Page 179 of Skalterra By Nightmare
Warm, wonderful Liam, now pale and lifeless.
“He didn’t have to die.” Ferrin’s growl was inhuman. “You killed him when you refused to comply, the same way you killed Galahad.”
“No!” I didn’t sound human either.
“You can’t beat me, Wren!” Ferrin roared. “I have given everything to make it this far, and I’ll take everything you have too, if I must!”
My fingertips burned with a familiar, impossible feeling, and even though I knew I didn’t stand a chance against this version of Ferrin while I was trapped as this version of me, I charged at him.
His lips drew back in a grinning snarl, but then his eyes widened, and heat burst in my arm.
A familiar handle took shape in my hand, and I brought my flail of Skal swinging upwards in an arc of dazzling blue.
My weapon hit Ferrin square beneath his chin, and it erupted in an array of blue sparks. His head jerked back, and a bone-crunching crack echoed through the forest as his spine broke in his neck with the force of my attack.
Ferrin, and all his monstrousness, disintegrated, falling down around me in a cloud of ash that clung to the tears tracing my cheeks.
Magick. I’d done Skalmagick. In Keldori.
And I’d killed Ferrin’s Nightmare with it.
And Liam—
“Wren…” Liam’s voice was a weak rattle.
“Liam!” I cried out as I fell at his side. Against all odds, he was still alive. Blood seeped into his hoodie through the gaping hole in his chest that I tried not to look too hard at, but he was alive. I just had to keep him that way. “Liam, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Hold on.”
I pressed a hand over the wound in his chest and leaned over him.
“It’s okay,” he breathed.
“No, it’s not.” I shook my head. “But it’s going to be.”
“Did you…do magic?”
“I- maybe.” Blue light sparked off my fingertips as I said it.
He stared past my face at the leafy canopy overhead. His eyes focused and unfocused, and a light sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead. I needed to get help, but I still didn’t have my phone. I could yell, but who would hear me? My hand against Liam’s chest was hot with residual Skalmagick and the heat of his blood.
“Riley…”
“That’s right.” I nodded. “We’re going to find him, okay? But you have to stay with me, you have to—”
“He’s dead.”
“He’s not, he’s—”
“I saw his body. I only just remembered.” He turned his head to look at me through eyes that fought to flutter shut. “You were there too, remember? On the night we met.”
“No.” I pressed my hand harder against the hole in his chest, refusing to look away from his face, refusing to see the hot blood I could feel soaking into his hoodie. “You met me in the morning, not at night. Riley is fine.Youare fine. You have to be. You-you can’t—”
If Ferrin took Liam away from me, I wouldn’t stop at him and Caitria. I wouldn’t stop until all of Skalterra had been reduced to Skal dust for rotsbane to sniff at.
Liam placed his hand over mine where I tried to stem the flow of blood.
“Don’t worry about me,” he rasped. “Blue, it’s okay.”
“No, I—” The forest froze and quieted, muted by the blood rushing in my ears. My head turned light, and my fingers shook against Liam’s chest. “What did you call me?”
