Page 136 of Keldori By Daybreak

And then Ferrin was above me.

I summoned a surge of magick from Ciarán’s end of the tether to harden my skin and fortify my muscles as Ferrin came crashing down. I grabbed him by what was left of his wrists, holding the points of his spears inches from where he’d tried to pierce my chest. The fresh Skal bolstering my form made me dizzy with hunger, but I pulled on more from Ciarán to find enough strength to rival Ferrin’s.

“Watch it, Blue!” Ciarán shouted in my head. “Are you trying to kill us both?”

“I’ve got it under control,” I said back, though the thirst for Skal was hard to ignore. The fact Ciarán needed magick to keep Caitria at bay was the only thing keeping me from drawing more.

But if it was affecting me this way…

Ferrin’s eyes had taken on a slight glow. He’d tried to turn me into a rotsbane in the canyon. What sweet justice it would be to goad him into doing the same to himself.

“You really want things to go back to normal?” Ferrin hissed, still struggling to break through my grip. “Look at you, Wren! You’re absolutely magnificent like this! You’d really give this up just to keep things the way they were?”

“Yes!” I grunted through the strain of holding him off.

He reared back, slipping from my hold, and spun an oversized leg into my side. It caught me in my midsection and threw me into the side of a tent. The canvas collapsed beneath me, and the air drove out of my lungs as I hit the ground.

“No friends, a father who never loved you, and a rejection letter from your dream college! That’s what awaits you in Keldori! But here? They think you’re a god! Hell, Wren, you actually might be one with what I’ve seen you do!”

“I’m not a god,” I wheezed, forcing air back into my lungs. “And neither are you.”

He leapt, bringing the pointed end of the mantis arm down. I rolled out of the way, slicing my bone blades through one of his arms and into his stomach.

Ferrin roared in pain, but the severed limb regrew, and his stomach knit itself back together.

“I may not be a god,” he admitted, “but when the people of Keldori see what I can do and what I bring to their world, they will worship me as one.”

He batted at me with his newly grown mantis-spear, and I let it catch me, managing to nick his shoulder as I flew across the clearing a second time.

I slammed into a tree and felt several bones shatter, but I pulled more magick from Ciarán, ignoring his continued warnings in my head. I just had to outlast Ferrin. I had to keep him pulling more magick than I did.

And then I would have to fight the rotsbane he’d turn into, but I’d figure that out when I got there.

“You don’t win this,” Ferrin snarled. His nostrils flared, and his eyes burned brighter as he continued to draw more Skal into himself from wherever his real body was resting. “You can’t. Your grandmother has been in the ice too long to realize it, and your allies are too dogmatic to admit it. But you don’t win. I do. And if you want to survive long enough to see me ascend, then you’ll tell me right now—what were you looking for in Lysanor’s library?”

I bolted forward, catching Ferrin by surprise, and conjured a flail that I brought smashing into his shoulder. I rolled out of the way of his attempted counterattack, and spun to face him.

Sinew regrew where I’d destroyed muscle and flesh, and a look of understanding passed over Ferrin’s face.

“The little god,” he spat. “What a joke. You could be happy here, if you tried. You could be happy in the new world I’m going to create out of the ruins of both our realms. Instead you resist. Instead you try to trick me. I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”

“It was worth a try,” I quipped. “You’d look prettier as a rotsbane anyway.”

“I’m not weak like you. My Nightmare form has been tempered in the magick of Keldori. I’ve spent the last decade resisting its pull.” The glow in his eyes dulled as his resolve solidified. “Besides. I have places to send the magick before it destroys me.”

A strangled cry erupted in the trees behind me, and I turned in time to see the silhouette of one of the army Nightmares swell and break into the monstrous form of a rotsbane.

The cry turned into a shrieking howl, and its head turned towards us. Glinting eyes of emerald peered at us through the dark, and it reached forward with all four hands to brace itself against the trees.

A force from behind slammed me into the ground, leaving me breathless once again. I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off Ferrin, and now he stood over me.

“I’ve loved catching up,” he said. “Let’s do it again soon, if the rotsbane doesn’t devour your consciousness.”

The coward grinned as he dissolved in a cloud of glowing dust.

“WREN!” Ciarán’s scream echoed in my head as well as through the burning campsite, and I looked to see the rotsbane turning the trees beneath its claws to rubble as it pushed off them.

“Ferrin, you coward!” I yelled at the night as the rotsbane’s jaw unhinged.