Page 213 of Keldori By Daybreak

“Or I might not have the strength to do what needs to be done at Rift. If it comes down to you or the worlds, Wren, I don’t know what I’ll do. Add Liam to that equation, and I might condemn everyone if your life ends up on the line.”

I replied with a shaky laugh and pressed into his chest with my back.

“It’ll be easy once we’re through that rock,” I insisted. “No sacrifices necessary.”

“I hope so. But until then, Liam stays in the drawer.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “You make the call on Liam. And if you change your mind—agh!”

Pain ricocheted through my abdomen, and I cut off in a cry.

“Wren!” Ciarán twisted me around and pressed me back onto the twin bed.

I drew my knees up to my chest, breathing through my nose as I tried to contain the electricity running through my nerves.

I swallowed the pain and smiled through a tight grimace. “I’m fine. It’s just the Skal here. It’s a lot.”

Ciarán’s eyes softened as he took my hands. “Dammit, Wren, you should’ve said something!”

“No, no, it’s okay. Once we figure out that rock, we’ll be able to reseal my grandmother, and I’ll be fine.”

He couldn’t shove me in a freezer like we had with Fana. There was no escape from the Skal eating me from the inside. The ever-present mountains pushed against me. If I let even a little bit of magick free, it might be what pushed them over the edge.

Gams would die. This would all be for nothing.

“I can take it away from you, you know,” Ciarán murmured. He climbed onto the bed to kneel in front of me, my hands still clasped in his. “Through the tether.”

Another electric pain coursed through my stomach, and I nodded. It was such a simple solution. I felt stupid the idea hadn’t occurred to me. “That would probably be good.”

Ciarán’s fingers tightened around mine, and I closed my eyes as I exhaled.

Skal fled my body, siphoned down the tether towards Ciarán. My abdomen muscles unclenched, and while my stomach was still upset, the electric pain ebbed.

Orange light pressed against my eyelids, and when I opened my eyes, Ciarán had released the Skal in a thousand floating sparks that hung on the air. We sat hand-in-hand on Liam’s bed at the center of our own, personal nebula of magick.

“Is that better?” Ciarán’s hand lifted to my face, and his thumb brushed my cheek.

“Yes.” I leaned into his palm and took a deep breath. My lungs expanded easier than they had in days, and my body was lighter. I hadn’t realized how many muscles I’d been clenching as the magick had eaten at me.

I smiled at Ciarán in the light of his nebula, but the orange light glittered against a wet path that traced his cheek.

“You’re crying,” I murmured.

His lips pressed together in an apologetic smile, and his thumb brushed my cheek a second time, as if to wipe away his own tears from the wrong face.

“I’m sorry to worry you. I just can’t help thinking I might be the worst Grimguard who ever lived.”

“No,” I said through a breathy laugh. “Ciarán, you are the greatest Grimguard.”

He shook his head, and his eyes roved over my cheeks and nose, as if to memorize the constellation of my freckles.

“After we close the Rift, I want so badly to stay. I want it so badly that I imagine it feels like that Skal did eating you from the inside.” His breath wavered as he exhaled, and his eyes rose from my cheeks to my eyes. “But if I do, I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to abide by my oaths.”

I was used to hunger for Skal by now. This new hunger, however… It rose in my chest, hopeful and heavy.

“I don’t care about your oaths,” I said.

“You should.”