Page 184 of Skalterra By Nightmare
Ferrin swung his sword away from Gams’s neck to point at the dark shadow in the ice beneath Jonquil.
“How long?” Ferrin hissed. “She’s known about Skalterra longer than any of us, Just-Wren. Since its very advent! She was, after all, the one who created it.”
43. Combustion Fundamentals
I waited for Gams to tell me that Ferrin was mistaken. He was lying. He had to be. He’d lied about so much already.
But Gams silently kept my gaze with her chin held high.
“You’re the Frozen God,” I said blankly. “The Saergrim.”
Not Gams. It couldn’t be Gams.
“To think I thought you were Galahad’s nobody Nightmare,” Ferrin laughed at me. “Oh, Wren! You took to your Nightmare form so quickly, I should’ve known. Too bad Galahad couldn’t be here to see this. He’d never believe it.”
“You turned my granddaughter into yourNightmare?” A careful anger simmered across Gams’s face. She had the same look of indignant rage Mom had borne in the porch video.
“The old Lyrguard turned her into a Nightmare, not me. Don’t worry. He’s dead and rotting. But let’s not get hypocritical,Gams,” Ferrin simpered. “You’re a Nightmare too, and I’m guessing you’re one of your own making.”
“That’s different!”
“Oh? And what about all the Nightmares you filled that cute little town of yours with? Was that different too?”
I stared at Gams, searching for signs that she was in fact a Nightmare. Her hair wasn’t blue. Her skin was wrinkled with age. She was just Gams.
But she’d just admitted it herself. She, along with the rest of Keel Watch Harbor, were Nightmares. They were allherNightmares.
“And Wren here!” Ferrin pressed onward. “You should have seen her the last few weeks. I thought she’d be useless when we first picked her up, but she was instrumental in getting the Divine Sovereigns here.”
He beckoned at the curved wall that encircled the space. The Skal trapped in the ice made the walls blindingly bright, but shadows shifted behind Ferrin.
Gold and green Skal weapons glinted on the other side of the frozen surface, and my chest constricted at the dozens of cloaked figures held on their knees at sword point.
The two figures closest to the barrier brought my heart into my throat, and hot Skal threatened to burst from my veins. The frosted surface dulled their features, but Orla and Fana sat on their knees, bound and gagged on the other side of the ice.
The other side of theRift, I realized.
“No!” I ran to the wall and pressed my hands against the barrier. Orla’s eyes grew wide over the rag in her mouth. Caitria loomed behind her, golden knife in hand.
“Would you like to tell your grandmother what you’ve been up to all summer?” Ferrin asked. “Or should I?”
“Wren, I’m sorry. You were never supposed to—”
Ferrin pulled on Gams’s hair to shut her up.
“I told you not to hurt her!” I cried, still kneeling next to Orla.
“Wren was such a good Nightmare,” Ferrin said. “Not at first, mind you. She kept killing herself to get away.”
“You should’ve told me,” Gams whispered to me.
“Says the centuries-old Magician.” Unshed tears burned behind my eyes like the magick swirling in my veins, but I refused to let Ferrin see me cry.
“Enough of this.” Ferrin waved a hand. “I’ll give you one chance, Saergrim, to open the Rift without me doing so by force.”
By force.
He meant by sacrificing Orla and Fana.
