Page 185 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“You don’t want to free me, Quillguard,” Gams said evenly. “Keldori isn’t compatible with Magicians.”
“I’ve been living in Keldori using your same self-projected Nightmare trick, and I promise, Keldori is plenty compatible.”
“There’s too much Skal,” she continued. “Have you ever seen what happens to a Magician that uses too much Skal at once? It devours them from the inside out, and then it devours whoever it can find next.”
“Rotsbane,” I gasped. I thought I saw a flicker of uncertainty pass over Ferrin, but he shrugged it away.
“Lies,” he grunted. “Rotsbane are Nightmares, not Magicians.”
“Before Skalterra, Magicians were getting too greedy,” Gams explained. “It spiraled into an epidemic. Rotsbane were ripping apart towns, cities, and countries. So Lyria, Quill, Fireld, and I put an end to it. We combined our magick to build Skalterra in a reality parallel to Keldori where the Skal is limited. Magicians can still use their magick, but in amounts that make it harder to turn into monsters.”
“And you left the rotsbane in Keldori?” I asked.
Gams gave me a smug smile, as if proud of me for asking the right questions.
“We learned how to project ourselves back into Keldori as Nightmares, and we hunted them down until there were none left.”
My grandma. Magician. Frozen God. Rotsbane hunter.
I looked back at Orla and Fana through the ice. Their ancestors had been my grandmother’s closest friends. She had helped them create Skalterra. They’d risked their lives hunting rotsbane together.
“Then why did they trap you here?” I demanded. Ferrin must’ve wanted the answer too, because he waited patiently for Gams to answer.
“Because I asked them to.” She frowned. “When we formed Skalterra, this glacier acted as an umbilical cord of sorts. It keeps Skalterra tethered to Keldori, but that meant Magicians could escape back through this ice cave. One of us had to seal the Rift, and Fireld, Lyria, and Quill, they all had families.”
Her voice caught on the last word.
Gams had sacrificed everything, and she’d been rewarded with a reputation of evil and deceit.
My sweet, kind grandmother.
Skalterra didn’t just hate her—theyfearedher.
“Why does everyone say you want to claim Keldori as your own and start a magick war? And why do they all think you’re a man?”
I looked back at the silhouette under Jonquil.
“No one wants to release a power-hungry god.” Gams’s smile was sad. “And a frozen man demands more respect than a woman. The rumors my friends started kept us all safe. As an extra layer of protection, they bound me here with their blood. As long as their family lines survived, I would remain frozen in the Rift, and both realities would be safe.”
“But you aren’t frozen.” I refused to think my grandmother was anyone other than the woman who stood in front of me now, and I refused to look at the shadow in the ice any longer.
“I grew restless, so fifty years ago, I created a Nightmare for myself in Keldori. Outside this glacier, on the Skalterra side, there is a colony of Magicians who have sworn themselves to protecting me.” She glanced at the figures Caitria and her soldiers held prisoner on the other side of the ice. “It’s dark and cold and not a life worth living. Keldori is so full of Skal, and I was lonely. So I built Keel Watch Harbor, and filled it with semi-lucid Nightmares made from the brave Magicians protecting me so that at least while they slept, they could live a comfortable life, and I could have their company.”
“Semi-lucid?” Ferrin demanded. The way he cut in, I had the sense he’d only let our conversation go on so he could get answers to his own questions. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t force a Nightmare to be completely lucid, but I discovered if I gave them Skal-filled totems, they’d retain their identities and Keldorian memories from day to day, though they rarely remember Skalterra while in Keel Watch.” Gams shot Ferrin a scowl that she usually reserved for particularly annoying shop customers. “I’ve made thousands of chickens, and I’ve given out hundreds of them.”
I held out my hand so she could see Liam’s chicken in my palm.
“Oh, Liam.” She frowned. “His family has dutifully acted as my most elite protectors for generations, but he is too gentle.”
“Is gentle the word you would use, Just-Wren?” Ferrin goaded. “Didn’t the Grimguard kill you?”
“Did he?” Gams tutted. “He didn’t mean it, Wren. Liam’s a good boy. If he’d known—”
“His name is Ciarán,” I said. “And his cousin was Daithi.”
“Riley.”
