Page 69 of Keldori By Daybreak

“Drink up.” Iseult gave her sword a flourish.

Skal warmed my throat, electric in taste, as it slid down my esophagus. I grimaced, and the buzzing beneath my skin surged, as if begging to be let out.

“Wren?” Orla handed me her Skal-goggles, and I fixed the cracked glass over my eyes, more out of a means of stalling rather than actual concern for my retinas.

Ciarán prodded my back, and I stumbled down the worn steps to meet Iseult on the moss. The goggles over my eyes muted the bright greens and blues of the canyon, but Iseult’s sword pulsed with silver light. If I could get her to listen, maybe I could still talk my way out of this.

She was obstinate, sure, but it was more likely to work than I was to produce anything that wasn’t a flail.

“It’s not just my grandmother’s life on the line,” I tried to explain. “Everything north of the mountains will be—”

Iseult surged forward with a two-handed grip on her longsword. Blue light flashed, and I batted her attack to the side with a flail. Magick cracked, and the air between us burst with static.

“I said,” Iseult heaved her sword back into the air to swing it again, “no flails!”

I abandoned my flail and took up a dodging-based strategy. The heat of the Iseult’s weapon seared beneath my chin as I backpedaled out of its reach.

“Don’t kill her!” Tiernan sounded more exasperated than worried, but his support was a nice change from the Tiernan I was more used to.

“You have to try again, my Lady,” Ciarán growled in my mind as I dodged another swing of Iseult’s sword.

“I know!” It was hard enough to concentrate on the handful of Skal I was trying to shape without Ciarán giving useless advice in my head.

Blue light burst, and I swung my weapon to meet Iseult’s. The chain of my new flail wrapped around the blade of her sword, hissing and steaming, and I took the moment to get in close and kick Iseult in her armored stomach.

Compared to the kicks and hits I’d dealt while in my Nightmare form, it was weak and sloppy, but it was enough to make Iseult stagger back in shock.

“You don’t need to fight her!” Ciarán’s voice snapped. “You just have to make anything that isn’t a flail!”

But Iseult was more than happy to repay my strike in kind. The metal knuckles of her gauntlets crashed into Orla’s goggles where they sat on my face.

The goggles took the brunt of the force, otherwise I was sure Iseult would’ve broken my nose. The rims pushed back against my cheekbones, the metal biting into my skin, and the glass lenses shattered.

Orla cried out for us to stop, but she sounded tinny as my ears rang with a strange numbness. Ciarán was back in my head, but his words were garbled and far away.

I ripped Orla’s broken goggles from my face in time to see Iseult charging again. I deflected her attack with a flash of blue fire that fizzled into sparks.

Iseult’s face was obscured by her visor, but her aggression was clear. This was more than a test to see if I could conjure up a half-decent weapon. This was about her and the resentment she still held for me and whatever role she still blamed me for in Galahad’s death.

She knew I couldn’t make anything other than a flail. She just wanted an excuse to fight me.

A third and fourth flail blocked Iseult’s next attack and put her on the defense for a split second as she was forced to transform her sword into a shield.

“Your eyes—” Ciarán hissed in my head.

“I can handle it!” I snapped back.

“Your retinas can’t!”

Anger flared and triggered muscle memory that wasn’t mine.

Heat spread behind my eyes, the same way it had when I’d woken up in Ciarán’s body in his memories the night before. A blue hue overtook the canyon, and for the first time in our fight, Iseult recoiled.

It had taken me a long time to get used to looking at Ciarán’s eyes, with his glowing orange irises and black sclera. They still made me uneasy sometimes. I wondered what I must look like to Iseult now, with those some black sclera.

“She made eye guards!” Orla called out. “That counts, right?”

“Not a weapon!” Iseult grunted as she whipped another sword out of the air. I dodged again, but the tip of the blade came dangerously close to my face.