Page 97 of Keldori By Daybreak

Glass clinked as bottles were exchanged, and the guard laughed again. Ciarán hitched me higher up his chest, and my eyes fluttered open. Street lamps full of swirling, steamed Skal lit the tapestries that hung from walls and across the walkways. Beyond their ornate patterns, curtains of vines and foliage hung from the glinting silhouette of a massive tree, occluding the darkening sky.

“Are you still with me, Blue?” Ciarán’s voice nudged at the back of my head.

I hummed back, and let the dark of his cloaks envelop me.

22. Byzantine Architecture

Someone was in my head, and it wasn’t Ciarán. Ciarán was there too, of course, lurking in the corners as he always did, but this new presence felt distinctly different.

It was more opaque and amorphous than Ciarán, but it shined through the thick slurry of my mind. I reached out for it, hoping it might drag me out the fog I’d been prisoner to, and it danced out of reach.

“Settle down,” Ciarán’s voice murmured in the dark. “She’s trying to help.”

“Who?” I demanded, suddenly on the defense.

“Just let her work. You’ll be better soon.”

“I don’t want strangers in my head!”

The presence darted closer, and the dark static of my mind swooped and swirled. My stomach lurched, and though I was trapped in my head, the cold sweat that drenched my back was all too tangible.

A sudden fire seared between my temples, burning away the fog and confusion and replacing it with white-hot pain.

I lashed out against the flames, but heavy weight pinned my arms to my side, so I couldn’t escape the fire in my head.

“It’s almost done, Blue. You’re okay.”

My stomach heaved again, and I thought I could see Linsey’s rotsbane forming in the shadows of my mind.

Her bones cracked and snapped as her face split to reveal the monster underneath, and I screamed in fear and pain, and the fire in my head turned hotter and hotter and hotter until—

Something popped, like a lightbulb bursting, and everything fell back into cold dark.

The smell of burning incense stung my nose and pulled me out of sleep. I blinked against the dull, warm light of whatever room I was waking in, and my heart jumped into my throat at the familiar, warm eyes that stared down at me under a furrowed brow.

“Liam?” I croaked, but dark hair fell forward into his face, and I sighed.

It wasn’t Liam, but Ciarán, though his eyes lacked their usual dark sclera and orange glow, leaving him looking more like Liam than usual.

“You’re okay,” Ciarán insisted. “We’re safe.”

Safe.

The word made me giddy and whatever sludge had existed in my head before had been replaced by a strange euphoria.

I reached up and grabbed Ciarán’s face, smooshing his cheeks together between my palms. His eyebrows rose in surprise.

“You don’t have a beard,” I whispered.

“What?”

I patted either side of his face, feeling the smooth skin. “We’re always traveling, but you never even have stubble. How? Why don’t you have facial hair?”

“I burn it off. What are you—?” He pulled away and grabbed my wrists to keep me from reaching for his face again. “Stop that.”

“You burn it off?” I repeated incredulously. “With magick?”

“Yes. Do you feel okay?”