Barsali’s memories kept flooding into Eliska’s brain along with all the Darkness buried in his soul. The scene raced forward a bunch of years.

  Eliska’s connection with Barsali read every single day as it passed at super-speed. She was there. She lived the whole thing with him and felt every shade of emotion.

  The flood of memories slowed down and Eliska’s perspective shifted from Auriel to Barsali. He sat on a stool by the fire. His mother sat in her rocking chair next to him.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks when she tugged off her wedding band and pressed it into his hand. “This is yours now, son. I don’t have any more use for it. You take it.”

  He stared down at it. It burned a hole in his palm. “What should I do with it? I can’t wear it.”

  “I don’t know what you should do with it,” his mother choked. “That will be for you to decide. Maybe you can keep it for the woman you marry someday. I know you’ll make the right decision, but I can’t wear it anymore. It hurts too much to see it there on my hand every day and know that I’m not married to your father anymore.”

  She broke down in wretched sobs. He pulled his stool close to her chair, put his arm around her, and held her while she cried.

  He took that moment to stuff the ring into his pocket. He had no idea what he would do with it, but he had to do something with it just to get it away from her.

  The years raced past and stopped again on Auriel’s wedding day. Barsali stood with Auriel’s husband as his groomsman.

  An excruciating wave of painful love and pride overwhelmed her when the viewpoint switched to him watching her walk through town in her white dress. The townspeople threw flower petals at her and her new husband.

  Her face radiated so much happiness. Tears came to Barsali’s eyes when he saw the way she and her new husband looked at each other. He loved her so much. He loved her even more than Barsali did.

  Then Barsali, his mother, his sisters, his brothers, and Auriel’s husband’s parents and family went back to Barsali’s mother’s house. She and her daughters laid out a massive spread and everyone sat down to eat together.

  Auriel and her husband sat at the head of the table shining with more happiness than Barsali ever could have hoped for her.

  The scene sped up again and slowed back down to its normal rate. It showed the same house—the same one room with all the same people in it—but they all looked another year older.

  Auriel and her husband had two tiny baby children—a boy one year old and a newborn baby daughter.

  Auriel held the baby in her arms. The boy lay asleep on the bed in the corner.

  Auriel, her husband, Barsali’s mother, and his other sister, his two brothers, and their wives gathered around Barsali.

  He wore his black uniform emblazoned with the insignia of the Black Watch. His mother hugged him with tears in her eyes, but he only saw Auriel.

  She beamed at him with just as much pride and painful love and longing as he remembered feeling for her on her wedding day.

  She kissed him on the cheek. “I’m so proud of you. I love you so much.”

  He could barely speak above a whisper when he hugged her back and pressed his face into her hair for the last time. “I love you, too. You take care of your family. I’ll be right across town standing guard over all of you.”

  He tore himself away, cast one last aching look at the people he loved most in the world, and walked out of the house.

  He crossed Middleborough, entered the large white house near the wall, and met Yvan Dilnao there along with Omer Veco, Vidal Rom, and Niyazi Trahan.

  They shook hands with Barsali and then hugged him and welcomed him as a brother. They even squeezed his neck and shoulders when he shed tears in front of them over the family he left behind just a few doors away.

  The scene shifted, but it didn’t speed past the years—not this time. It switched to a nighttime view of Barsali’s bedroom on the top story of the Watch’s house.

  He stood at the window in his shirtsleeves while the rest of the Watchmen slept. He stared across town at a light glowing in the window of his mother’s house. Auriel, her husband, and her children lived in that house now.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  He saw them at a distance almost every day. He watched Auriel’s children grow. He saw Auriel and their other sister get pregnant again.

  They invited him over for meals once a week. They called him home when his mother got sick. He stayed as involved in their lives as much as ever. He just lived in another house and worked on the wall every day.

  He lived his life through them……and then the scene sped up again. It flashed to a massive battle between the Watchmen and Darklings invading from out in the wild Layers.

  Magic-users from the town helped the Watchmen drive the Darklings back—that time.

  Eliska’s connection with him sped through multiple battles, each one deadlier than the last—until the inevitable day when the Darklings breached the barricade.

  They stormed through the streets and flattened a few houses. Auriel happened to be outside during the attack and a Darkling crushed her under its foot before the Watchmen and the local magic-users drove them back out of town.

  The next scene showed Barsali bowed over Auriel’s grave with her husband and her children sobbing nearby. He stared down at the grave, utterly broken.

  He gave up any chance of having a family of his own so he could protect them—so he could protect her—but he couldn’t. She died in the end because he failed.

  His brother Watchmen surrounded him, crushed his shoulders in their powerful hands, and took him back to the Watch’s house. They gave him what poor comfort they could while Auriel’s husband, their children, and Barsali’s mother went back to their own home.

  Barsali threw himself into his duties ten times harder after that. He became single-mindedly obsessed with stopping the Darklings from invading again. He had to protect Auriel’s children at all costs, but he couldn’t stop the invasion.

  The Darklings got bigger, stronger, and more ferocious with every passing day. They attacked harder with every incursion.

  Barsali became frantic to do something—anything to make sure his nieces and nephews survived. He didn’t even care if he died in their place as long as he kept them safe…..

  And then came that fateful night. He, the Watch, Wesh, and Eliska sat around on that high rock shelf talking about why the Voyant was coming after them and what he wanted from them.

  Barsali pulled out the ring he always wore on a chain around his neck. I have this.

  The words burned a hole in his mind every hour of every day after that.

  It reminds me of my family—my mother, my sisters, their husbands, and their children. They all lived in Middleborough. I joined the Watch to protect them…and now they’re all gone.

  The words would keep burning a hole in his mind every hour of every day for as long as he lived.

  He forsook love and a normal life of his own so he could protect his family while they lived that life in his place.

  Now they were all dead and he alone was left alive. He alone stayed behind to remember that they ever even existed.

  The memories crushed him under an unbearable weight of grief, fury, and hatred. That Darkness ate away at him from the inside….and then all of it flooded into Eliska.

  She dove into the bottommost recesses of his being and took every drop of that Darkness on herself. She took all the pain, all the loneliness, all the resentment to leave him pure, clean, and shining with the light radiating from the ring.

  It flooded him with pure love and happiness. He fulfilled his oath. He protected them as well as anyone could. He would gladly have died in their place.

  A cruel twist of fate made it work out differently, but not because he failed in his duty. He did his duty. If they died, they died knowing he was out there fighting for them.

  The light cast that one beaming smile on Auriel’s face as she kissed him goodbye. I’m so proud of you. I love you so much.

  Barsali’s heart contracted at those words. He suffered that tightening sensation a hundred times since the Watch got stranded in the Coil. He suffered it every time he remembered her saying it….and every time he remembered burying her.

  Eliska clamped her eyes shut against that pain. No more Darkness remained anywhere in Barsali’s being.

  He was pure, clean, and healed now, but the pain didn’t go away. It would never go away because nothing could bring Auriel back—or any of the rest of Barsali’s family back. They were gone—probably forever.

  Instead, all that Darkness rotted away in Eliska’s insides now. It would never go away, either. Anríq couldn’t take it away. Wesh wouldn’t have been able to take it away. Wesh wasn’t even alive anymore.

  Eliska didn’t know any other magic-user strong enough to take it away. She was stuck with it.

  She swallowed hard and took her hand off Barsali’s chest. He still lay there with his eyes closed, but he was only asleep now. He would rest for a day or two and then start to regain his strength.

  She couldn’t even be happy about that. She couldn’t be happy about any of this. She would probably never feel happy about anything again—not with this poison chewing its way through her insides.

  It corrupted her from the inside out. It disgusted her. Even the sight of Barsali lying there made her sick.

  Marine’s snarls and howls floating across the river made Eliska’s skin crawl. She hated Marine just for being there. Marine didn’t have magic strong enough to heal Eliska, either.

  Eliska couldn’t turn around. She couldn’t stand the sight of Yann and Anríq looking at her.

  She didn’t have to guess how they would look at her. Their foreheads would crease with concern. They would wonder what they could do to make things better for her even if they didn’t ask out loud.

  They would hover around her or at least watch her from afar to see how she was handling all of this. She couldn’t stand that.

  Just the fact that they cared about her made her want to hurt someone. She wanted to hurt the whole world.

  Fury, anguish, terror, and sick horror drove her to her feet. She couldn’t stay here with these people. They cared about her too much. She didn’t want to be around when Barsali woke up and acted all grateful to her for bringing him back.

  She picked up the staff that Yann made for her and walked off up the river. She didn’t look at the two boys—not even once.

  She didn’t want to use a staff that Yann made for her. She wanted to throw it away and make her own, but she couldn’t even do that. She couldn’t do that to him.

  He would never forgive her and she would never forgive herself, so she just had to live with that insult on top of everything else.

  End of Chapter 15.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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

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