Page 233 of Keldori By Daybreak

“Una.” I rested my hand on her muzzle, taking a half-moment of comfort in her touch. “Bring me the Baron.”

Una barked, ran in the direction of the armada where it continued to float out at sea, and dove into the water.

I knelt on the ice next to Gams across from Mom. With one arm still supporting Ciarán, I reached to move a lock of hair from Gams’s face. She looked so much more peaceful in death than I had when I’d been dying in the cave outside of Willow’s Grave.

“We still need to reseal the Rift," Mom said quietly. She kept her eyes on Gams’s face, but reached for me. Her fingers shook as they tightened in mine.

“But Gams is—” I started, then cut off when I realized the alternative. “No.”

I ripped my hands away.

“I’ll come back to Keel Watch as a Nightmare. It’ll be okay.” Mom’s strained tone suggested she didn’t necessarily believe those words.

I remembered Gams describing how she’d felt all her friends die, one by one, as their tethers cut. We would all do the same. We would fade, but Mom would remain.

And I’d lost so much today already.

“Wren,” she begged.

“I said no. You can’t be resealed without me. You need three Sovereigns.”

“Three is ideal,” Mom’s voice turned stony, “but two will suffice.”

I looked at Orla and Fana, but Orla, with half of her face swollen beyond recognition, looked barely conscious, and Fana shrank away.

“We came all this way to seal the Rift.” Iseult’s voice was hard and reprimanding.

“I came all this way to save my grandma, and she died anyway!” I snapped.

“And that’s exactly why I didn’t want to join you!” Silver sparks flared at Iseult’s fingertips. “And we’re here now! Ferrin is dead, but there are still armies on the shore and in the sea!”

“Keldori doesn’t have what they want anymore.”

They hadn’t noticed it yet, the way the air was rife with magick. The way it buzzed against our skin and swirled on the wind.

I stood, and Mom reached for my hands again, but I pulled away.

“I said no,” I snarled.

“You don’t get to unilaterally make that decision for both worlds!” Mom rose to her feet too.

“Why not? Gams did four hundred years ago when she and her friends forced every Magician into Skalterra in the first place!” I spread my arms out. “I didn’t ask to be a Saergrim. I never signed up to protect the Rift or lose my mom or my grandma! And Skalterra didn’t ask to be closed off from Keldori. Even if we reseal the Rift, someone new is going to come along and try to force it open.”

“You sound like Lysanor,” Iseult growled.

“Maybe Lysanor had a point. Magicians were removed from Keldori because the Skal made them transform into rotsbane,” I said. “It won’t do that anymore.”

Iseult screwed her face up at me. “You don’t know that.”

“Of course I do,” I said simply. “Besides, like I said, the Skal is here now and I fixed it. There will be no more rotsbane. I’m not sealing my mother in a glacial prison for something that isn’t an issue anymore.”

Mom’s face was unreadable in the falling ash.

“Wren—” she started.

“You have to trust me,” I said. “Please. I can’t lose you too.”

“You won’t. I already told you, I’ll come back as a Nightmare—”