Page 58 of Orc's Mate

“Wait here,” I said. “I’ll go grab a light.”

I was back before she could miss me, though I caught her shivering in the low light when I approached. She gazed at the pool and leaped toward me when I came closer.

“Something splashed in the water,” she said.

“Sometimes fish are washed in during a storm. A bonus for us because they’re easy to catch.”

“It’s a good thing I enjoy fish.”

“Let’s check out this cave, then, shall we?” I held up the light, and we walked deeper inside. The narrow area widened, and we entered a large room with a roof a few feet higher than the top of my head. Small pools peppered the floor and—

“What’s that?” Eleri asked, pointing to big object near the back wall.

“I don’t know.”

“The sea didn’t construct them.”

She was right. Orcs must’ve. Or humans, though I didn’t believe any had ever lived on the island. “They look carved from stone.”

We stopped beside the largest structure, staring at the water rising all the way to the brim.

“It looks like a tub,” Eleri said. “Would high tide reach this area? Oh, I know the answer to that. It wouldn’t or it would’ve exposed the cave earlier.”

Water trickled along a channel spanning the right wall, and the channel was tilted just enough to keep the water moving until it dumped into the tub.

“We could bathe here,” she said, dipping her fingertip into the water. “Salty, of course, but it’s not any different from the pool.”

“But it is.” I frowned at the structures, trying to determine what they might be, while Eleri strolled around the room.

“Look,” she said, pointing at drawings on the wall. “Someone built this, and I think the markings show us what it might be.” Moving closer, she traced her fingertip from one drawing to another. “It looks like water is channeled from the sea at high tide. It flows like it’s doing now until it fills the tub.” She shot me a grin. “It’s like the plumbing I heard they have in a distant village to bring water from the river into a home. You can fill a tub or have a drink at the sink. Can you imagine?”

If only I could do something like this for my mate. Life on the island was enough of a burden without worrying about how we’d find water to bathe and drink.

Eleri leaned closer to the wall. “It looks like they filter the water as it travels from the sea. And the filter allows the refuse to drop below the channel, keeping it out of the fresher water. Why would they do something like that?” Leaving the drawings, she meandered around the cave, studying the structure while I approached the markings, wondering if I could see what she hadn’t.

“Interesting,” she said, pointing to a structure mounted above the pool. “It looks like a hood. And there’s a hole in the top. Look. They built that from metal, and it slopes downward from the hood and into a second pool. This is a very odd thing.” Tilting her head, she scanned the structure. “There’s piping beneath the second pool that . . . If I didn’t know better, I’d think it channels water someplace else, but where?” She stooped down and peered beneath the first pool. “The stone beneath the first pool has scorch marks like they lit a fire here. But why?”

A fire . . .

Something wild occurred to me, and I rushed over to confirm my suspicion.

It didn’t take long, and soon, I was shaking my head and grinning. I picked Eleri up and spun her around, my laughter bursting free. She joined in, though from the puzzlement on her face, it was clear she had no idea why I was suddenly happy.

“I think, my love, you’ve found it,” I finally said.

“Found what?”

“The desalinization device Madine once mentioned in one of her stories.”

Chapter29

Eleri

“Adesalinization device?” I asked, excitement making my feet jump on the sandy floor.

“From many generations ago. I don’t know why they stopped using it. Maybe the sea buried it, and it was too much work to clean out.”

“Or only a few knew about it? Almost anything could’ve happened.”

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