14. Middle Ages Architecture #2
“Ciarán?” I whispered. His hand tightened around the jar, but he kept his eyes on the ceiling. “Do you want to talk?”
“It’s not a keep,” he said.
“What?” I screwed my face up at him.
“Orla called the hideout the Keep of Realta Fiel, but it’s not technically a keep.” He turned his head towards mine and let the glow of his eyes dim, making his face look more like Liam’s. “A keep is part of a castle, but this isn’t part of anything. It’s a single building carved into a canyon.”
“Maybe whoever named it took artistic liberties and considered the canyon to be like a castle.”
“The canyon is not a castle.”
“Is this really what you’re thinking about right now?”
“Go to sleep, Blue. The Lyrian will want us up soon.” He rolled so his back was to me.
“But how will I sleep knowing we’re not actually in a keep?”
“Wren.” He growled my name directly into my head.
“You liked architecture in Keldori too.” I nestled back against my backpack and hoodie.
Ciarán fell silent, and his breathing slowed, but I could still feel his thoughts vibrating against mine—tangible, but indecipherable. His fingers, I noticed, still clutched at the bottle of ashes. His thumb rubbed at the cork.
“I’m sorry about your mom and dad.”
His lean shoulders heaved with a heavy sigh that sounded more exasperated than sad.
“Don’t be. They died doing what they’d sworn to do as Grimguards.”
“They swore to protect the Rift, not to get murdered and decapitated.” The words tumbled out into the dark, harsh and thoughtless. The buzzing of Ciarán’s thoughts stopped. “Oh. Ciarán, I didn’t mean to—”
“A Grimguard’s duty isn’t to the Rift, but to the Saergrims. I made the same oath, and I’ll suffer the same fate if that is what it takes to faithfully serve you.”
“No.” Horror propelled me back into a sitting position. “No, I don’t want that.”
“It’s not up to you.” The orange light returned to his irises and lit the outline of his nose as he turned to look at me over his shoulder. “Now sleep, Blue, before I get inside that pretty head of yours and make you.”
I glared at him in the dark but didn’t want to test if he was lying or not about being able to use our connection to render me unconscious, so I relaxed and finally let the silence settle between us.
Ciarán succumbed to sleep first, which made sense. Crying often made me tired, too. His thoughts stilled in my head, and his breathing deepened.
An ache in my side made it impossible to get comfortable despite my fatigue, and I realized it wasn’t pain from my own aging injuries, but Ciarán’s pain seeping across our bond now that he was unconscious and unable to reign himself in.
I crawled to his side with a hand pressed against my ribs to stare at his sleeping form. Had my injuries hurt him like this these last weeks?
I pulled at the hem of his cloak, and it fell away to reveal the pale, scarred skin of his chest. I shifted closer and hovered my hands over Ciarán’s side. The skin had resealed thanks to my earlier magick but was still pink and puckered. The muscle and bone would still be healing beneath.
I’d done an okay job with his physical injuries, but the helplessness I’d felt as he’d grieved his parents nagged at me. Orla, despite having more reason to hate Ciarán than me, hadn’t wasted a moment in trying to comfort him, even as she mourned her own parents.
I was useless, but I could at least do this.
I pressed my hands against Ciarán’s scarred skin and watched his sleeping features for signs of waking. However, his breathing stayed steady and his face passive, so I continued.
When I pried open the tether between us to better feel his injuries.
I gasped as pain bloomed in my side, tracing the path the rotsbane’s claws had made through Ciarán’s flesh, but healing magick was becoming easier after so much practice the last few days.
I’d never been much of a crafter, but it felt like how imagined it felt to weave or embroider.
I wasn’t quite stitching him back together.
It was something different, but just as effective.
“There isn’t room…”
I froze at Ciarán’s voice in my head. I thought I might’ve woken him, but a quick glance told me he was still fast asleep.
“Not tonight, I have work.” He was dreaming, just like he had the other night.
I chewed on my lip.
Awake, he was able to keep his thoughts to himself, but asleep and as I held the bond between us open to better heal him, they slid over into my head as easily as if he were meaning to speak to me.
They were mostly nonsensical, like listening to a sleep talker mumble. I tried to focus on my work and ignore Ciarán’s unconscious ramblings. Part of me wanted to give him his privacy. He worked so hard to keep his thoughts his own when he was awake.
But then…
“Ethel prefers salmon…”
My head snapped up at the name Ethel. Ciarán had never called my grandmother Ethel. Not when he was this version of him, at least.
“Light cream cheese. Chives…”
I held back a disbelieving, elated laugh.
He was dreaming about my grandmother’s favorite bagel order.
Which meant he wasn’t dreaming as Ciarán, he was dreaming as Liam.
Which meant Liam was still locked in there, existing in that murky space between sleeping and waking, reachable only when Ciarán’s mind was at its most vulnerable.
“Ciarán?” I whispered, pulling my hands away from his chest. I pressed a shaking palm against his cheek, letting my fingers tangle in his dark hair. “Liam?”
My friend was so close by. I’d thought Liam might be gone forever, but there he was, swirling around in Ciarán’s subconsciousness.
My heart hammered in my throat.
“Liam, can you hear me?”
What if I could reach him? What if I could pull my friend out of whatever it was I wanted to call Ciarán?
And maybe it worked like healing magick?
I pried the bond between us wider. If I could see his thoughts better, if I could reach his dream…
My fingertips pressed against Ciarán’s scalp and tried to imagine invisible thread reaching into his mind to stitch back together his memories of Keel Watch Harbor.
Maybe if I did—
Colors burst as the room flipped, and I landed on a sidewalk.