Page 78 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“The color changed, didn’t it?” She tapped on the material, and her eyes narrowed behind her monocle. “And so did your leather. Galahad, you noticed that the other night, didn’t you? She can change her clothes as well as her anatomy!”
I glanced up at Galahad. He sat on his knees, gripping the bronze railing with both hands and surveying me with the same careful regard he’d held the night in Vanderfall.
Tamora moved to inspect a spike of bloody bone that protruded from my arm. I flinched away, but held my arm steady. Tamora brushed a finger along the edge of the blade, and then turned her hand so I could see the droplet of blood that clung to the cut the shard had left there.
“Very sharp. Does it hurt you as well?”
“No,” I lied. The twist in her smile told me she didn’t believe me.
“Give me your chest plate.”
“Excuse me?” I recoiled.
“Your armor. I want to try something.”
The spikes protruding from my arms made unbuckling the kevlar tricky, but I managed to retract them halfway back into my body, hiding my face behind blue hair as I did so Tamora couldn’t see me gritting my teeth in pain.
The kevlar fell away, leaving me shivering on the deck in a sweat-drenched tunic. Titus stood over me with his arms crossed and a triumphant smirk on his lips.
“Fascinating.” Tamora turned the armor over in her hands. “This material, is it Keldorian? I’ve never—”
It disintegrated in her hands, and she staggered backwards as black grains of ash slipped between her fingers and disappeared on the river wind.
“Fascinating,” she murmured again, though there was something darker there. “I never considered a Nightmare’s apparel to be an extension of their form, but I suppose it makes sense. Galahad, are you seeing this?”
Galahad hobbled down the steps behind her. His face was unreadable under his grizzled gray mane of hair, and he sipped on a bottle of glowing Skal.
“Yes, Baron, it is truly spectacular. Would you please let my Nightmare and, by extension, me, have a rest now?” He glowered as if I were in trouble, though I wasn’t sure what I had done to offend him. If anyone should be angry, it should be me. I was the one who’d been dragged here just to play the role of a lab rat for Tamora.
Tamora rubbed her fingers together, inspecting what little remained of my chest armor.
“Of course, Galahad.” She brushed her hands off and straightened up. “This exercise has left me with plenty to ponder until the next one.”
“Next one?” I blanched. Tamora winked at me behind her monocle.
“Come, Titus. Let’s let them rest.”
Titus followed Tamora into the double doors that led into the cabin of the steamboat, and I waited until the doors had swung shut before laying into Galahad.
“Are you trying to keep me from making it to the Second Sentinel?” I staggered to my feet so I could shove my palm in his face. “I’ve only got three lives left! I’m more than a Nightmare, okay? I have a life back in Keldori! And friends and family, and you’re trying to kill me!”
“Oh,I’mtrying to killyou?”His bushy eyebrows jumped upwards towards his goggles. “You nearly killed me in the Baron’s mansion the other night. Where do you think your magick comes from? Who do you think pays the price when you use so much of it?”
“How was I supposed to know it was coming from you?”
“All your magick comes from me, girl.” He gestured with the half-drank Skal bottle in his hands. “And to use those tricks in front of the Baron, no less—”
“The lady who was trying to murder us and dissolve the barrier between our realities?” I snapped. “Yes, so sorry for saving us all.”
A ghastly, rattling howl that sucked what little warmth the Skalterran night had to offer interrupted our argument. Galahad shoved me behind him, and we both scanned the clifftops. A dark shadow glided along the lip of the cliff, its black edges illuminated by the dual moons. It rushed back and forth, as if frustrated, then howled again.
“It’s a rotsbane,” I breathed.
“It can’t reach you here,” Galahad said, but I didn’t like the waver in his voice. “They don’t do well with water.”
“Very reassuring. Thank you,” I snarled. “Can I go home now?”
Galahad looked back up at the rotsbane as another shadow joined its side. They sniffed at the red steam that wafted from our smokestacks and howled in tandem, sucking as much of the glowing air into their open mouths as they could.
