Page 127 of Keldori By Daybreak

“No!” I screamed, reaching for the trapdoor, but Ciarán forced me after Iseult and Orla down the tunnel.

“They’ll be fine.” Ciarán grunted when I pushed him out of my way and made another break back towards the trapdoor.

“They don’t have Skal! They can’t defend themselves!”

Ciarán grabbed me by the back of my tunic and pulled me back into his arms. “They’ll have other weapons, Blue. Worry about us. Please.”

I balled my fists against his back, and another explosion rocked the roof of the tunnel.

“They’re going to die,” I whispered.

“We don’t know that. We have to trust them to take care of themselves.”

I took a deep breath, still fighting the instinct to run back into the citadel, and let go of Ciarán.

As much as I hated it, we had to keep going.

Bottled Skal-light reflected off smooth-hewn walls and cast our cloaked shadows against the low ceiling. The air became colder and staler as the tunnel descended.

“It’s an island.” Iseult held a Skal bottle to the pages of Mom’s notebook, reading as we walked. “Uninhabited, off the southwestern coast of Skalterra. There’s an entire chain of islands there. It’s got to say which island, right?”

She paused in her walk to leaf through the pages.

“We’ll have time to read it later,” Ciarán said. “Keep moving.”

“Is that them?” Fana’s whisper echoed from the end of the tunnel. Tiernan hushed her and lit a golden dagger in his hand.

“Fana!” Orla shot ahead. The light from her bottles caught the opalescent surface of exposed tree roots that dipped in and out of the earth overhead, and we stumbled out into the night in the middle of a petrified tree grove.

Jonquil meowed from the pile of packs at Tiernan’s feet.

“Tell us you got it.” Tiernan handed Orla a pack as he cast an anxious glance down the tunnel behind us.

“A version of it.” I took the journal from Iseult so she could pull her metal breastplate from her pack at Tiernan’s feet and strap it across her chest.

A distant boom lit the sky in hues of green.

“Everyone grab a bag and let’s go. We need to get far away from Willow’s Grave and fast.” Iseult marched forward, adjusting her armor and ready to disappear into the petrified forest. “If the doorway to Keldori is off the southwestern coast, we can catch a steamcart in the next town over all the way to the Breachriver Prefecture or the New Kingdom. It’ll only take a few days, as long as the steamcart isn’t attacked by a rotsbane.”

“We can take a rotsbane.” Ciarán shouldered his bag and passed Jonquil into Fana’s arms. “We’ll be in Keldori by the end of the week.”

I grabbed my backpack from the ground and stepped after the others, but stopped when a fresh explosion ripped open the sky behind us.

I could go home.

Or I could save Willow’s Grave.

I could not have both.

“Wren?” Ciarán turned around, and the others followed suit, though Orla still avoided my eye.

I crossed the clearing and pressed the notebook into her hands. Her eyebrows lifted, and she finally looked at me as she took the book.

“You watch this, okay?” I asked.

“Why—”

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”