Yann made it back to the cabin first. He didn’t wait for Eliska to catch up with him.

He should have. He should have stayed with her to make sure she didn’t fall over and pass out in the snow.

He didn’t feel angry or resentful about the obvious chemistry between her and Anríq—not as angry or resentful as he sounded just now.

What girl in her right mind wouldn’t be attracted to Anríq? He was everything a girl could possibly find attractive.

He was big, strong, good-looking, and impossibly kind and caring. He obviously cared about Eliska as the special prize that she was.

Why shouldn’t he after the way she welcomed him, defended him, gave him her food from her own hand, and went out of her way to make sure everyone else thought the best of him the same way she did?

Yann had to get away from her if only for a few seconds. She would make it back to the cabin and then the whole thing would start all over again when Anríq came back.

He hadn’t been able to stop beaming at her ever since she woke up. His awe and esteem for her skyrocketed after the way she convinced Wesh to use her magic to heal him.

Yann didn’t want to stand in the way of that. He didn’t want to be the reason either of them thought they couldn’t be together.

He couldn’t know if she was right about Anríq never thinking of her that way. Yann didn’t understand the Servant’s vow, but Eliska did. Who would know better than she would if Anríq was completely unavailable?

Yann couldn’t even be happy about that. If she wanted him, why shouldn’t she have him? She deserved the best, and if that wasn’t Yann, then he cared about her enough to wish the best for her.

Anríq was the best for her. Yann didn’t want to be her second choice. He didn’t want to be something mundane and ordinary that she settled for when she couldn’t get the man she really wanted.

He didn’t even care about any of that. So he held her hand once. That didn’t make them anything more than close friends. He saved her life and she saved his. That put him on the same level with Anríq.

Yann could put the whole subject behind him and just be happy to move on, now that both Anríq and Eliska were on the mend. They were both the best thing for this group’s survival. Yann could be happy about that.

He just needed to spend a few short minutes away from her while he screwed his head on straight—the way it was before all this started.

He made up his mind years ago to join the Watch and take his vow of celibacy. He couldn’t think of any better way to spend his life.

He never once considered throwing over that commitment—not until he met her.

She just distracted him from what he knew he had to do. Now she had passed out of his reach and left him to do what he knew he had to do. Everything worked out better this way.

He walked back into the cabin, put his wood on the pile, and squatted down to warm his hands over the flames until Eliska got back.

Wesh looked up. “Where’s Eliska? You said you would take care of her.”

“She’s fine,” Yann replied. “She’s coming right behind me.”

Wesh opened his mouth—no doubt to give Yann a lecture about how fragile she was.

She came in before Wesh could launch into it. She added her logs to the pile and then Anríq came back with Vidal and Rien.

The three of them had gone hunting, but they didn’t bring anything back.

“There’s nothing out there,” Rien announced. “We have to keep going farther and farther to find game. We must have cleared out the area.”

Just then, Yvan returned with Omer, Barsali, Neils, and Niyazi. Yvan took one look at the men’s empty hands. “Nothing again?”

“All the waterbuck have migrated,” Vidal replied. “Maybe it’s time we followed them. At least we’ll know where to find food.”

Yvan glanced across the cabin. “What do you say, Wesh? How do you feel, Eliska? Are you strong enough to travel?”

“I might not be what I was before, but I’ll get stronger as the days go on,” she replied. “I say we move out, too.”

“I suppose we have nothing to lose and everything to gain,” Wesh replied. “We might find somewhere with better weather.”

“Have any of you three seen anyone trying to find us?” Yvan asked.

“No, nothing,” Eliska replied.

Anríq shook his head. “No.”

“I keep checking, but the landscape is empty for a long way around,” Wesh replied. “We could travel for days without seeing anyone.”

“I find that impossible to believe,” Omer muttered.

“So do I,” Yvan replied.

“This Island should have turned to spring by now.” Eliska created her Coil projection on her hand and rotated it in front of the group. “This Island might already be falling into instability. That might be why the seasons don’t change.”

“Then we should definitely move,” Wesh replied. “It might get colder instead of warmer.”

“That settles it,” Yvan finished. “We’ll move out in the morning. We’ll follow the waterbuck. Maybe we’ll have better luck.”

“We can finish this one tonight.” Neils squatted in front of the fire and unfolded the piece of hog hide where he kept the leftover food. “There isn’t much left.”

“It will be enough,” Yvan told him.

Everyone sat down in a circle. Eliska sat next to Wesh with Neils on her other side. Did she do that on purpose so she wouldn’t sit next to Anríq?

Anríq sat on Wesh’s other side. Anríq and Eliska couldn’t see each other or smile at each other or blush at each other or hand each other food the way they usually did.

Yann took the seat on the other side of Neils so he wouldn’t be able to see Eliska or Anríq, either.

Yann really needed to put both of them out of his mind. What they did didn’t concern him anymore. He was a member of the Black Watch—or as good as.

He succeeded in putting them out of his mind for the evening. He just had to focus on the other Watchmen and pretend that Anríq and Eliska weren’t there.

Everyone woke up early the next morning. A current of excitement infected the cabin as everyone folded their blankets into the corner as usual.

“I guess we can just leave everything for the next person,” Neils suggested. “Then they won’t have to go looking for it.”

“If this country is as deserted as Wesh says it is, this cabin will fall apart and decay back into the forest long before anyone finds it,” Yann replied.

“Even better,” Neils went on. “Then no one ever has to know we were here.”

The sense of energized enthusiasm infected everyone when the party stepped outside and filed down the path for the last time.

They all wore their gar-fur cloaks and boots to keep warm in the crisp air.

No one said a word as they all passed Marine. She didn’t look up. Was this the last time any of them would see her, too? Yann didn’t believe that.

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She spent months sitting out here in the snow—just waiting for the group to do something. Wesh was right. Whatever she wanted from them or with them must be something important.

She didn’t follow right away. The group came to the end of their trodden path long before they left the woods. Deep snow drifts blocked the way.

Anríq went in front and used his size to plow a channel through the drifts. Barsali and Yvan followed him.

The men of the Watch took turns breaking the path and tramping the snow for those behind. Wesh and Eliska stayed in the back.

Yann stayed near her just because. He should have ignored and avoided her, but he couldn’t do that. He didn’t start caring for her like this only to turn off those feelings because things didn’t work out.

He didn’t know how things would work out, but he found as the day wore on that it didn’t really matter. He needed to take care of her. Someone had to.

Anríq was too busy breaking the path for everyone. That left Yann in the rear making sure she kept up with the party and didn’t tire herself out.

The job of breaking the path slowed everyone down enough. The endless process gave her plenty of time to rest before she had to make another push.

Marine caught up with them an hour later. Her arrival didn’t surprise anyone even enough to remark on it. Everyone expected it.

The ordeal of getting through the snow got a thousand times worse when the party left the woods.

The group came to a broad expanse of open country piled in miles and miles of snow.

Anríq collapsed from exhaustion right there at the edge of the woods. “I need….I need to rest…..”

Rien marched around him in a circle packing down the snow. “You’ve taken the front for long enough. You should fall back and let the rest of us take our turns.”

Anríq didn’t argue. He drank some of the party’s water and dropped back to the middle of the line while Barsali, Omer, Niyazi, and Vidal went in front.

Then Yvan, Neils, and Rien rotated to the front to do the heavy work.

No one suggested that Wesh and Eliska do their share. For some reason, no one suggested that Yann go in front, either. They left him in the back with Wesh and Eliska.

They kept on that way until the sky started to get dark. “We’ll be camping in the snow tonight,” Barsali murmured.

“I see some trees ahead,” Omer remarked. “Let’s camp there. It will be better than nothing.”

Silence fell over the group as they toiled the rest of the way across the field to the tree line. All the men worked together to pack down an area of snow big enough for the whole group.

Wesh started a fire in the center, but no one had any food. Marine lurked around the perimeter. She never came any closer.

“How long do we have to keep doing this?” Rien asked. “How long before we come to the end of this snow country?”

“I have an idea,” Eliska blurted out. “I can use my magic to melt a path through it.”

Yvan looked up. “You could do that? I mean, you could do it without hurting yourself?”

“My body is weak, but there’s nothing wrong with my magic. You’ll all die of exhaustion within a few days if we go on like this. I could even shatter this Island and get us to a warmer country.”

“Don’t do that,” Wesh replied. “There must be some warmer part of this Island.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you last night. This whole Island should have a warmer climate. Something’s wrong with it.”

“So is the whole Island snowbound?” Yann asked.

“It looks that way. Breaking through to a different one might be better.”

“I don’t want to bet our lives on ‘might be’,” Barsali interjected.

“You didn’t tell us what you saw when Marine communicated with you,” Wesh told Eliska. “I didn’t want to ask before you were ready to tell us, but if we’re already traveling into danger, maybe we should have some idea about where we’re going and why.”

“She didn’t show me much and I don’t completely understand what she did show me.”

“Tell us,” Wesh urged. “Anything is better than nothing.”

Eliska picked up a stick from the pile the men had been adding to the fire. She scratched the tip onto the packed snow at her feet.

“Most of it was shadowy images or people and Darklings moving around…and then there was this one landscape. I don’t remember much of the other landscapes, but this one was the most distinct.”

She scrawled a line of square shapes and one large pointed one in the center. She also added a line of hills in the background behind everything else.

“I don’t recognize the place,” Eliska finished. “I’ve never been there.”

“I recognize it,” Wesh replied. “This tall one is the White Spire, the Voyant Mendicat’s stronghold.”

Eliska looked up. “It is? Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Marine must have been trying to tell you something about him. Either she was trying to find out the connection between you and the Voyant or she was trying to tell you about his plans for us.”

“But these visions were too indistinct,” Omer pointed out. “We have no idea why Marine showed Eliska this. Marine might not know anything more than we do except that the Voyant is the one coming after us to get whatever it is he thinks we have.”

“It does seem a shame that she wasn’t able to tell us what it is,” Wesh mumbled. “That would have been much more helpful.”

Just then, Marine startled everyone by coming into their camp for the first time. She’d never come this close to anyone since she flattened Yvan under the overhang.

Everyone jumped out of their seats to get away from her. Rien and Vidal both yelled out and Barsali accidentally stepped on Yann in his haste to get to his feet.

She ignored them all, pushed her way into their circle, and squatted down next to Eliska’s sketch.

Marine picked up a different twig and laid it on the packed snow with its thinner end pointing toward the White Spire—or what Wesh said was the White Spire.

“What does that mean?” Yann asked. “Does that mean we should go toward the White Spire or away from it?”

Eliska stared down at Marine in a trance. Marine looked up at her and made eye contact for what seemed like a long time.

Eliska went still and quiet the way she did when Anríq connected the two girls to each other.

Yann was really starting to hate the hypnotic effect this girl had on Eliska. Nothing good ever came of it.

“Eliska?” he asked again. “What do you think this means?”

Her eyes snapped to his face and her expression cleared. By the time she thought to glance down at Marine, Marine turned away and bent over the drawing again.

She kept picking up more sticks and laying them on top of the sketch with exaggerated care. She took deliberate pains to place each one in exactly the right spot.

She added the second stick with its tip touching the first. She adjusted its angle so its fatter end rested an inch away from the fat end of the first stick. The two sticks converged with their thin ends pointing toward the White Spire.

Then she added a third stick in the same position so the three sticks formed an arrow. She kept adding more and more sticks, all with their ends connected next to the White Spire. She couldn’t have made it more obvious that she was pointing at that one feature in this magical landscape.

“This could mean anything,” Omer remarked. “She could just be trying to warn us about the Voyant.”

“If the Voyant is the one hunting for us, we could go on the offensive and hunt him instead,” Niyazi suggested. “We don’t have to spend all this time running away from him if we already know where he is.”

“We don’t know where he is,” Eliska countered. “I don’t even know which Layer the White Spire is in. We wouldn’t be able to find him.”

Barsali turned to Wesh. “Do you know where the White Spire is?”

“I’m afraid not. The Temple records list the Voyant Mendicat, the White Spire, and the Voyant’s supposed ability to control the Coil as nothing but legends and rumors. We don’t even know if they’re real.”

“Marine seems to think they’re real,” Yann pointed out. “You said this vision was confirmation that he was the one behind this.”

“It does seem coincidental that the Templars’ scrying visions indicated he was the one going after Middleborough and now Marine is telling us the same thing,” Wesh remarked.

“You mean you think that’s what she’s telling us,” Vidal pointed out. “We don’t exactly know what she’s trying to tell us. She’s showing us a landscape with the White Spire in it. She could be telling us that the Voyant is causing the Coil to become unstable. We don’t know that she’s telling us he’s the one coming after us—or that anyone is coming after us.”

“We already know someone is coming after us,” Yvan corrected.

“All these incidents could have been caused by something else,” Vidal argued. “No one has come after us while we’ve been in this snow Island. Maybe no one was coming after us in the first place and we misinterpreted what was happening.”

“Someone definitely paid the Barbarians to go after the Black Watch,” Eliska interjected. “They knew exactly where to ambush you after you crossed multiple Layers—which means that whoever sent them to find you had powerful magic. I don’t think the Barbarian magic-users have that kind of power. It would have to be someone else—another wizard.”

All eyes turned to Anríq. “What do you say, my boy?” Wesh asked him. “What do you think this vision means?”

“I don’t know,” Anríq mumbled. “I only serve.”

“Do you know anything about the White Spire or where it is?” Omer asked.

“I don’t know,” Anríq repeated. “I’ve never heard of it before….or this Voyant you mentioned.”

“We can’t stay in this snow Island without supplies or at least the ability to hunt for ourselves,” Yvan decided. “If you’re right about it getting colder and never turning to spring, maybe Eliska is right and we should move to another Island.”

“At least wait until morning,” Vidal countered. “At least let us get some sleep before we face any more Darklings.”

“None of us will be getting any sleep in this cold,” Rien grumbled.

“Breaking through to a different Island could take us to a warm country or even a town,” Eliska pointed out. “We could wind up there in the middle of the day. Then we wouldn’t need all these furs.”

Yvan started to answer, but Barsali interrupted by getting to his feet. He pointed across the snowy landscape in the direction the group had come to get here. “Look!”

The long, broken path of their footprints marked a trail through the flat white expanse of snow spreading in every direction.

Everyone else stood up to look—everyone except Marine. She stayed crouched at their feet while everyone stared off into the distance.

A bright light flared at the farthest edge of the horizon. Yann couldn’t tell from here what caused that light, but it didn’t look right against such dense darkness.

This primitive landscape offered no comforts or conveniences. His brain had become accustomed over the last few months not to expect any kind of sudden change to the environment.

The light contrasted with everything he knew about this rough, bare world—and the light kept getting brighter by the second. It glared in everyone’s eyes.

“I don’t like this,” Rien muttered.

“The Island is collapsing!” Eliska snatched her staff. “Hold on!”

Yann didn’t see it quickly enough. The light kept building out of the darkness until, without warning, it flared in the group’s direction.

A blast of scorching air slammed into everyone and melted all the snow in an instant. A wall of flame thumped across the barren landscape and almost knocked Yann off his feet.

Everyone had to brace themselves against torrential wind. Flames licked all around the party and then it hit them full force.

End of Chapter 34.