Page 85 of Dark Island: Rescue

Kian nodded. "Onegus, can you have a team assembled?"

"Already working on it." The chief pulled out his phone, scrolling through a list.

"I want redundancy," Kian said. "Eight Guardiansminimum. If something happens to one team, we need backup."

"I'll have eight ready," Onegus confirmed. "Are you willing to part with one of the brothers or both?"

"I can part with both. I don't have any meetings scheduled outside the village next week."

"Good." Onegus kept typing on his screen.

Turner gathered his documents. "I need to finalize the submarine rental and coordinate logistics. I'll also arrange for a merchant ship as a contingency if the submarine deal falls through. Since we have a base nearby, underwater scooters might be enough to get Tula to the ship."

Everyone nodded, except for Kian.

"If we can get the submarine, I prefer it. Later, if Navuh decides to investigate and check if there were any suspicious ships in the area when Tula supposedly jumped to her death, I don't want him to find anything. That's only possible with a sub."

29

ESAG

The vision hit Esag like a cresting wave, sudden and disorienting. One moment, he was sitting at his workbench, carefully sanding the rough edges of a figurine, and the next?—

He wasn't himself anymore.

The workshop vanished. The familiar scent of wood shavings and linseed oil disappeared, replaced by something else. Old paper. Leather bindings. The faint mustiness of old manuscripts mixed with the artificial coolness of climate control.

Esag's hands moved without his conscious direction, turning pages with care. Except they weren't his hands. They were smaller, more delicate, with olive-toned skin instead of his pale complexion. He could feel the texture of the aged paper beneath the elegant fingers that weren't his, sense the weight of concentration that wasn't his own.

It wasn't hard to guess whose hands he was seeing and through whose eyes he was watching them.

The hands belonged to Tula, and he was occupying a corner in her mind.

This was different from his previous visions. He wasn't observing Tula from outside—he was experiencing the world through her eyes, feeling what she felt, existing inside her consciousness like a passenger in someone else's body.

It was profoundly unsettling.

"Tamira, can you pass me the leather treatment?" The words came from Tula's mouth, shaped by her voice, but Esag felt them forming, felt the movement of lips and tongue and breath.

His—Tula's—gaze shifted to a woman across the restoration table. Stunning was the first word that came to mind—heart-shaped face, full lips, and eyes a shade of blue that shouldn't exist.

This was Tamira, one of the females Areana wanted rescued. Esag tried to memorize every detail of her face, suspecting that this information might be important.

"Here." Tamira's voice was cultured, refined, as she passed over a small jar. "Are you feeling better today? You seemed on edge yesterday."

"I'm fine." The lie tasted bitter on Tula's tongue, and Esag felt the guilt that accompanied it—thick and choking, making it hard to breathe.

She wasn't fine. She was drowning in secrets and guilt, knowing she would abandon these people whom she regarded as her family. It was tearing her apart, but she couldn't show that she was distressed. Had to hide it.

"Tula, look at this." Another voice, and Tula's gazeshifted to a different woman, also stunning, but very different than Tamira.

"What are you showing me, Beulah?"

Beulah. Esag repeated the name in his mind, trying to cement it in memory along with her features.

"See how the original binder used double cords for reinforcement? We should replicate that when we repair this section."

Tula nodded, and Esag felt the movement, felt the slight ache in her neck from hours of bending over her work. He also felt something else—affection for Beulah, mixed with guilt so intense it made his stomach churn.