11. Familial Psychology
I hated the sound of Ferrin’s laughter. It mocked us, jovial and cruel, with each echoing bounce off the high walls and ceiling.
“Truly, Wren, bravo!” He punctuated the words with a sardonic round of applause. “You would’ve done great at Von Leer. Word of advice, next time you apply to college, don’t try to kill the admissions officer, alright?”
“Cade?” Orla’s broken whisper reverberated through the cavern. She abandoned Tiernan to rush forward, but Ciarán blocked her path.
Cade stood tall behind Ferrin, but his tight grimace betrayed his unease. He focused on the stone lantern to his right rather than look at his sister.
“I wish I could say I’m thrilled to see you’ve come home, my niece,” Ferrin continued. “However, Cade tells me you’re just passing through.”
“You tried to kill me.” Orla shoved Ciarán aside but stayed where she was.
“I understand what happened at the Bay of Teeth must have been frightening,” Ferrin tutted, “but now that the Frozen God is freed, you’re safe. You can come back. I’ll make sure no harm comes to you.”
“I’d rather die,” Orla hissed, and Ciarán put a warning hand on her shoulder.
“Ciarán,” I reached out for him through our tether, “get the others down the mountain. I’ll take care of Ferrin and Cade.”
“I’m not leaving you behind,” Ciarán growled back.
“My real body is with Fana. If they kill me, I’ll wake up at the lake, and hopefully by then, you’ll all be far enough down the stairs.”
“Come on, Orla.” Cade clenched his hands in front of his chest, as if he wanted to be ready in case a fight broke out but wasn’t quite sure how to best hold himself.
“He killed our mother!” Orla yelled. “His own sister!”
“My sister betrayed her station,” Ferrin snarled, suddenly venomous. “She took an oath to serve the Quills. She knew that meant she could never be with Oren, and yet—”
He gave Orla a sweeping gesture that made the temperature in my face rise.
“And the Lyrian?” Ciarán prodded at my mind. I glanced at Iseult where she still sat on the ground. She watched the proceedings through narrowed eyes, and her hands glowed silver against the rocky floor, ready for a fight.
“Knock Iseult out if you have to. Just be ready.”
“You swore an oath to Oren too,” Orla seethed at Ferrin. “And you killed him.”
“Bryony and Oren brought shame to their families, and as much as I’ve loved you over the years, my niece, I shouldn’t be surprised that this is what that union amounted to.”
“This is who’s going to stop you,” Orla said.
“Oh?” Ferrin grinned. “You and who? A prisoner, a runaway from Tulyr, the sorriest excuse for a Grimguard I’ve yet to meet, and Wren? Don’t tell me you think this is the ragtag team that’s going to save both the worlds from the inevitable.”
“I’m not with them.” Iseult pulled herself to her feet, hands still glowing and ready.
“No?” Ferrin sounded delightfully surprised. “Staying loyal to those of us who gave you a home the last few weeks then?”
“Depends,” Iseult spat. “Who actually killed my grandfather?”
“What would you like me to say, dear?” Ferrin’s face fell, and he rolled his neck. “He was impossibly obstinate, so I removed him. He had no problem removing people either. Remember how he abandoned you in Tulyr?”
“You did kill him?” Her voice broke with the words.
“If you knew what was out there, Iseult—” Ferrin pointed at the open wall behind us “—if you knew what was waiting for you in Keldori, you would’ve killed the old man years ago to get to it. Ask Wren. She knows.”
Iseult’s hand closed around my bicep, and I braced to dissolve into nothingness at her Skalbreaking touch. I remained whole, however, and she pulled me behind her to lunge at Ferrin.
He snapped his goggles into place and green flames burst in his grasp.
“Now, Ciarán!” I yelled, but he was already yanking Iseult back by her armor and dragging her towards the stairs.
Ferrin’s flames advanced, and I concentrated as much of Ciarán’s magick as I could in my fists before letting the flames surge forward.
Fire roared and magick snapped as orange met green. Hot air rushed over us, and Orla put a protective arm over Tiernan to help him after Ciarán and Iseult.
“You lied!” Iseult struggled against Ciarán’s grip, still trying to get at Ferrin. “You’ve been lying for weeks!”
“Longer than that, dear.” Ferrin called from his side of the flames. “Go home, Cade. You’ve done your part.”
His fire flared, and heat seared across my front and blew back my hair, but I held firm as Orla, Tiernan, and Iseult disappeared down the spiraling stairwell.
Ciarán paused on the top step and threw a bottle of Skal down his throat before disappearing after the others. Fresh magick coursed through my veins, fueling my fire as well as a dull hunger I hadn’t felt in weeks.
Skal was intoxicating, but I wouldn’t let my thirst for it get the better of me, not when I needed to keep Ferrin from reaching my friends.
The fires reached a breaking point, then burst and dissipated, leaving orange and emerald sparks hanging in the air between Ferrin and me.
Cade was gone, having heeded Ferrin’s command to leave, but Ferrin would probably be more dangerous without his nephew here to get in his way.
Ferrin removed his goggles to polish the lenses on the hem of his vest, and I tensed, wondering if he was trying to lure me into a false sense of security.
“I thought Iseult was less emotional than that.” His eyes flicked up from his goggles to meet mine. “I made the same miscalculation about you once, thinking you wouldn’t let your feelings get the best of you. Where’s your real body, then? Squirreled it away somewhere close?”
He pulled his goggles back over his head and adjusted them over his eyes. I’d fought him as a Nightmare before. I’d gotten the upper hand. He was strong, sure, but even if he did manage to destroy this version of me, I would make sure it hurt.
“You know you can’t kill me,” I said. “Not permanently.”
“Perhaps I don’t want to kill you,” he said. “Not before you tell me more about this secret passage into Keldori that Orla mentioned to Cade.”
My stomach dropped. Orla had told Cade we knew of a way into Keldori that didn’t involve the Rift.
“You’re going to have better luck killing me than getting me to tell you anything.” My favorite weapons, my blades of bone, pushed out of my forearms.
“Does this version of you make you feel brave, Just-Wren?” Ferrin hissed. “I hope it does, for your sake. I know I can’t kill a Nightmare, but do you remember what can?”
Ferrin’s hands glowed green, and the dirt between us gathered and pooled.
A hand extended out of the swirling dust, and a Nightmare pulled himself out of the floor, his body forming out of dirt and Magick.
He stood tall and muscled but looked into the distance with that faraway look I was used to seeing on most Nightmares.
Relief unknotted my stomach. If this was the best Ferrin could do, I would be fine. I could take a Nightmare.
A second Nightmare formed next, pulling herself from the rock. She was lithe and beautiful, but she bore the same empty gaze as her comrade.
“Get out of there, Wren!” Ciarán barked in my head, but I ignored him. He must’ve not thought very highly of me if he thought I couldn’t take two Nightmares.
Ferrin put his hands in his trouser pockets and stepped back, as if finished and satisfied with the aid he’d summoned. Maybe it was a test. Or a trap. Either way, the others were still escaping, and the longer I held Ferrin’s attention here, the better of a chance they had.
I brandished my serrated bone blades ahead of me and ran to meet the first Nightmare.
His haunting gaze met mine, and for a moment, I thought maybe he was lucid because his eyes widened in fear, and his mouth drew into a horrified grimace.
Then dark smoke rolled from inside his mouth and off his skin, enveloping him liquid shadow.
I skidded to a stop, watching in horror as the Nightmare’s body contorted and grew. His limbs cracked and snapped, and his scream mingled with that of the Nightmare behind him, who also writhed in the center of her own smoky mess.
Bone pressed against the skin of their faces, and their eyes receded into deepening sockets until they were pinpricks of emerald light glowing from the depths of their skull.
Ciarán screamed in my head, but his voice was lost to the harsh, tortured cries of the two rotsbane that had just been Nightmares.
That had just been people.
People who were now dead in their beds back at home with their minds trapped forever in the hungry beasts in front of me.
Ferrin grinned at me from between the statue’s feet, two empty bottles of Skal in hand. He’d summoned the Nightmares just to force too much magick into their skal-constructed bodies and transform them into rotsbane. Now they quaked between us, clawing at their own faces.
“Do you like my new trick?” Ferrin beamed. “I’ve been practicing.”
“You killed them.” This was evil. Ferrin was evil.
“Not technically, though killing them might have been kinder, I’ll admit.”
The shadowy beasts raised their monstrous heads and sniffed tentatively at the air as they regained their bearings. I knew firsthand the insatiable agony and hunger for Skal that was flooding their systems.
They needed to feed.
Their heads snapped towards me, and I staggered back. They wanted Skal. This body was made of Skal, but if they devoured me, they’d suck my consciousness into the void inside their skulls.
I could destroy my body if I wanted and force myself to wake up safe and sound by the lake, but that left Ferrin free to chase after the others.
I brandished the bone blades that lined my forearms. I’d killed a rotsbane before. I could kill these too.
The monsters lunged, crossing the cavern in a single bound. The jaw of the closer one unhinged, revealing the dark nothingness of its maw, and every shred of mettle fled my being.
“Wren!” Orla’s shriek accompanied the zip of a metal spear slicing the air overhead.