Yann adjusted his armload of firewood on his way down the forest path. He could hear Vidal and Rien talking behind him, but the snow filling the woods muffled their laughter.

Deep drifts piled under the trees and weighed down the branches. Grey snow clouds blocked out any sunshine from shining through the canopy.

He continued down a well-trampled path leading deeper into the woods. The men of the Black Watch traveled this path every day. Their feet packed the snow into ice and made walking easier. None of them had to re-forge the path each time.

He turned a bend in the path and stopped when he saw the wild girl sitting off to one side. A rough cabin built of thatched boughs hovered in the shadows across another clearing. Equally trampled footprints surrounded the area to show where the men had been working.

The men of the Watch built this cabin for their party to stay in while Anríq and Eliska recovered from their ordeal—whatever the hell it had been. Yann still didn’t understand what happened—to either of them.

Neither of them had regained consciousness since that disastrous day when Anríq tried to help Marine communicate with Eliska.

No one mentioned leaving the area or going anywhere else. Yann didn’t want to leave the area. He didn’t want to do this anymore.

He understood these woods. Leaving would only throw the group back into chaos.

Wesh was the party’s only functioning wizard now. He didn’t mention leaving, either, not even to protect the group from anyone coming after them.

Marine followed the Watch when they moved Anríq and Eliska down here to these woods. Marine hung around in the snow even when Neils and Yvan invited her to come inside and get warm by the fire. She never tried to come near the group again after that day.

At least she didn’t howl or snarl or shriek anymore. She just sat off to one side without looking at anyone.

Yann kept walking past her, pushed open the cabin door, and kicked it shut before he crossed to the firepit at the center.

The Watch didn’t construct this cabin with any windows. The men had no supplies and warmth took a much higher priority.

The walls cast the interior in permanent shadow. The men chink every crack in the walls whenever anyone spotted hints of light coming through.

That left the little house shadowy even in the middle of the day. A small opening in the ceiling let in the only light.

Yann lowered his pile of wood onto the stack next to the coals. Omer and Barsali sat in one corner cleaning a waterbuck carcass they’d killed for the group’s meals. All the other men were still outside.

The Watch took turns gathering firewood, hunting, and heating water for cleaning, drinking, and any other chores the men had to do.

Wesh sat on one side of the fire working over Anríq and Eliska. Wesh spent all his time doing nothing else. He barely ate or slept. He’d aged twenty years since it happened.

Yann sat down on one ankle while he built up the fire. He considered how to break in on Wesh’s thoughts to tell him to eat something, drink some water, and maybe get some sleep.

Just then, Anríq stirred for the first time. He hadn’t moved since Yann first tried to tear him away from Marine and Eliska. Not even moving him down here got any response from him.

He groaned in his sleep, scowled without opening his eyes, and twisted onto his side before he pried his eyelids open.

He squinted around him trying to figure out where he was. He frowned even more when he saw Yann.

Yann didn’t say anything. He watched the wheels turning in Anríq’s head as he put the sequence of events back together. Then he propped himself up on his elbows, looked to one side, and saw Eliska lying right next to him.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Anríq froze for a second. Then he shot up into a sitting position. He extended his hand to touch her shoulder the way he did before, but he stopped himself.

He waited a second before he let his hand fall on her shoulder.

“No!” he whispered.

“She got me to use her magic to heal you,” Wesh growled. “She insisted that I combine her magic with mine to save your life.”

Anríq’s voice trembled. “You shouldn’t have….”

“She couldn’t live with the guilt,” Wesh husked. “Seeing you about to die…..It broke her….”

“Guilt!” Anríq croaked. “What guilt?!”

“She blamed herself for what happened to you….and I must admit, my dear boy…..I couldn’t live with it myself. None of us could bear to lose you….You’ll say I shouldn’t have, but I did it and now you’re healed exactly the way she wanted.”

The misery in Wesh’s voice brought a lump into Yann’s throat. Anríq stayed there, bowed over Eliska’s still form. He left his hand touching her shoulder for a long time before he took it back.

The silence became oppressive.

Wesh came back over to him and laid his own hands on Anríq’s head. Anríq barely noticed when Wesh sat back and sighed.

“The Darkness…..” Anríq murmured. “It’s inside her now.”

“I know,” Wesh replied. “I’ve been doing what I can to drain it out of her. It’s just taking a long time.”

“I have to….” Anríq extended his hand again.

Wesh stopped him. “Don’t undo everything we’ve already done. She risked a lot to bring you back. Don’t throw that away.”

“I won’t, but I have to heal her. I can’t leave her like this.”

Wesh let him go and moved out of the way. Anríq went through a different procedure of laying on hands and closing his eyes.

Yann had been seeing Wesh working on both Anríq and Eliska for days. Anríq had a completely different way of healing—as if Yann could ever understand any of this.

Anríq didn’t touch Eliska for very long. He took his hand away and sat there staring at her for a long time. He was still sitting there when the other men came back.

They tried to make a celebration out of Anríq waking up, but he didn’t talk back to them when they spoke to him.

He turned away from Eliska and sat and ate with them around the fire, but he didn’t engage. He kept glancing over at her and then staring into the flames.

Eventually, the men noticed and stopped trying to talk to him.

“How much longer do you think it will take before Eliska wakes up?” Yvan asked Wesh.

“It will go quicker now that two of us are working on her,” Wesh replied.

Yvan shot a glance at Anríq. “Is that wise after what he’s already gone through?”

Wesh shrugged. “He says he won’t harm himself by treating her. I believe him.”

“It would be nice if she could at least tell us if she found out anything by talking to that wild girl,” Niyazi remarked. “It would be nice to know that all of this actually got us somewhere and wasn’t just a massive waste of time.”

“It got us closer to understanding that Marine trying to help us,” Wesh pointed out.

“At what cost?” Barsali asked. “It could have cost us Anríq’s life and it might still cost us Eliska’s life. I don’t call that a fair trade.”

“It won’t cost us Eliska’s life,” Wesh replied. “She won’t die.”

“It still cost too much,” Barsali countered. “Whatever Marine knows isn’t worth taking a risk like this. It could have been disastrous.”

Wesh glanced over at Anríq. “I suppose he thinks it was worth it or he wouldn’t have done it. That’s his decision to make. He knows more about it than we do.”

“Does he know more about it than you do?” Yvan asked. “More than the Guardian Templars?”

Wesh nodded down at the food in his hands. “Anríq has more experience in the Coil than all the Guardian Templars put together. He understood Marine better than we did—better than Eliska did.”

“How do you think that happened?” Omer asked. “Why couldn’t Eliska just communicate with Marine herself if Eliska is so powerful?”

Wesh looked away. “I have my theories, but I wouldn’t insult Eliska by voicing them.”

“If you think Eliska is communing with the Dark, too, you better tell us,” Yvan returned. “You better not keep anything from us that could jeopardize our safety.”

Wesh kept his head turned away. He tried to keep the ice out of his voice and failed. “Eliska does not commune with the Dark as I’ve already explained to you. I only meant that perhaps she held back from trying to make contact with Marine because of Marine’s connection to the Dark. Eliska would have wanted to keep away from it. She wouldn’t want to go near it even to find out whatever it is Marine wanted to tell her.”

“And now Eliska knows what it is and can’t tell us.” Omer turned to Anríq. “Did you see what Marine was trying to tell Eliska?”

Anríq didn’t look up, either. “I didn’t see. There was too much Darkness.”

“Great,” Rien muttered. “So this whole exercise got us a big fat zero.”

“Maybe not,” Yann chimed in. “Maybe Eliska will be able to tell us when she recovers.”

“That’s a big maybe, son,” Yvan pointed out. “Even if she does recover, she might not have magic anymore.” He glanced at Wesh. “Isn’t that what you tried to tell her—that she could lose all her magic if she went through with this?”

Wesh opened his mouth to answer, but Anríq answered in his place. “She still has her magic—all of it. She’s as strong as ever.”

Yvan whipped around to stare at him. “You can tell that?” Anríq nodded down at his hands. All the strength seemed to have drained out of him since he woke up and saw Eliska stricken in his place.

End of Chapter 31.