Eliska groaned and rolled onto her side before her eyes snapped open. She tried to remember everything that happened—and then she shot upright and looked all around her.

She found herself in some kind of primitive house with a fire smoking in the center. Wesh sat nearby sewing the hem of his tunic with a wooden needle.

He looked up and tried to smile at her, but the muscles of his face hardly moved at all. “Ah, you’re awake, my dear!” he breathed. “That’s wonderful.”

She jerked from one side to the other looking all around her. “Anríq—he isn’t…..”

“He’s fine, my child. He’s out with the other men doing the chores. He’s been awake for three days thanks to you—and he’s been helping me to heal you and drain away the Darkness that you took on yourself to heal him.”

She slumped in relief. “Thank God he’s all right.”

“You both are,” Wesh murmured. “And you have all your magic. You came through it by the skin of your teeth.”

“It was worth it if he survived.” She looked up at him. “What about Marine? Where is she?”

“She’s out there.” Wesh nodded toward the house door. “She followed us down from the mountain when we brought you and Anríq here.”

She searched the house a little more closely. The men of the Watch had located some dusty woolen blankets from somewhere.

Ten of them lay stacked in a pile against one wall. Another two lay next to Eliska. They’d fallen off her when she sat up.

She crossed her legs and started folding them.

“How do you feel now, my dear?” Wesh asked. “You should take it easy for a few days before you strain yourself.”

“How long have we been here?” She found herself staring at everything. “We shouldn’t have stayed here. Someone could have come after us.”

“No one came. Anríq and I have been keeping an eye on things to make sure nothing threatens us. I don’t know why, but we haven’t seen a living soul since Anríq interceded between you and Marine.” Wesh frowned at her. “Did you see anything? Did she communicate anything to you?”

“Disconnected images….” She shook her head, but it didn’t clear her thoughts. “I don’t understand what she did show me.”

“What did she show you?” Wesh asked. “Whatever it was, I’m sure it was important.”

“She showed me mostly just different Coil landscapes. Some were cities. Some were towns. Others were just chaotic Layers collapsing on top of each other. I wish I could tell you something useful.”

Wesh compressed his lips. “Anyway, Anríq thinks it was worth it so it must have been.”

“Did he tell you that?” she asked. “Did he see anything when he connected us to each other?”

“No, he says he only saw Darkness. We’ve all been waiting for you to wake up so you could tell us what it is that Marine knows.”

Eliska went back to folding the blankets. Wesh didn’t tell her how long the Watch had been hanging around in this shack waiting for her to wake up. It must have been a long time.

She still suffered a pang of guilt when she thought about Anríq getting hurt because of her. At least he made it. She would gladly have not come back at all as long as he was still here.

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She stood up to put her blankets on the stack with the others. Her body felt weak, but at least she could move around.

She would regain her strength in time. Wesh was right. She shouldn’t push it.

She sat down next to him by the fire. He kept sewing the whole time. God, he looked old! She might have been asleep for years for all the new wrinkles on his face.

She added wood to the fire for lack of anything better to do. This house stayed nice and warm despite the hole in the roof.

She was just wondering if she should do something useful to help with the chores when the door opened.

Yann and Anríq both came in carrying armloads of wood and laughing. Their cheeks shone and their eyes sparkled with more life than she ever remembered before.

Both men wore cloaks made of gar pelts and boots made of the same furry leather. Anríq wore his axe on top of his cloak.

He carried twice as much wood as Yann. Anríq’s whole face lit up when he smiled. He looked much younger and much more like an innocent child when he smiled.

He froze on the threshold and stared when he saw Eliska sitting up awake. Her heart flipped at the look on his face. His eyes widened and his lips quivered.

He jolted back to his senses when Yann bumped into him from behind. Yann averted his eyes when he saw the way Anríq was looking at Eliska.

Yann used closing the door to push Anríq into the house and then closed the door behind both of them. Then both young men approached the fire to put their loads of wood down.

Anríq squatted next to Eliska, hesitated, and then laid his hand on her forehead.

His touch sent a charge of energy through her—a charge that didn’t have anything to do with him using his magic to check that she was fully healed.

“She’s fine,” Wesh told him. “She’s fully recovered exactly the way you said she would. All the Darkness is gone.”

Anríq burst into a massive grin when he took his hand down. She couldn’t help but smile back at him.

They shared something. She didn’t even know what it was. She healed him and he healed her. That meant something. She just didn’t know what it meant.

“Father will be thrilled when he sees you awake,” Yann told her. “He was just complaining again outside about how long it was taking for you to recover.”

“I’ll have a word with him,” Wesh interjected. “Eliska won’t be ready to travel for a few days—and I don’t see any reason why we should travel as long as we’re safe here.”

“How long can that last?” Eliska asked. “I’m surprised the Voyant hasn’t come for us sooner.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” Yann suggested.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “What reason could that be?”

“Maybe Marine is protecting us.”

Eliska gasped. “What makes you think that?”

“It’s nothing we all haven’t been thinking and talking about for days. She’s the only thing that’s different now. No one has attacked us since she’s been traveling with us.”

“But….” Eliska’s mind went into a tailspin.

The Dark river drove the party out of the Ancestral Empire. Then the group fell through some layers full of Darklings.

No one had attacked or come after the party since Marine pulled Eliska out of the river. Could it be coincidence?

Marine’s presence offered a much simpler, more straightforward explanation. She was the missing link in all of this—her and Anríq.

No one had attacked the party since Anríq joined them, either.

Eliska only had to glance at him to know his presence didn’t protect them from anything. His magic didn’t work that way.

The rest of the men returned a minute later. They made a big noise about Eliska waking up. Everyone talked about nothing but when the group would move on, if they should move on, and what would happen when they did.

“Maybe Marine isn’t the one protecting us,” Barsali pointed out. “Maybe something in this Island is protecting us. Maybe the Voyant can’t find us here.”

“That won’t stop the instability from eventually taking this Island, too,” Wesh replied. “The Temple records indicate we’ve been in an instability cycle for decades. It will only continue to escalate until the whole Coil becomes chaotic.”

“Then we should stay here as long as we can,” Omer reasoned. “If the Island is stable and no one is coming after us here, we have no reason to leave. We’re comfortable here….”

“You call this comfortable?!” Rien countered. “Give me a feather bed and a pint of beer. Then we’ll talk.”

The others laughed. Eliska even caught Anríq laughing…and then she spotted Yann watching her.

He looked away and pretended not to be when he saw her looking at Anríq. She couldn’t look at either of them, so she paid attention to the other men instead.

“How soon do you think you’ll be able to travel, Eliska?” Yvan asked.

She jerked her thumb toward Wesh. “Ask my mother.”

The men exploded in laughter again. Their talk flew thick and fast around the circle.

Neils worked non-stop to carve up the waterbuck the men brought in for their dinner. The men ate a lot more, now that they had a steady supply of food.

The whole atmosphere descended into a convivial atmosphere. Eliska could convince herself they were all safe behind walls in Middleborough or somewhere like it.

The men didn’t complain at all when they eventually got their blankets, wrapped up on the floor, and fell asleep. They were all used to it by now.

End of Chapter 32.