Page 101 of Skalterra By Nightmare
The rotsbane’s howl turned my insides to lead, but I mustered up every bit of strength I had left into my arms as I drove the end of my spike through the back of Titus’s head and into the rotsbane’s gaping maw.
Titus gave a gargling gasp and turned to ash beneath me. I fell to the trodden grass, and the rotsbane collapsed over me, squealing a sustained note that sounded like a screaming tea kettle. Its horrible, shadowy limbs twitched like a dying spider, and the pinpricks of lavender light in its deepset eyes dimmed as it choked on my bone spear.
I dragged myself out from under cold, twitching limbs, and it continued to watch me, reaching out with its claws to scrape at the dirt between us. Its boney blackened jaw opened and shut over my spear, gasping for air and Skal. The rotsbane gave a final gurgling wheeze, and its shadowy form dissipated, evaporating upwards in a cloud of dull, multicolored dust that mingled with the glowing pollen that still hung in the air.
The clearing stilled, and I sat staring at the pile of dust that had been Titus, hoping I’d been fast enough to send him safely back to bed in Keldori.
I staggered to my feet, and gut-wrenching pain ripped me open. I hadn’t noticed the rotsbane carve its claws through my chest and abdomen, but dark dust spilled from the gashes in my armor. I fell back to my knees, gasping through the pain.
“Ciarán?” His name was a weak rasp on my lips.
Ciarán sighed in my head.
“I’m here, Blue, but I think this might be goodnight.”
I grasped at Galahad’s magick, but it was too late. The wounds across my torso hemorrhaged Skal faster than I could draw it in. I rolled onto my back and watched blue pollen stream across the star-studded sky until the image faded to the darkened ceiling of my bedroom.
Something sharp cut across the palm of my hand.
I was down to two lives left in Skalterra.
24. Public Relations 101
The silver ridges of my scars caught the morning sunlight, and I studied the new line of puckered skin that cut across Galahad’s “T”. With two lives left in Skalterra, maybe I should’ve been more concerned as I walked down Keel Watch Harbor’s empty Main Street. I was two dream-deaths away from dying for real.
Instead, I marveled at how the new line of scar looked just as old as the ones it had joined in the night, as if it had been there on my hand for years rather than hours. The gashes the rotsbane had carved into my stomach were also looking older than they actually were. They’d bled a bit when I first woke up, but the broken skin had already fused back together, leaving me sore and bruised, but in one piece.
I curled my fingers over the scars of my hand and shoved my fist into the pocket of my open zip-up hoodie. My one-size-too-big flip-flops smacked the pavement of the empty sidewalk. Monday morning had brought a lull in visitors, so Gams had given Liam the day off to help his aunt and uncle plan for Riley’s memorial.
This, of course, meant someone had to go retrieve Gams’s morning bagel sandwich.
Teddy’s bagel shop was situated at the end of the street, right where the road veered away from the water and up the windy hill to the library. The yeasty smell of fresh-baked bagels wafted out onto the sidewalk, and my growling stomach quickened my pace into the shop.
It was dark and cozy inside after the bright, morning sun of the street, and Teddy waved at me from behind a display counter full of different types of bagels. Ceramic chickens of every color decorated the register, and I recognized Gams’s craftsmanship in their patterns and shapes.
“Wren! There you are! I’ve got your food right here!” Teddy called out. Liam’s blond curls bounced around his forehead as he looked up from the binder he was bent over in one of the shop’s vinyl-seated booths.
He raised a hand in greeting, and my cheeks warmed. He had carried me to bed again last night. That was three times now. I tried to smile back.
“Let me help you with that.” A woman with graying brown hair braided over her shoulder got up from Liam’s booth to retrieve a brown bag from behind the counter. She smiled at me as she handed me the bag, but her eyes were rimmed red and heavy. “It’s nice to see you again, Wren. When was the last time you were in Keel Watch?”
“I don’t know, middle school maybe?” I ran through the faces in my memories of visits to Gams growing up, but I couldn’t place the woman. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I remember you.”
“Olive.” She offered a slim, long-fingered hand. “Riley’s mother, and Liam’s aunt.”
She winked at Liam and went to join her husband at the register.
“Sleep okay last night?” Liam asked behind me.
I spun around, ready to defend myself after falling asleep in yet another inappropriate location.
“Look, I—” I looked at the open binder in front of him. Its pages boasted images of floral arrangements. He, or maybe his aunt, had circled a few of the options. All sense of fight fled me, and I deflated. “Yes. Thank you, Liam.”
He smiled and shifted over in the booth, patting the striped vinyl next to him.
“No nightmares?” he asked. I had to work hard to keep the pain off my face as I took the seat he’d offered. The rotsbane’s claw marks were healed, sure, but the muscles there were sore and tender.
“Eh.” I dug inside the brown bag until I found my usual avocado and bacon breakfast sandwich. “More of the same. You?”
