Yann slammed down hard on the ground. A bunch of thumps shook the ground around him as the rest of the Watch landed in the same area.
He rolled onto his side….and his heart soared when saw Eliska just a few yards away. She made it back!
Marine also landed on the ground ten feet beyond Eliska. Eliska wasn’t wearing her furs anymore. None of the Watch wore them anymore, either. No one needed them.
Other than that, the two girls looked exactly the same as he remembered from the moment when they got separated in the snow Island.
Eliska rolled onto her knees and her eyes skidded around the landscape. Yann burst into a smile that she was back with the group—and him.
She barely looked at him. Her eyes widened when she saw their surroundings. She didn’t look at anyone else in the group, either, not even Anríq.
The group landed in a wide valley of cracked mudflats surrounded by rocky mountains a few miles away. Blazing sunshine beat on those flats and heat radiated off them.
“Gone!” Eliska choked. Her features spasmed. “All gone…..!”
She buckled onto her knees and slumped staring down at the staff in her hands.
Yann pulled himself to his feet and went over to her, but before he got there, Marine yowled again.
She crouched at a distance from the rest of the group. Black grime caked her stringy hair. It hung over her crazed eyes and smudged face.
She turned from one side to another glaring at everything, baring her teeth, hissing and snarling, but she didn’t hiss and snarl at Eliska, Anríq, or the Watchmen. Marine didn’t even see them.
Eliska squatted in front of her, grabbed Marine’s shoulders, and tried to turn Marine to face her.
“Marine!” Eliska called. “Marine—come on! Snap out of it!”
Marine rounded on her with an animal snarl and gnashed her teeth at Eliska. Eliska dropped her hands and reared back to get out of the way in time.
Eliska blinked at her for a second and then crumpled again. “Damn! She’s crazy again.”
“Of course she’s crazy,” Rien cut in. “She always is.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“You don’t understand.” Eliska’s voice broke. She stood up and looked down at Marine from above. “She was beautiful—and funny—and excited—and helpful…..We made friends…..”
“You….made friends….with that……?” Niyazi blurted out.
“She wasn’t like this! Don’t you get it?” Eliska cast a desperate look at the landscape on all sides. “This Island….there must be Dark forces here. She said she communes with the Dark in some Layers and not in others. She was perfectly sane….and bubbly…..and kind…..” She shut her eyes and her chin fell onto her chest. “She’s a princess…..and she looked and acted like one. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it for myself.”
“I don’t believe it,” Rien countered.
Eliska’s features convulsed again and she shuddered when she opened her eyes to assess the situation. “We have to get out of here. We can’t stay in this Layer.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Yvan asked. “It looks stable enough. That’s better than nearly getting killed when the Layers collapse.”
Eliska spun around and shrieked out in a sudden explosion of hysterical panic. “My magic is gone! This Layer….it has no magic! I can’t get us out! I can’t do anything!”
Her voice spiked to the stratosphere and cracked with terror and frantic despair.
“You…..you don’t have magic?” Yann stammered. “But….that’s impossible.”
Eliska didn’t hear him. She looked down at her staff and suddenly yanked her hand away from it in horror.
The staff hit the ground and she backed away. She stared at her hands in front of her and then her crazed eyes skimmed the horizon. “We gotta get out of here….” she croaked.
Yvan and the other Watchmen exchanged glances. Then they all looked around at the horizon as the truth sank in.
Wesh and Eliska had been the only things keeping the Watchmen alive. The Watchmen would have been dead a dozen times without Wesh’s and Eliska’s magic to protect them and save them from every disaster.
Now Wesh was gone.
Without Eliska’s magic…..
Yvan turned to Anríq. “What about you, young one? Do you still have magic? Is your magic gone, too?”
Anríq stood silently off to one side looking at the ground. He didn’t raise his eyes.
He barely murmured above a whisper. “No, it’s all gone.”
Now Yvan was the one to cast a wild look of desperate realization at the broad, baking mudflats all around the party. Every last one of these people was utterly defenseless against the Coil’s dangers, including Eliska and Marine.
“We gotta get out of here,” Yvan muttered.
“Where will we go?” Omer asked.
“I don’t know, but we can’t stay here.” The Watch Commander squared his shoulders, tightened his lips, and dipped his chin once at nothing. “Let’s go. Follow me.”
He set off across the landscape heading…..somewhere. Yann and the other Watchmen exchanged glances. Anríq didn’t raise his eyes to look at anyone.
Omer and Niyazi fell in line behind Yvan. Yann made sure Eliska got in line with the others.
He probably should have taken the time to make sure Marine went with them, but as soon as the group got moving, she trailed them at a distance.
The minute they all started walking, the land trembled under their feet. Everyone stopped to check themselves, but the rumbles vibrating through the mudflats only got stronger.
They built to an earthquake. The surrounding mountains boomed and thundered.
“Run!” Yvan yelled. “Come on!”
He took off for the distant mountains and everyone else burst into a run to follow him.
End of Book 1.
Book 2 starts on Tuesday. Keep reading!
? 2024 by Theo Mann
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