Page 87 of Keldori By Daybreak

And I’d never successfully fought that feeling. Not on my own.

I could smell the Skal on the moss beneath me, and I dug my fingertips into the loamy earth in search of its magic.

I found Ciarán’s fingers instead. They intertwined with mine, and the sharp bite of his nails digging into my knuckles kept me whole just a moment longer.

“Ciarán, please! I yield, I—I—”

“He’s too strong and won’t let me back in. You have to fight this yourself.”

“Then run!” I tried to push him off me. If I turned, I’d rip him to shreds. He held tighter. “Let go!”

I would make him let go. I would run as far as I could so the others would be safe.

Sharp agony sliced through the meat of my forearms, and for the briefest moment, the shock of the pain stemmed the hunger for Skal.

“You can’t fight me, little Saergrim!” Ferrin roared. “You’ve known magick for a summer. I’ve commanded it for decades! If I say you take my Skal and turn rotsbane, then that’s just what you’ll do!”

I would rather die.

I could command Ciarán to kill me, I realized. He’d probably refuse, Grimguard oaths of obedience be damned.

Or—

“Knock me out,” I gasped between waves of Skal that wracked my body.

“What?” Ciarán’s eyes widened in surprise at my request.

“Knock me out, Grimguard! I command it!” I screwed my eyes shut to block out Ferrin’s visage looming over us.

“If you think that’ll help,” Ferrin growled, “you’re stupider than I—”

A blunt blow crashed into the back of my head, and darkness swallowed my mind as my body snapped back into place.

20. Flood Risk Management

The dark and the silence it carried with it were a welcome respite. I was weightless and timeless and thoughtless, and I wouldn’t have minded if I could have remained in that space a little longer.

But a familiar buzzing crept into the back of my head, bringing with it a pain that pulsed against the confines of my skull. A familiar buzzing accompanied the pain. Ciarán’s thoughts, only half-contained, were back.

Dull blue light filtered through my eyelids, and air heavy with humidity weighed on my skin.

I opened my eyes to Una’s fox-like face inches from mine. Her ribs, which I seemed to be using as a pillow, expanded beneath my head, and then deflated as her warm breath washed over me in a huff.

I turned away, seeking refuge in her green fur.

“Do you think it worked?” I murmured. I didn’t have to look around the room to know Ciarán would be nearby. It was the same room we’d slept in the night before, our packs still leaning next to the door where we’d left them. “Do you think Ferrin’s coming?”

“I told you I wasn’t strong enough to fight him like that.” Ciarán’s angry croak came from somewhere to my left, and I rolled against Una to find him sitting against the far wall, glowering at me as he pet Jonquil where she curled next to him.

“You were strong enough to knock me out.” I tried to make it sound like a joke, but my words slurred.

Right. I probably had a concussion.

But I wasn’t a rotsbane, and I couldn’t hear Ferrin anymore, both things I would happily suffer a concussion for.

“That’s not funny.”

I tried to think of a smart remark, but my brain felt like slurry and my arms were on fire.