Page 86 of Skalterra By Nightmare
Ferrin had said to wait in the forest, and while the trees weren’t nearly as tall as the ones in the mountains back at home, the way they swayed in the dark still made me nervous.
“He’s not following you anymore,” Ciarán said in my head. “No need to get your heart racing. Unless it’s because you’re thinking about me, of course.”
I exhaled heavily through my nose as I led Fana towards the dark of the tree line. Not only could Ciarán see and hear everything I could, but he somehow knew my heart was thundering too quickly in my chest.
Could he hear my thoughts too?
I waited for confirmation, but my mind stayed quiet.
Good.
It was a small relief, though. Galahad would absolutely kill me if he found out. And then he’d kill me again, and again, until I’d used up my limited lives.
Fana finished off her pastries as we waited in the shadows of a birch grove, watching the main gate of Riverstead. I pulled at my eyelashes in the privacy of the dark. We were barely ten feet into the woods, but it was still nearly too much to handle. When Ferrin and the others finally came ashore together, carrying knapsacks full of fresh supplies, I breathed a sigh of relief and flagged them over with a tiny silver flame.
Galahad jogged ahead of the others with ruddy cheeks that puffed out with the exertion of running up the embankment.
“Watch out, Blue,” Ciarán chuckled in my mind, and I realized too late that Galahad was beelining towards me.
He balled my cloaks in his fist, and pulled me off balance.
“What did I tell you about taking my magick, Keldorian?”
“Stop!” Fana pushed Galahad away, and while I knew the tiny girl couldn’t be the stronger of the two, Galahad fell back. He flexed his gnarled fingers, and I wondered if he was imagining them around my throat. “We were just playing!”
“Playing?” Tiernan screwed up his face as he, Ferrin, and Orla caught up with Galahad.
“Yes. Just-Wren and I made a game.” Fana crossed her arms and stood between me and the men.
“You wasted my magick on agame?” Galahad snarled.
“Titus was following us,” I admitted. “I invented a game to get us away without him knowing we knew he was there and to keep Fana calm.”
Tiernan grabbed Fana so he could scour her for any trace of injury. Galahad, meanwhile, held his breath. I knew he still wanted to be mad at me, but Ferrin pushed past him to put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
“That was very clever, Wren. Good work.”
“But why would Titus follow them?” Orla asked from under her new cloak. “The Baron doesn’t still want Fana, does she?”
Galahad finally deflated and turned to look back at the river town. The smokestacks of Tamora’s boat were visible over the roofs of the cabanas, still spitting red steam into the night sky.
“What does Tamora love more than anything?” he growled.
“Power?” I guessed.
“Skal.” His head swiveled towards the dark woods that lay ahead. “And she knows I’m from Tulyr. She’s probably guessed that’s our next stop, and she’s going to follow us all the way there.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “If she wants to go to Tulyr so badly, doesn’t she have a map?”
“Tulyr is hidden,” Galahad explained. “Most people don’t care to find it because they believe the Skalsprings there dried up fifty years ago when the city fell. Old, dry ruins aren’t worth the risk of the surrounding terrain and rotsbane, but Tamora knows better. She’s always looking for ways to expand the Barony, and if there’s any chance she’ll find Skal in Tulyr, then she’ll want it.”
Ferrin exhaled heavily.
“Then we better move fast. No magick, and cover your Skal. If they do manage to follow us, we’ll lose them at the Umberdust Plains,” Ferrin said, readjusting his belt so his travel cloak blocked out the glowing light of his Skal bottles.
The birch trees rustled overhead, and I suppressed a chill. I did not want to go farther into this forest without a light.
“Ferrin and Orla, take point. Tiernan and Fana, with me. And Nightmare,” Galahad turned towards me, “you’ll follow alone. If you sense someone following you, divert your path away from ours. Lead them off course.”
