Page 197 of Keldori By Daybreak

Water gushed past, then broke.

“There they are!” a voice cried.

The sound of splashing reverberated through the space, and I tried to wipe water from my eyes as Una dragged Ciarán and me to the edge of the pool where we’d surfaced.

“We’re okay,” Ciarán grunted, pushing wet hair back from his face. He reached for me across Una’s back, but I pushed him away.

“No, we’re not,” I rasped.

He was right, of course. We’d made it. Caitria would not be following us. No one could after Tiernan had collapsed the cavern. Lyria’s doorway was sealed.

But Tiernan…

Hands heaved us out of the pool and onto smooth rock. In one direction, the calm, dark water stretched into shadow. In the other, the rock rose in a smooth wall dotted with climbable outcroppings. The light of Iseult’s leg was duller here, and the light of our Skal bottles non-existent all together, but sunshine tinged the distant cavern ceiling in rays of muted gold.

Orla’s arms wrapped around me. I leaned into her, shifting forward on my knees, but I couldn’t find it in me to embrace her back.

“Where’s Tiernan?” Fana’s voice, small and wavering, reverberated off stone and water.

I brought my arms around Orla to press my hands against my eyes, but I would not cry. I dug my fingernails into my skin, then dragged my hands away from my face and stood up.

I found Fana holding Jonquil against her chest. Water weighed on my clothes and left sopping foot prints in my wake as I crossed the rock to her. I bent down on one knee like I’d seen Tiernan do, and Fana stared down at me with a chin she tried to keep from quivering.

“My Lady Fana Fireld,” I said through a tightening throat. “Tiernan has fulfilled his duty to you as your Eldguard. Caitria will never bother you again. You’ll be safe here.”

Fana shook her head.

“Where’s Tiernan?” she asked, softer this time.

I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“He’s gone,” Ciarán murmured. “I’m sorry, Fana.”

Fana turned rigid, her eyes too cold for someone so young.

“I told you,” Fana whispered. “None of you believed me before we went to the Second Sentinel. But I told you he was good.”

“You were right.” I pulled her in, and while she was perfectly quiet, her tiny frame shook with silent sobs.

Fana refused to leave the cave, and Orla refused to leave her side, so I left Iseult to watch over them and climbed the rock wall with Ciarán to survey where we’d landed. I’d stripped off my armor and boots, but my wet clothes still made climbing difficult.

We climbed into a chamber dusted in fine sand that clung to my shins, knees, and hands when I pulled myself over the lip of the rock. The smooth walls of the ocean-hewn rock reflected daylight from around a bend up ahead. Seagulls squabbled in the distance, their screeching cries echoing through the cave. I staggered forward in the sand and turned the corner.

Waves crashed against a sandy beach at low tide, and a sea lion barked somewhere out of sight. A man played fetch with a golden retriever in the white wash, keeping out of the way of the surfers that carved paths in the waves fifty yards away.

Sand slipped between my toes as I walked out into the rising sun. The bluff that housed our cave cast long shadows across the beach, but despite the early hour and the sea breeze, the air was warm and the world so much brighter than I remembered.

Palm trees towered atop the cliff and I craned my head back in time to see a pelican soar between their swaying trunks.

“Is this Keldori?” Warm light tinged Ciarán’s cheeks in orange. He froze at the sight of a boardwalk extending into the ocean another mile down the beach. Beyond that, buildings glinted in the rising sun where a city overlooked the ocean. “Did we make it?”

“Yes,” I breathed.

“It doesn’t look much how I remember it.”

“We’re in California. It’s farther south than we need to be,” I admitted, “but that’s okay. I know where to go.”

I dropped to my knees and lifted a fistful of sand just to watch the grains slip through my fingers and catch on the wind. I pressed my lips together.