Page 130 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“And you got Galahad to agree to a spa day?” I asked.
“There’s a blizzard in our way.” Galahad’s silver hair was gathered into a bun at the top of his head, but his braided beard floated on the water in front of him. “We’ll wait for it to pass and continue tomorrow.”
“A blizzard this time of year?”
“The closer we get to the Frozen God’s glacier, the colder it’s going to get,” Ferrin explained.
The door behind me opened again, and a fully-clothed Tiernan took up post next to me.
“You can watch them.” I pointed at the men and shifted closer to the pool with Orla, Iseult, and Fana. “I’ll stand over here.”
“Now that Tiernan is on guard, you should join us!” Orla shifted over in her pool to make room between her and Iseult. The water may have been foggy and opaque, but I averted my gaze anyway.
“No,” Galahad growled. “The Nightmare is working.”
“By the Three Magicians, Galahad,” Orla groaned. “Have you ever lightened up even once or would it actually kill you?”
“It’s okay,” I insisted. “I don’t really do the naked-with-friends thing.”
Orla glared at Galahad through the steam.
“What about just your feet?” she asked.
Galahad didn’t protest, so I wiggled out of leather boots and wool socks that dissolved into dust as soon as I took them off. I sank to the stone floor to dip my feet into the water, and a shudder ran down my spine at the water’s warm touch.
Orla dipped her mouth beneath the water to blow bubbles at a giggling Fana, but Iseult, with her long silver hair pulled into a floppy bun, frowned at the swirling bath with a blank stare.
“Iseult?” I asked in a low voice.
She shook her head and ran her fingertips along the top of the water.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m not used to all this yet.”
She swallowed hard and looked around the courtyard.
“Right,” I sighed. Her decision to leave her home had been so abrupt. I wondered if she was already regretting it. “This is the first time you’ve been outside of Tulyr.”
“First and only, since there’s no going back.” She let her hand sink back under the water. “It’s beautiful, but all I can think about is home and if it’s even still there.”
As strange and ethereal as Iseult was, she was suddenly the most relatable member of the group. Skalterra was new to her too.
“I think Tulyr will be okay.” Ciarán had called off his Nightmares as soon as I’d yielded to him, but I couldn’t tell her that without also explaining how I’dactuallydied that night. “By the time I went down, your friends nearly had it under control.”
She raised her gray eyes from the water to me, and gave a soft smile. I tried to return it but was sure it looked more like a grimace.
“Thank you, Wren,” she said. “You are kind. I didn’t know Nightmares could be that way.”
“Probably because Nightmares aren’t supposed to be kind.” I extended my leg so that my toes stuck out of the water. This conversation was nice, but I’d prefer it if all parties were clothed. “We’re supposed to be whatever our handler wants us to be.”
“That’s funny,” Galahad interjected behind us. “I don’t recall ever wanting you to be a nuisance.”
“If I’m such a nuisance, why do you keep bringing me back here?”
Galahad’s responding grunt was accompanied by splashing. I fixed my eyes on my toes where they stuck out of the water. I didn’t want to see any of my Skalterran counterparts naked, but Galahad was at the bottom of the list.
“Leaving home is hard,” Orla said on my other side. She peered around my knees to get a better look at Galahad’s granddaughter. “I’d never done it either until a couple years ago when my uncle and I left to join the other Riftkeepers in Cape Fireld.”
“But you get to return.” Iseult sighed and slipped under the steaming water so that her face was submerged up to her nose.
