Page 142 of Skalterra By Nightmare
Orla’s blast had left a massive hole in the ice, and the Grimguard knelt on the opposite side of it. Her hood had fallen away, and wild hair twisted in the wind. Ciarán lay next to her, unmoving, and I tested our connection again just to make sure he was alive.
The woman raised her bow arm towards me and nocked an orange arrow in place.
We stared at each other, the wind howling between us. Her orange eyes glowed in the snowy gloom, and I held her gaze in a silent dare to fire.
But then she lowered her arm and bent over Ciarán’s body. I watched for a moment to make sure she wouldn’t change her mind about shooting us, then turned and ran.
“You should’ve run when I told you too,” I muttered to the snow. “And where the hell did you get purple magick?”
Hopefully the others weren’t too far ahead. Hopefully there was some kind of shelter at the lake’s edge where I could help Orla.
Her chest heaved against my back with ragged breaths, and each one accompanied a weak, raspy exhale in my ear.
“Where do I go?” I whispered. I wasn’t even sure this was the right direction. “Dammit, Orla, I don’t know what I’m doing!”
“Wren Warrender, do you know you nearly killed me?”
I’d never been so relieved to hear Galahad’s voice in my head.
“Galahad, help.” I must’ve slipped back under his jurisdiction when Orla’s attack had injured Ciarán. I clawed at the strengthening tether between us, though I was careful not to take any more Skal. “I have Orla, but I don’t know where to go. She’s- she’s not okay.”
“But she’s alive?”
“For now,” I panted, still fighting through the wind in a full sprint.
“And you promise you aren’t a rotsbane?”
I blinked away tears, afraid they might freeze my eyes shut if I let them fall.
“I’m not a rotsbane.”
“You should be. I felt how much magick you took from me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Yell at me later. I need to know where to take Orla.”
“I left you a trail. You’ll be able to see it as long as we’re connected. Find the silver wisps. They’ll bring you here.”
I slid to a stop to search the gloom for any glowing wisps, whatever a wisp might look like.
“Sure, no problem,” I sighed. “Should be easy to find something silver when literally everything else is gray and white.”
“And once again I’m struck by the fact that I ended up with the daftest Nightmare to ever be unlucky enough to travel Skalterra. Don’t search with your eyes, girl.”
I shrugged off Galahad’s comments. I didn’t have time to be offended, and Ihadnearly killed him.
I focused on the Skal coursing through my veins, not entirely sure how to find Galahad’s trail but figuring it would probably work along the same lines as the magick bond between us. A tugging pulled me to the left, and I trusted the feeling and chased after it. A bit of light glimmered in the gloom, shining like a silver ghost that fluttered in the wind.
“I found it!” I said.
“Hurry, Nightmare. I quite like the Quillguard in your care. I’d hate for her to die so close to home.”
“Galahad.” I stopped to inspect the glowing silver orb that he’d called a wisp. It was roughly the size of a softball, and a gentle heat radiated off its surface. Another one floated twenty or so yards ahead. “Something weird happened with Orla.”
“Weird how?”
“Is it normal for a Magician’s Skal to change color?”
Galahad was quiet in my head, and I trudged onwards to the next wisp of silver Skal.
