Page 131 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“I don’t.” Fana stopped paddling her tiny laps between the walls of the bath to look at Iseult. “And my whole family is dead. But Orla says there are other kids at the Second Sentinel, and even though I miss home, there weren’t other kids there. Plus, Ferrin says I’ll be safe and won’t have to run anymore. So sometimes it’s a good thing to leave home.”
Iseult straightened up, letting her face come out of the water.
“You’re very wise for someone so young,” she conceded. “Thank you, Divine Sovereign.”
“It’s Fana.” Fana took in a mouthful of bath water and then sprayed it up into the air. She smacked her lips and wrinkled her nose. “That was disgusting.”
“Maybe it’s time to get out of the water,” Orla laughed. “How about we catch crickets before bed? Just-Wren, could you grab our towels?”
“And my crutch,” Iseult added.
I pulled my legs out of the water. The heat had tinged the skin of my shins a deep pink, and the air, though warm with steam, felt cool against my legs. Galahad had disappeared into the inn, but I still kept my eyes down as I collected the folded towels and wooden crutch from the deck that led into the building.
Orla and Fana, wrapped in their towels, hurried into the inn while I gave Iseult a hand out of the bath. Tiernan, standing watch on the deck, politely lowered his gaze as I handed Iseult her crutch and held the towel up to give her privacy.
“Thank you.” She wrapped herself in the towel and leaned into her crutch. It was weird to see her without her leg of silver Skal, but it made sense she would be preserving the magick, even if we were so close to the Second Sentinel. “For being kind, even though I wasn’t when we first met.”
“Don’t worry about it. Tiernan blew me up whenhefirst met me.” I said it loud enough for Tiernan to hear, and he rolled his eyes.
“I wouldn’t have if I knew Galahad had cursed you, and that’s not my fault,” he said. Fana and Orla came back out of the inn with bare feet and borrowed silk robes. They ran to the far end of the courtyard to begin their search for crickets. “And it worked for the most part. It injured the Grimguard enough to keep him off our heels until Tulyr.”
I caught Ferrin’s eye. He was the only one still bathing, and he rested with his chest against the edge of the pool and his arms folded on the tile of the courtyard. He’d so far kept our secret misadventure with the Grimguard in Vanderfall a secret.
Iseult passed into the inn, and Tiernan watched her go before turning back to glance at Fana and Orla where they played. The skin beneath his eyes was dark with fatigue, and he leaned against a wooden post that supported the deck eave.
“Go sleep if you like,” I offered. “I can watch them. I killed a rotsbane, remember? Fana is safe.”
Tiernan clenched his jaw, still watching his ward.
“She’s definitely safe.” Ferrin splashed in the bath behind me, and I closed my eyes at the sound of his approaching feet on the wet tile.
“I would’ve grabbed your towel,” I mumbled. After a moment, I dared to open my eyes. Tiernan was gone, having taken me up on my offer, and Ferrin had pulled trousers on.
He messed with a tunic and its inside-out sleeves, leaving his torso bare. Water from the bath rolled over deep ridges of scar tissue that spiraled out from what must have been a years-old injury on his abdomen. The muscles there were contorted and misplaced, as if whatever blade had caused the damage had been twisted, torquing the viscera of Ferrin’s flank into a gruesome spiral.
I looked away too late. Ferrin must’ve seen the subtle drop of my jaw and the widening of my eyes, because he sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck.
“It’s an old keepsake from a Grimguard,” he explained.
“Daithi?” I asked, remembering Ferrin’s unconscious body slumped against the wall when we’d encountered Daithi on my first night in Skalterra.
“No.” He leaned against the wooden post and watched the steam from the baths curl up into the sky. “It was the night of my biggest failure as a Riftkeeper. The night the House of Quill fell, and the night my sister died.”
“Orla’s mother?”
Orla stood with Fana on the opposite side of the baths. They crouched in their borrowed silk robes to peer into the bushes. Orla pulled back from the foliage with her hands cupped over something. Fana squealed in delight when a cricket leapt from between Orla’s fingers and disappeared back into the plants.
“Her name was Bryony, and she looked just like my niece.” Ferrin watched Orla now too, with a hand over the deformed skin of his abdomen. “She was a Riftkeeper like me, and after we got word that Fana’s family had been murdered, Bryony took the final Quill, a man named Oren, to a secret outpost. She was worried that whoever had killed the Firelds would come after him next.”
“And she was right?”
Ferrin pulled his tunic over his head and took a moment to smooth out the wrinkles where they fell over his scar. His hair, normally so coiffed, now drooped in the steam over a furrowed brow.
“I caught word that Grimguards were seen in the area, and I rushed to warn my sister and Oren. The Grimguards arrived just before I did.” He took a steadying breath. “It at least looked like Bryony died quickly. Oren was still fighting. I tried to save him, but a Grimguard skewered me clean through and left me to bleed out while they killed Oren next.”
“Ferrin,” I sighed. I knew Grimguards had killed Orla’s mother, but I had no idea the story was so awful. “I’m sorry.”
“The pain was excruciating, but do you know what haunts me more?” Ferrin’s green eyes met mine in the light of the lantern at our free, and the look on his face made me unsure that I wanted the answer. “The sound of Oren gagging on his own blood while he, a grown man, cried out for his dead mother to save him.”
