Page 121 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

“What news from Paoli?” I prompted him further, but careful not to anger him with anything that would even vaguely resemble nagging.

I threw my head back coquettishly as I looked up at him with my sweetest smile. I batted my long eyelashes at him.

He pulled me closer to himself, hand around my waist, kissing my brow. I made a point of knowing my weapons well. And more often than not, the bow wasn’t the most powerful one.

“The Innsbruck QZ was overrun two weeks ago. A new swarm. Estimated head count fifty thousand.” His breath tickled the crown of my head as he spoke.

I whistled. After the first one, we had to deal with five more swarms before Corsica became close to infection-free. But these were all baby swarms compared to the ones that haunted mainland Europe.

“Did they manage to tag it?” I asked, and Einar nodded.

That, at least, was good news. ‘Tagging’ a swarm meant shooting a few of its members with a small tracking device. Monitoring the swarms’ movements was about the only thing saving the continent from being completely overrun.

We shut the cottage door behind us and discarded our dirty shoes. I set my bow and quiver back in their corner and peeled off my archery gloves. With arms still interwoven around each other, we walked over to our kitchen with its pastel-green cupboards. Einar sat at the table, looking oddly out of place when surrounded by the cute little furniture. He pulled me onto his lap.

“Spain’s still in terrible shape, no word of any established QZs there,” he carried on. “Switzerland, on the other hand, is working hard on reorganising its air force, if you can believe it.”

I could. Colder-climate countries fared best, especially if they were surrounded and as such protected by mountain ranges like Switzerland was. Roamers tended to die fast of exposure and pneumonia there in wintertime as they lacked the brain power to dress appropriately for the weather. Warm territories on the other hand ... Suffice to say that all those erstwhile Mediterranean vacation paradises had become sites of horror with little hope for them on the horizon.

“Gibraltar is socked in, apparently,” Einar held my hand as he said this in a grim tone of voice. “No longer possible to sail through safely.”

“No!”

I ran my hand through my hair, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, my heart already picking up its flutter of panic.

“Unfortunately.”

We both sat silently for a while, digesting this, pondering the implications for our approaching voyage.

“Would you like some coffee?” I asked him, getting back up. “And an omelette perhaps?” I added, realising that it had slipped my mind earlier after all.

“Yes to both,” he replied, shifting on the chair, which creaked complainingly underneath his weight. “But it will be dinner soon, so make it a small portion.”

“I won’t,” I told him, fixing him with a pointed look. “I’m starving. Once again, I completely forgot to have anything to eat today.”

Einar shook his head disapprovingly and made a sound in his throat similar to the rumble a lion makes when readying for a roar.

“Didn’t I tell you that you mustn’t forget to take care of yourself when I’m not around?” he said so sternly that anyone who didn’t know him as well as I did wouldn’t have recognised the playful undertone.

“Oh, you may have told me.” I shrugged. “I suppose you just didn’timpressit upon me in a very convincing manner.”

Einar grumbled again, his cheeks flushed and an alluringly dangerous expression in his eyes.

“Be careful what you wish for, my girl ...”

“Or I might just get it?” I suggested innocently before walking over to our stove with a final look at him.

We passed the next twenty minutes in a markedly charged silence as I busied myself with cooking.

“Sailing all the way to Iceland isn’t an option anymore.” I revisited our previous topic of conversation as I set his plate and his mug in front of him on the walnut kitchen table.

“Thanks, darling.” He rose slightly to kiss me on the cheek before replying to my question, “No. Definitely not an option.”

He cut a large chunk of the omelette and closed his eyes, his expression the epitome of delight.

“So, so good,” he praised my culinary skills.

“Fresh eggs.” I shrugged the compliment off. “So, if we have to go, we will have to go across the mainland. And then sail from Holland or Denmark?”