Page 91 of Keldori By Daybreak

“It’s your uncle,” Iseult said. “He found us.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard, apparently,” Orla hissed.

“Where’s Ciarán?” I asked. “He’s supposed to come too.”

“Playing the hero, now let’s go!” She pulled Orla towards the stairs.

“What do you mean ‘playing the hero’?” I stopped in the corridor.

“I mean he’s going to help give us a chance to escape, so come on!”

I shoved past them to run to the open walkway. I hit the barrier with so much force that Orla had to grab ahold of my hood to make sure I didn’t fall over the edge and into the figures gathering in the mossy yard below.

Moonlight glinted off Ferrin’s coiffed hair. Foot soldiers gathered behind him, but I couldn’t tell if they were real or Nightmares.

And standing just beneath us, orange bo staff in hand, Ciarán stood between Ferrin’s forces and the keep.

“He’ll be fine as long as he has Una. Wren, don’t—” Iseult snapped, but I was already whipping around and barreling down the hall to the steps.

“Get Orla out!” I yelled back. Orla, in return, yelled my name after me, but I knew Iseult would make sure she got to safety.

And I wouldn’t leave without Ciarán.

Una still stood guard in front of the main door, and I shoved past her onto the top step of the keep.

“You’re supposed to be on your way out,” Ciarán said through our tether. He stood at the bottom of the steps with his hand outstretched, as if that might keep me back.

“This wasn’t part of the plan!” I didn’t have the wherewithal to reply mentally.

Ferrin and his squadron were more intimidating here at ground level, but the concussion dulled my fear and filled me with false confidence. The glowing weapons of green cut through the steam rising from the vents, and Ferrin grinned at me through the multi-colored fog.

“We won’t hurt you Wren.” A familiar voice cut through the fog and made the breath catch in my throat. “Go with him, and Ferrin won’t hurt us either.”

I knew that voice, concussion or no, and it was absolutely impossible for it to be here.

Baritone and clipped, yet somehow still casual and likable—I’d listened to that voice hold an audience’s attention with facts about polar wander and paleomagnetism.

I found him in the fog, and maybe my concussion was worse than I realized, because the tall, willowy man standing in the moss couldn’t be in Skalterra. When I’d last seen him—the only time I’d seen him—my father hadn’t even known what “Skalterra” meant.

Yet there he was.

My father who had abandoned me. Who had rejected me. Who hated me for having the audacity to have been born.

My father who was standing with Ferrin and his men.

“Stand back, Wren,” Ciarán warned. “It’s a trick. Get out with the others.”

“It’s not a trick,” a young woman intoned. She stood near my father with thick honey-colored hair braided over her shoulder. I hadn’t seen her since graduation, when she and her friends had tricked me into spending a night in the forest alone. “Either she complies, or we die. There is nothing tricky about that.”

She shouldn’t be here either.

“Linsey,” I breathed. “Linsey, no…”

She had been a terrible friend, but if Ferrin threatened her, I’d have to comply.

“You don’t have many connections back home,” Ferrin sang through the steam. “It took a little bit of research, but it wasn’t too difficult to find the name of your father or that of your closest friend. I thought it might be fun for both of us to summon them. You get to catch up with your Keldorian pals, and I get to ensure your cooperation.”

They were Nightmares. That made more sense. I should’ve realized that immediately. This damn concussion.