Page 146 of Keldori By Daybreak

“I’ll be fine.” He stood and stretched. “I’m more worried about your mother.”

I choked on my rabbit. “What? Why?”

“She’s been trying to contact me.”

“Why?” I demanded again and rose too quickly to my feet. The cave spun, and I leaned against the wall for support.

“Don’t know.” Ciarán took my arm and sat us both back down. “I’m out of Skal, so I can’t summon her. Or even hear her. It’s more like a knock at a door, but I know it’s her.”

“She knows,” I hissed.

“Knows what?”

“She knows.”

“You mean the kiss?” Ciarán smirked and tried to take a bite of his own rabbit jerky, but struggled to get through the tough meat. “She can’t know.”

“Why else would she want to talk?”

“Probably to make sure you made it out of the citadel alive? Last she saw you, you were running from a battle.”

“Oh. Right.” I relaxed into his shoulder and attacked my own piece of jerky. “Then how do we get Skal for you to summon her?”

Ciarán’s shoulders heaved with a labored sigh. “That depends on our next move.”

I picked at my jerky to keep from picking at my eyelashes instead. “You’re sure we can’t catch up to the others? We’ve caught up with them before. We have Una, and I’m pretty sure she just ate an entire man, so she’s got to be ready to go.”

Una yawned in reply.

“The nearest city is at least two days away,” Ciarán said. “They’re nearly—if not already—there, and they’ll be catching a steamcart to the southwestern coast.”

“Then we can take the steamtrails too.”

“There’s no way the Barony lets either of us get on a steamcart. Word will have spread about the Saergrim and her Grimguard. And again, they have a two day head start.”

That was that then. I really wasn’t going home.

Which meant our options were to return to the Rift where we risked death by volcano or to search out Sorcha and the rest of Darragh’s Watch, wherever they’d fled to.

“Sorcha is going to be so angry that I’m a better healer than her now.” I tried to force a laugh, then hid in my knees.

My home, my dreams, my mother…

Ciarán wrapped an arm around me. “I promise, Darragh’s Watch will be more than happy to become your new home.”

Darragh’s Watch revered me as something more than human, and the one person I cared about was sworn to be my protector and never anything more. I wasn’t even allowed to know his full name.

I pushed myself out from my knees and took a steadying breath.

“There’s no rush getting back to them,” I said. “We’ll rest here a few days. Maybe you can sneak back into Willow’s Grave to get us some actual food, and I’d bet there’s a Skal bottle or two hiding in what’s left of Caitria’s camp.”

“If the Barony Guards haven’t poked through it already,” Ciarán pointed out, but rose to his feet. “I’ll leave Una with you. I should be back within a few hours. Try and rest, but—”

He paused where he was fastening his tattered cloak around his shoulders. He looked at me with that same expression he’d born when I’d woken up, like I might disappear into nothing.

“I won’t sleep,” I promised him. “No one is stabbing me this time. Besides, Una is here, and I think she’s developed a taste for Barony Guard.”

Una licked her lips, and my stomach lurched, but I kept an assured smile in place.