Page 17 of Keldori By Daybreak

I looked down, gripping the wooden edges of my seat.

“There’s another way,” I said. Gams had said not to try, but Gams wasn’t here. “Gams said we could save her if we found a Lyrian, that they could lead us to Keldori a different way.”

Mom slowly turned away from the fire to look at me.

“Wren Warrender,” her smile was disbelieving, but her eyes furious, “since when do you lie to your mother?”

“Now you want to talk about lying?”

“We were going to tell you about Skalterra eventually.”

“And what about my dad? Were you going to tell me you invited him to my graduation and he said no?”

Mom’s nostrils flared, but she was too smart to be led into my attempt at a distraction. She’d have to interrogate me about how I’d found out about my father later.

“It’s true that the Lyrians supposedly know of a secret door to Keldori, but Wren is lying to you. My mother would never suggest we try it. Our best bet is the storm.”

“But there is a door?” Sorcha pressed.

“All I know is it’s dangerous enough that my mother never told me the details out of fear of me trying to use it,” Mom snapped. “I know you’d have a better chance against a hundred armies than you would against whatever secret passage exists between Keldori and Skalterra.”

“We can’t fight a hundred armies,” I said. “I can’t even fight Sabrina! And Gams knows her storm can’t be crossed. Which is why she told me to find a Lyrian.”

“She didn’t.” Mom called my bluff a second time, but even I was starting to believe the lie at this point.

“Then how do I know about the Lyrians’ secret door between Keldori and Skalterra?” I asked. “And even if it’s dangerous, it can’t be more dangerous than Gams’s storm. Do you really think she’d refuse to suggest one dangerous thing in place of another?”

Mom paled in the orange light of the kitchen fire as she pieced together what I was suggesting. She knew Gams would never ask us to go through a dangerous door. She also knew Gams would never ask us to reach her through her storm and all the armies gathering around it.

Which meant she was figuring out what Gams had actually asked me to tell the others.

Run south. Save ourselves. Leave her to die.

And Mom was just as justifiably selfish as I was. She didn’t want to lose her mother anymore than I wanted to lose my grandma.

“It’s too dangerous, Wren,” she hissed. “And if you fail, I’ll lose both of you.”

“We have to try.” Ciarán spoke from the corner of the kitchen. I wasn’t sure when he’d slunk back into the room, and Mom twisted to face him.

“You are free to try whatever you like, Grimguard,” she snorted. “My daughter stays where she’s safest.”

“If we go, we need the Sovereigns to reseal your mother in the Skal. Orla, Fana, and—” Ciarán tried to argue, but Mom cut him off.

“The Sovereigns?” She laughed. “If you do insist on being dumb enough to come to Keldori, you’ll have me. You don’t need Wren.”

Panic rose in my ulcer-ridden gut.

“Mom—” I tried to stand out of my chair, but an electric twinge in my side kept me seated.

“Don’t.” Mom held a finger to quiet me.

“If you seal the Rift without me, I’ll be stuck on this side.”

“You’ll be safe. That’s what matters.

I shook my head. “I’m going.”

“It’s out of the question. You’re too injured to travel, anyways.”