Page 171 of Keldori By Daybreak

The tiniest ghost of a smirk returned to his face, and I laid my head on the mattress, tracking the healer’s movements with my eyes. Titus continued to lurk behind us, but he wasn’t nearly as threatening as I used to think he was now that I’d seen his true form and knew what he was compensating for.

Besides, Ciarán and I were alive. Our friends, while arrested, weren’t sailing to their deaths. As long as I didn’t use too much magick between here and home, the Sentinels would return to dormancy.

Not even Tamora’s armada worried me. Her boats wouldn’t make it through Gams’s storm any easier than foot soldiers.

But I stared at the angry red marks that marred Ciarán’s chest where Ergoth’s roots had burrowed into his flesh. He tried to keep his fluttering eyelids open, looking too much like he had lying in the loam. The too-bright glow of his irises filtered through his thick eyelashes, and I knew he was still full of the magick Ergoth had force-fed us through their spores.

I couldn’t get the image of him tangled in the roots out of my head.

The path forward was more clear than it had been yet, but we looked more fragile than ever.

“We’re okay, Blue,” he murmured. His thumb stroked my cheek, smearing a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen.

“I know.” I pulled his hand away from my face to kiss his palm. Ergoth had left a mark there too, but I let my magick swell, and when I pulled my lips away, the wound had healed.

After finishing with her ointments, the healer wrapped Ciarán’s wounds in bandages, which was most of him. He winced as I helped her wind gauze up his arms, legs, and chest, but with the wounds hidden, I let more magick slide between us, stitching his skin back together and erasing any sign that Ergoth had ever been there.

He murmured a thanks along our tether. Once we were on the train, I’d be able to properly heal him, though mending my own injuries had taken quite a bit of my magick supply. For now, he was at least comfortable enough to slip into sleep.

Meanwhile, I sat on the floor with his discarded clothes and a needle and thread I found in his pack. Through the damage Ergoth had dealt, stitches and swatches of mismatched fabric in both color and material showed all the places Ciarán had previously ripped and repaired the clothes.

His needlework was better than mine, and I pricked my fingers on the needle several times thanks to the jostling of Tamora’s strange vehicle, but I didn’t dare use magick if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. I was sure I could’ve replicated the cotton, wool, and leather, but the volcanos pressed against me more than ever.

Their pull sat heavy in my stomach. It was risky even using magick to heal our wounds, but it was a necessary gamble if we wanted to stand a chance against rotsbane.

When the carriage came to a lurching stop hours later, Stanley beckoned us to the door. Una squeezed out ahead of us, and I helped Ciarán after her, blinking in the harsh light of midday.

There had once been a town here. Probably recently, judging by how fresh the scorch marks along the cobbled walkway were. But stone buildings lay in ruin, and trampled gardens lined the road. Wind whistled between crumbling walls and broken glass.

“The steamtrail station is still running. Rotsbane ruined everything else.” Tamora stepped out of the carriage next to ours, still holding Jonquil.

“Rotsbane did all this?” Ciarán rasped. He leaned against Una as he took in the flattened town.

“It’s almost like they’re multiplying. There seems to be more of them each passing week,” Tamora said lazily as four guards stepped from the vehicle to flank her on either side. “This way.”

Her boots clicked against the cracked cobblestone as she led the way to the barren train station. Its walls were in ruins, so we could see straight to the train waiting at what remained of the platform.

Steam rose in lazy wisps from the smokestack, and articulating bronze pipes ran from the giant Skal tanks near its engine and all the way back to the final carriage.

I eyed the rising steam. Rotsbane were clearly in the area, and steamed Skal was sure to draw them in.

“As long as it’s daytime, we’ll be fine,” Ciarán said in my head, eavesdropping on my apprehension.

“And when night falls?” I asked.

“We can take rotsbane.”

Two Barony guards flanked the door of a windowless carriage at the end of the train. They gave Tamora a stiff bow as we approached, and she signaled for them to open the door.

One of the guards lifted a deadbolt out of place, and metal rattled as he slid the panel door to the side.

Iseult, Tiernan, Fana, and Orla shied away from the sudden light where they sat on the carriage’s bare floor with their wrists in metal bindings. They were dirty, and their clothing and armor ripped, but they weren’t drowned in a sea cave.

Relief made my knees weak.

“Wren?” Orla was the first to see through the glare of the sun and tried to stagger to her feet, but Tamora held out a hand to stop her.

“Get in, Grimguard.” Tamora beckoned at the door. “The Saergrim will defend the steamcart alone.”