Yann ducked under the low door frame and entered a charred ruin barely standing upright in this volcanic wasteland.

  The Watch had traveled for three hours before Neils spotted a burned-out wreck of a building where the group could spend the night—or whatever passed for night in this place.

  The crumbling walls held up a broken roof with the swirling reddish sky showing through it. The Watchmen sat down on the floor in a corner. No one spoke—except Yvan.

  The Watch Commander steered Marine and Eliska into the corner, too. “Sit down over here, young one,” he told Eliska. “Sit down, Marine.”

  He pushed them down with the Watchmen. Eliska tugged her cloak tighter around her shoulders. She hunched her head into her neck. Her dark, haunted eyes skipped from one side to the other without seeing anything.

  Marine kept sobbing, whining, and knitting her fingers together in terror. She didn’t respond to anything Yvan said or did. He had to push her down to make her sit on the floor.

  He tugged off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders even though it wasn’t cold. Then he sat down in front of both of them, pulled the jacket tighter around Marine, and shot both girls an evaluating look.

  “You’ll both be all right,” he murmured under his breath. “You’re afraid because you don’t have your magic and you don’t know how to cope with this, but you’ll be all right. You’ll see.” He turned to Eliska, took hold of her cloak, and tugged it tighter around her, too. Then he squeezed and massaged both of her shoulders. “You’ll be all right, young one. You’ll see I’m right.”

  Her gaze shot to his face and her expression pinched in misery, but she definitely saw and recognized him.

  Yann would have liked to be the one to go over there and take care of both girls. He would have liked to be the one to reassure them that everything would be all right, but he couldn’t go over there while his father was already doing it.

  Yann wasn’t even sure he could do it. He wouldn’t have wanted to make any promises to either girl that they would be all right.

  Yvan didn’t say that to any of the men. Yann didn’t see how anything would be all right ever again under their circumstances.

  None of the men said a word. They had no food or water and no way to get it. The Watch would be truly screwed if they got stuck in this lava world.

  Yann didn’t see how they would get out of it—except by some other Darkling attack or if the whole Island collapsed again.

  He and Anríq sat down to one side. Yvan’s voice gave the only sound in the deadly silence except for the occasional hiss of sulfur vents outside.

  “You should both lie down and try to get some sleep,” Yvan told the two girls. “We don’t know how long we’ll be here. We’ll have to travel again soon, so you should rest while you can.” He turned back to Marine.

  Eliska made eye contact with him when he spoke to her, but she kept looking away. She huddled under her cloak. The outline of her hands kept twisting and gripping the fabric from underneath.

  Marine didn’t respond to anything Yvan said. She looked anywhere but at him.

  He got her attention by clasping his hand around her knit fingers and pulling her hands down into her lap to stop her from wringing them so hard.

  She resisted, but she eventually came out of her frenzy enough to realize what he was doing.

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  She grimaced in misery even worse when she finally worked up the courage to look at him.

  “We aren’t done yet, young one,” he breathed in an even softer murmur. “We’re still here—which means we can still find a way out of this. You’ll be all right. You’ll see. We’ll wind up somewhere else soon and you’ll get your magic back. You’ll see. You both will.”

  She burst out in a broken howl. Her wild, petrified eyes raced around the room. “The Dark…..!” she blurted out. “Everything…..is so Dark….!”

  Yvan compressed his lips. “I know, young one,” he murmured. “Try to sleep. Everything will change soon. You’ll see. Your magic is too strong to stay gone for long. It will come back and then you’ll have all your old problems of communing with the Dark. Maybe you might even wish you were here in a land without magic so you could be sane for a little while.”

  Her face spasmed in some wretched combination of a smile and a sob. She looked up at him with eyes overflowing with pleading emotion before she nodded fast and cast her gaze down into her lap.

  He never let go of her hands. He crushed them in his powerful fingers to stop her from hurting herself.

  He held them for a long moment before he let them go. He gave both girls one last penetrating, evaluating look before he turned away.

  He swiveled backward on his seat and came face to face with Yann and Anríq. The Watch Commander gave Yann an equally penetrating look. Yvan’s eyes skimmed down Yann’s uniform checking for any injuries.

  When Yvan didn’t see anything, he turned to Anríq and checked him, too.

  Anríq sat bowed and silent leaning against the wall next to Yann. Anríq wasn’t injured, either, but he didn’t raise his eyes even to look at Yvan.

  Yvan thrust out his hand and squeezed Anríq’s shoulder. “You young ones did well. I’m proud of you both. You’re both a credit to the Watch and I’m glad to have you with us.”

  He turned to the others. “All of you settle down and get some rest while you can. We’ll use this house as a base while we venture out and see what we can find. You all need rest for that—and for whenever the landscape changes again.”

  No one said anything after that. No one laid down at first. Coal dust and scattered pieces of charcoal covered the floor, but that wouldn’t have stopped Yann from lying down.

  His tension took a long time before it faded enough for him to even think about sleep. The other Watchmen sat up for hours, too, before any of them curled up on the floor.

  Anríq didn’t, either, and Yvan didn’t tell anyone to. He stayed where he was in front of the two girls and kept watch over them.

  Eventually, Eliska lowered herself to the floor, hugged her cloak more tightly around her shoulders, and shut her eyes. Then Marine did the same thing.

  Yvan arranged his jacket over her to act as a blanket. Then, for no particular reason, he passed his hand down the side of her hair in a petting motion before he left both girls alone.

  The two girls lying down acted on the rest of the group. The men settled done one after another.

  Yann’s exhaustion became overwhelming, but he still found it difficult to shut his eyes or lower his guard even for a minute.

  He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to stay awake in case something happened in the middle of the night. He would need to be ready to jump up and either fight or run away at a moment’s notice.

  Anríq stretched out first. He didn’t take off his weapons when he curled up on his side. He only moved his club out of the way so he wouldn’t lie on it. He kept his axe on his back as usual and pushed his bags behind him.

  He folded his thick, muscular arm under his head and shut his eyes. He looked even more childlike in his sleep.

  Yann experienced a rush of protective affection for him even though Anríq was so much bigger and stronger. His innocence made Yann feel older and more worldly by comparison even though he wasn’t.

  Yann’s gaze darted to the two girls. He felt the same way about both of them, but his father sitting in front of them cast a different aura over the girls.

  Yvan protected them, and by proxy, the two boys. How could Yann protect anyone when he was the one who needed his own father to protect him?

  Yvan couldn’t even protect himself, much less anyone else.

  Anríq could protect himself better than any of them, but that didn’t change the impression hanging over the whole group.

  Yvan protected everyone—not by being the biggest and the strongest, but by being a father to them all.

  Yann couldn’t keep his eyes open a second longer, so he curled up next to Anríq.

  The last thing Yann saw before he shut his eyes was his father still sitting there in the same place. He was the last man sitting up.

  He gazed down at the two girls and cast occasional glances around the room at all the other sleeping Watchmen.

  His presence—his eternal presence—gave Yann a matching sensation of being small, vulnerable, and weak—the way he was when he was a little boy.

  His father was there. His father was always there—always older, smarter, stronger, better at everything.

  Yann could finally let go of the need to protect himself because his father was there to protect him instead.

  End of Chapter 8.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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