Page 60 of Keldori By Daybreak

My sides ached. I couldn’t imagine what Ciarán’s might feel like. I thought about reaching through our bond to test if I could still feel his injuries as if they were my own, but I held back, afraid of aggravating my own fractured bones. I dug my fingers into Jonquil’s fur for comfort, and she meowed pitifully back at me.

Ciarán’s thoughts, meanwhile, continued to vibrate at the back of my head. I wondered if my thoughts sounded the same to him, or if everyone thought this much and this hard. Maybe it was just Ciarán, thinking a thousand thoughts a second just to annoy me in the comfort of my own head.

“This way.” Orla assured us over and over as we walked through the night. I’d long since lost feeling in my legs. I wasn’t sure she knew the way to wherever we were going, but if we kept moving, maybe we’d find civilization at some point and I could rest regardless.

Rocky crags rose up, occluding the night sky until it was a ribbon of dull moonlight high above us. The narrow passage forced us to walk single-file for the first one hundred yards, but it gradually widened into a cavern as the strip of stars above got farther and farther.

The light of our few remaining bottles of Skal cast our shadows up the high, uneven walls. Even as the strip of sky above lightened with the dawning day, it stayed dark here at the bottom of the ravine.

The passage narrowed, forcing us to march through the puddles that ran through sections of the canyon. When it widened, the air turned warm and muggy, and lichen clung to the walls, illuminated by the glowing streams of liquid that ran down the crags from which they grew. The steady drip-drip-drip of water and Skal echoed with our footsteps.

The lichen grew heavier as we went until it hung in curtains off the walls, settling between tiny pools of water and Skal that collected among the nooks and crags. Thick plumes of steam puffed from vents in the ground, carrying a glow and metallic scent that hinted at Skal. Stone underfoot gave way to a patchwork of plush moss. I craned my head back, but we were so far underground now that the sky was only a blue thread against the distant ceiling.

“We’re almost there, I think,” Orla whispered. She ignored the mosaic of Skal and moss that decorated the walls. Her brow furrowed as she chewed on her lower lip, and nervous purple sparks played at her fingertips.

“Orla?” I prodded. “Do we need to be worried?”

“It’s nothing,” she hissed. I grabbed her by the arm, glancing at the others but they were too distracted by the natural beauty of the canyon to notice us.

At least, most of them were. The buzzing of Ciarán’s thoughts subsided, and I had the sudden impression that he was listening in on our conversation through my ears.

“This hideout you’re taking us to,” I asked, “it’s safe, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then why are you so jittery?”

To my horror, Orla’s eyes welled with tears. I released her arm, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Ferrin won’t look for us here,” she promised through a tight throat. “He knows I’d never come here."

We came to a final bend in the canyon, and the walls widened into an expansive cavern. My breath caught at the sight of the moss-laden pillars and stone walls ahead of us. This was less of a hideout and more of a castle-like fortress that reached as high as the cavern’s faraway roof.

The face of the edifice had been carved out of the cavern wall. Moss climbed the stone pillars and hung from walkways. An ornately carved set of steps led the way up to the main entry, which was protected by a familiar stone figure on either side. I recognized the original Quill from his statue in the Second Sentinel, though these copies of him were much smaller in stature.

This fortress may not have been as large as the city nestled inside the Second Sentinel’s peak, but it was just as breathtaking.

“Welcome to the Keep of Realta Fiel,” Orla croaked. “Don’t worry, no one’s been inside in several years. Not since Ferrin murdered my parents here.”

14. Middle Ages Architecture

People died all the time and in all sorts of places, but the knowledge that this was where Ferrin had committed four murders in one night sent a chill through the canyon. The Keep of Realta Fiel itself reminded me of a corpse—darkened and crumbling, with muggy air wafting, all while moss and lichen clung to its side, feeding on what was left of it.

“And how do you know Ferrin won’t look for us here?” Iseult asked. “He doesn’t seem like the type to avoid a place because of lingering guilt.”

“He thinks I’m soft. He doesn’t think I’d come to the place where my parents died,” Orla explained. “That, and the Keep is holding back a lake. If he tries to come here, he knows we can open the dam and drown him.”

Ciarán snorted, and his doubt at Orla’s resolve to drown her uncle reverberated against my own misgivings.

We stood in a line, and I knew none of us wanted to be the first to enter the Keep. I looked down at Jonquil, wondering if she might take one for the team and lead the way, but Iseult finally stepped forward.

“We’ll sweep the premises for animals and set up camp inside,” she said. “Rest, and then after we’ve slept, you may try to explain what is going on.”

She marched up the steps and pushed a curtain of ivy back from the dark entry into the Keep.

Steam-heavy air swirled through the antechamber, alight with a dull Skal-like glow that lit the corridors to both our right and left. Ahead, the edges of a heavy wooden door glowed with light that bled from the next room.

Water bubbled somewhere out of sight, and Una cut through the sound with a heavy sigh. Hot air from her snout blew across my neck, and I started towards the glowing door ahead. Ciarán murmured for her to sit and wait, patting her nose.