
Cade stepped forward, less intimidating than Ferrin in his scholar’s robes that dragged in the dirt, but somehow so much more horrible.