Eliska blinked the stars out of her eyes and sat up trying to figure out where she was. The first thing she saw was Yann and Anríq both sitting near her.

  Dry brown grass lay flattened underneath her. As soon as she sat up, she saw that the Watch had camped on the edge of a stream somewhere. Some scrubby trees lined the banks.

  Yann smiled at her. “Do you feel better?”

  “I didn’t….” Her hand flew to her head. “I didn’t think I felt bad. Where are we? What happened?”

  “You got hurt in the last Layer collapse. Anríq has been healing you for two days. You should have your magic back now, too. Do you want to try it to make sure?”

  Eliska glanced over at Anríq. He gazed back at her with his clear blue eyes.

  Both he and Yann sat unnaturally close—but their presence felt good. She wouldn’t have wanted anyone else here—or not as much.

  She opened her palm and projected her Coil image. It revolved for a second before she shut her hand and made it disappear.

  Yann burst out laughing. “Yay! You’re back.”

  She found herself grinning at him and then at Anríq. “Thank you—both of you.”

  “We’re both just glad to get you back. Here. I made this for you.”

  He pulled forward a short staff made out of a tree branch. He handed it to her.

  She took it, examined it, and let her magic rush into it. Nothing ever felt so good. She never wanted to lose her magic again—ever.

  “Just be careful where you point that thing,” Yann teased. “We’ll all be extra-special careful not to piss you off from now on.”

  She found herself laughing in relief. “I’ll try to control my temper.” She beamed at both of them and then glanced around. “Where is…..?”

  She froze and all her relief and happiness drained away when she saw Marine crouching near a clump of trees on the other side of the river.

  Her stringy, greasy dark hair hung over her face, but Eliska would never be able to mistake the sounds floating across the water from Marine.

  She snarled, screeched, and bellowed. She turned her head far enough in Eliska’s direction for Eliska to see Marine baring her teeth, biting at things that weren’t there, and her wild eyes rolling in their sockets.

  “Oh, no!” Eliska choked.

  “She got her magic back, too, unfortunately,” Yann murmured. “I guess she can commune with the Dark forces in this Island the way she did before.”

  Eliska gulped down the lump in her throat and looked away. A brick dropped into her stomach when she saw Barsali lying nearby. His eyes were closed.

  Sick horror gripped her at the sight of him. She didn’t even have to go near him to know what was wrong with him.

  “The Dark took him,” Anríq murmured. “It’s poisoning him from the inside. I don’t have the magic to heal him. He’ll slip away tonight or tomorrow. I can’t stop it.”

  She scooted over to sit next to Barsali. Once she got into that position, she saw his mother’s ring dangling by its chain next to his neck. The chain had come loose from under his shirt.

  The ring sealed something for Eliska. Barsali was the first Watchmen to connect with her during her first days with this group. Could she really sit back and watch him die?

  She held out her hand a few inches above his chest and immediately pulled her hand back. The Darkness invading every part of him ate away at his organs—and something deeper inside his very being.

  “You can’t heal him,” Anríq murmured. “Not without putting yourself in danger.”

  “I have to.” Eliska heard the words coming out of her mouth.

  “You could die,” Anríq insisted. “You would be more useful to this group alive than he would be.”

  “How can you say that?! He’s…..” She broke off. She couldn’t come up with the words to say what Barsali was.

  She knew almost nothing about him, but what she did know was enough.

  The ring hanging there told her everything she needed to know. It stared back at her challenging her to help Barsali.

  Anríq read her mind. “If you do this, I won’t be able to bring you back. The Dark is too big for me. If I tried, I would die along with you.”

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  “You don’t have to bring me back because I won’t die. My magic is strong enough to take it.”

  “Your magic might be strong enough to keep you alive, but it won’t be strong enough to save you from it. You know that.”

  She looked up at him. He stared down into her with eyes overflowing with inner pain and hopeless longing.

  Everything he said was true. He knew too much to say something like that if it wasn’t true.

  She knew it from that first moment of putting her hand over Barsali’s chest. Her magic was strong enough to take the Darkness out of him. She could save his life, but only by taking the Darkness on herself.

  Her magic was strong enough to do that, too, but then she would have to live with all that Darkness in her. Could she really do that? Did she really want to live with that?

  Another yowl from Marine caught her attention. She, Anríq, and Yann all glanced across the river at Marine lurking under the trees.

  She was out there in the Dark Layers again. She communed with the Dark to wage this war against the Voyant.

  Seeing Marine buried in madness made up Eliska’s mind for her. Marine sacrificed everything to do something good for the rest of the Coil.

  Now it was Eliska’s turn. It was her turn to commune with Dark forces in ways only she knew how.

  She turned to Yann and then to Anríq. She would have liked to touch both of them at least once, just to say goodbye and to thank them both for everything they’d done for her.

  “Take care of the Watch for me—both of you,” she choked. “Whatever happens—take care of the Watch.”

  “We will,” Yann told her.

  “You take care of the Watch, too, Eliska,” Anríq murmured. “All of them—not just Barsali.”

  She tried to smile at him and failed. Looking at either him or Yann hurt too much. She cared about them too much. She would lose her nerve if she kept looking at them, so she swiveled the other way and faced Barsali.

  Before she did anything else, she tucked the ring back under his shirt. She arranged it and pushed it into place so it stayed right there in the center of his chest where it belonged.

  She took a deep breath to summon all her courage. Then she planted her hand on top of his jacket right above the ring buried underneath.

  She made contact with him and a jolt of lightning went off between them. Her instincts told her to pull away and protect herself from all that Darkness, but she forced herself to press her hand down even harder.

  She poured all her magic into him and clamped her eyes shut against the tide of Darkness overwhelming her.

  She summoned all her power—more than she ever had to use to keep herself alive in the Coil. She never tapped this depth of power before.

  A black torrent flooded into her and she rallied all her effort to draw the Dark into herself. It kept getting bigger and bigger….and stronger and stronger. Where would it end? How much Darkness could one imp hold?

  He couldn’t hold it. That was the problem. It was killing him.

  She kept draining it off faster and faster, but it didn’t slacken—not at all.

  The ring under her hand started to radiate heat and light. It built to a blinding sun that torched its own secret magic into her soul, but not even that could drive the Darkness out of her.

  Nothing would ever drive it out of her—not ever again. It was her Darkness now.

  Her magic infiltrated the ring and the ring’s own secret magic drove the Darkness out of Barsali. The ring drove the Darkness out of Barsali in the only direction it could drive it—into her.

  She dove deeper inside him trying to find the source….and she dropped into an illusion Layer of Barsali’s deepest consciousness.

  She flashed into a rapidly changing landscape of Middleborough. The years raced past at lightning speed.

  She ran into a crude house where a man and a woman worked around the one table in the one cramped main room. A bunch of kids ran around making noise, playing with toys, and two boys tried to help their father with his work.

  Eliska found herself taking the role of one of the younger girls. She had to hold her hand above her head to open the doorknob to get inside the house.

  One of the boys came over to her, took her hand, and led her to a trunk in the corner where they sat down side by side.

  He pulled a fistful of nuts out of his pocket and scooped them into her hands. “Take these, Auriel. I’ve already eaten enough and Father says we won’t get any more.”

  “You should keep them, Barsali,” Eliska told him. “I don’t want to take yours.”

  He smiled down at her with glowing affection. “We’ll share them. I’ll crack them for us.”

  Eliska glanced over at the fire. “Mother’s too busy. She’ll get mad if we do it here.”

  “Come with me. We’ll do it outside.”

  He took the nuts back, dumped them into his pocket, and led her out onto the front step. They sat down together and he used his father’s hatchet to crack the nuts. Barsali gave her some and ate others himself.

  The scene sped up and a bunch of years passed. She reentered the same house as a much older girl, but the father wasn’t there anymore.

  The mother still worked over the fire. She’d aged considerably. She didn’t look up when Eliska entered.

  Barsali intercepted Eliska the minute she showed up. He looked like a much younger version of what he looked like now. He couldn’t be more than sixteen.

  He got in Eliska’s face, lowered his voice to a whisper, and hissed in an undertone. “Where have you been, Auriel? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could move, he took hold of her arm, steered her outside, and shut the door behind him. The mother didn’t look up even once.

  “You’ve been out with Emilen Dugas again, haven’t you?” Barsali demanded as soon as he shut the door. “I told you to stay away from him.”

  Eliska opened her mouth a second time, but no sound came out. She floundered in confusion trying to decide what to say to him.

  His expression turned to granite. “Did he do something?” Barsali demanded. “Did he come for you after I told you not to go with him?”

  “Barsali….” she stammered. “I tried to tell him….”

  “Tell him what?” Barsali demanded. “You tried to tell him what?”

  “That you and Mother….I told him I don’t want to go with him, but he wouldn’t listen…..”

  Barsali clamped his jaws shut. “What did he do, Auriel?” he snarled. “Tell me what he did.”

  She kept opening her mouth and shutting it like a stranded fish. Her throat constricted. “I…..I can’t tell you, Barsali.” Tears flooded her eyes. Her throat hurt too much to say another word.

  He glared at her and then jerked away. He shoved the door open, seized her hand, dragged her into the house, and left her standing there on the threshold.

  He stormed into a corner, ripped open a bundle of cloaks, took out his father’s sword, threw the empty cloaks back into a corner, and stalked back to her.

  “Stay in the house, Auriel,” he growled. “Don’t go outside, whatever you do. Stay here and help Mother. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  He barged out of the house and slammed the door behind him. Dead silence fell over the room after he left.

  She turned around to find her mother watching them—but it wasn’t Eliska’s mother. It was Barsali’s mother.

  End of Chapter 14.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

  I post new chapters of The Corrupted Coil series on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday PST.

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