I snapped my fingers for dramatic effect and set both sets of chains on fire for a second, just enough to set Dinah screaming before I extinguished them.
“Now, really, do we have to be so childish?” Rinax scoffed, his wings clicking together in irritation. No one even turned to look at him.
“My name is Joclyn,” Jos continued, giving each of them a nod. “And just in case you are wondering, as I am sure you are, Ovailia is actually my sister-in-law.”
I repressed a giggle. It was true, as far as human titles went anyway. But in this case Ovailia being her step-mother was also true, and very weird. Ryland gave me a look. Right, we were supposed to be ominous.
“Ah, so she is the sister of the blond man in those pictures.”
Jos stiffened at the statement, the air suddenly becoming very heavy as Ivory looked between us, realizing what she had hit on.
Ivory was grinning with the same malicious grin as before, the twisted smile pulling all of my magic right to the surface. We tested her, and no one found any magic in her, but I wasn’t about to count her out as an enemy just because of that.
She looked at Joclyn like she wanted to cut her up and take a picture of what was inside.
“Ah, he is the one I am assuming you showed up at the hospital to find. And how about the little blonde girl? Your daughter? So we had your family, and you just missed them…” Ivory grinned more, Dinah laughing hysterically from behind the chains that covered her mouth. She sounded like a deranged clown.
“We didn’t miss them.” Ryland’s voice was a deep roar as he stepped forward, staring each of them down in turn. He didn’t elaborate any more, content to let them think what they wanted. Ivory looked shocked for half a second before she settled back into her chains, still smiling.
“Well, you will have to ask Jan how he liked pretending not to know you all those years, then. He put on a great show, even when we removed his arms he still didn’t break. We never found you. Glad to know you found him in the end so that you could be reunited. What’s left of him anyway. Poor guy didn’t even know what way was up after all the experiments I ran on him.”
The chains flew off of Ivory so fast I couldn't have stopped them if I tried. For half a second I thought she had revealed her magic and was attacking, both Ryland and I going into fight mode, magic at the ready.
But, she wasn’t attacking. She couldn’t even move as Joclyn stepped forward, her magic wrapped around her as she threw her to the ceiling with such force that cracks began to web over the surface behind her, the thin lines growing the harder Joclyn compressed her into the ceiling.
“I didn’t… what are… how could…” Ivory couldn’t get out more than a few words with the pressure Joclyn was placing on her. I could have sworn I heard more than two ribs crack over the sound of Dinah’s screams and Ivory’s sobs.
“What did you do to him?” I jumped at the voice, the low menacing growl so volatile it didn’t even sound like Joclyn. Hell, she didn’t even look like Joclyn.
Her skin was pale, almost as though it had been drained of color. The near white of her skin only made her eyes creepier. They were the black of sight as she stepped below where Ivory was now embedded in the ceiling, her magic flew around the room, sending hair and clothes whipping.
Ivory tried to answer, or maybe just laugh at her, but I don’t think Joclyn was really asking. She held a mug in one hand, her fingers dipped below the surface of the amber liquid before her magic sparked again and she soared the seven feet into the air to reach her, placing her Black Water covered fingers against her cheeks.
Ivory screamed, Dinah screamed, and Rinax sighed like he was bored. I turned, and sure enough he sat with his head in one hand while he inspected the nails of the other.
He only looked up with interest when Joclyn began speaking with the low rumble of sight. He saw me looking at him, however, and darted his hands back to his nails.
“In the high mountains. Far from the plains. In the islands, against the land. Find them marching. Defeat the fire. Take the source. Repair the land.”
I looked at Ryland, but he was staring at Joclyn, at the way her body began to shake. Damn it. All that rage and she was going to snap the woman in two if she wasn’t careful. Ivory was still sputtering on the ceiling, the burn of the Black Water now spreading over her arm.
“I’ll take Ivory, you grab Jos?” I asked, and Ryland didn’t hesitate, he rushed forward, cutting Joclyn’s magic off as he pulled her back. Jos was still so deep in sight that I wasn’t even sure she noticed he was dragging her out of the room.
I grabbed Ivory before she hit the ground, my magic rough as it shoved her back on the bed and wrapped my heavy chains around her again.
“What… what… was that?” Ivory gasped out, staring at the door that Ryland had pulled Joclyn through.
“That? Oh, that is the power of the Drak. The Queen, and the woman whose mate you just confessed to torturing, is the last living Drak. You may have lived this long by pretending to be someone else, but your luck just ran out.” I grinned at her, leaning against the foot of the bed as I too inspected my nails in feigned boredom.
I could have sworn I heard Rinax snicker from behind me. Okay, so this he enjoyed.
“Did you really think that would go another way?” Rinax snickered, flying down to land on the metal railing by my hands. “If the Queen didn’t hurt you, I would. You hurt me and my children, too.”
Ivory tried to sputter a response, but Rinax cut her off.
“She has been pretending to be Ovailia,” Rinax began, clearly knowing more about her than she thought. The second Rinax detailed out what he knew her eyes grew to massive pools of panic. “The Kyō found her first, then the SSU. They thought they recognized her from the posters and wanted to find out what made her tick, except she didn’t have magic…”
“That’s not what happened,” Ivory said with a laugh, like she was some kind of villain ready to monologue and wasn’t just a mortal with a death wish tied to a bed. Dinah yelled something in terror, but Ivory didn’t even turn. “Oh shut up, Dinah. The SSU has fallen. These guys will be next, then it won’t matter what I say.”
“God, what is it with these overconfident bastards with their crappy magic thinking they can take us on?” It was really starting to get on my nerves.
“We can take you on.”
“Thank you for proving my point.” I rolled my eyes, but she just grinned and tried to lean forward, the chains rattling before I tightened them and sent her right back into the headboard.
“We have been harvesting magic--”
“Yes, we know. The Kyō have been siphoning it off the Chosen for electricity. The SSU have been taking it for those stupid guns. I wasn’t there to see what the SSU did, but those two were.” I knocked my head back to the door and to the hall where Jos and Ry were hissing at each other. That must have been some sight. “And based on what you said you helped make all those creepy instruments to do it, and--” I glanced to the door. Jos was really not going to like this if I was right. “Jan was your guinea pig to make it all work.”
I couldn’t tell if Ivory was pissed as hell, or impressed at my quick deduction, not that she had made it all that hard. Either way, her expression was amazing and I laughed, tapping my short painted nails against the bed rail.
“Is there anything I missed?” I asked, even though I had all the information we needed, including the name they had given Ilyan, who apparently didn’t remember any of us. No wonder he hadn’t just come rushing back three years ago.
“Did I miss anything?” I asked again, looking from Ivory, to Rinax, to the still shouting Dinah. “No?”
Still no answer. Nothing but blank stoic stares that were almost worse given the continued conversation between Ryland and Jos. Damn. I really needed to get out there. Jos had clearly seen something.
“Okay, then.” I gave her a smile and tightened both of their chains before I turned to the door. It was only when my hand was on the
knob that I spoke.
“What about where he is?” Ivory sputtered in what she clearly thought was victory. I turned, surprised to see Rinax still perched on the metal rail of the foot of the bed, smiling just as widely as I was.
“Well, I’ve already told you,” he squeaked, “the Queen is a Drak. Which means she can see into your past and your future. You’ve been in direct contact with our King, which means you might have just been the key we needed. We will find him, and then you will be tried.”
Poor Ivory clearly thought she had the upper hand. She just stared at us with her jaw hanging down to her lap as we left. Even Rinax smiled at her before we closed the door.
“I highly suggest you lock that door and forget what was inside,” Rinax whispered the second the door was closed. “That woman, in the wrong hands, would do more damage than Ovailia ever could.”
I couldn’t help but think he was right.
19
Ryland
“You can’t kill her.” I was firm, but Joclyn wasn’t having it.
“No one will miss her.” Anger was radiating off her, and I already knew I was going to have a hard time getting her to calm down. Not after what she told me she saw. Nastya torturing Ilyan, and the woman on the other side of the door making the machines that did it.
“Still not a good reason to murder someone.”
“But what she did, Ry, I--” I put my hands on her arms, our gazes locked as I held her only a few inches away from me. She tried to dodge me, but I moved faster, refusing to let her look away.
“She will pay, but let’s not let Rinax be right. The little guy drives me batty, but he’s right. Enough people will die over all of this. Enough people already have.”
“And what about the ones who deserve it?” she hissed, her magic sparking through my hands as she yanked her arms away from me. I inhaled sharply as the icy blast of her magic hit me.
“You mean the ones who are guilty?” I clarified, but she only narrowed her eyes at me. “Let Ilyan decide, the crimes are against him, yes? Let him decide when we bring him home.”
All of her defiant energy seemed to sizzle, the bright spark in her silver eyes fading as she inhaled, the slow, steady breath lingering behind us.
“When,” she repeated, but it was not a question. From what she told me, she had seen enough to find him. We may not have found him in Ukraine, but now it was only a matter of time. “My sight showed mountains. And it showed the Kyō. So my guess is that they have him.”
“So high mountains... in probably China or Japan. Mongolia maybe?” I tried to remember what little I had retained from high school geography class. I traveled a lot of places throughout my father’s insane quest to kill my brother, but I had never gone to either of those places.
It would figure that my quest to bring him home would be the reason for me to go there.
“Based on what little I saw, my money would be on Mongolia. So, we need to find a medical station in the high mountains. A needle in a haystack.” She sounded so dejected, so broken.
“A lot of space, but there aren’t going to be many large medical centers in the middle of nowhere, Jos.”
“True.” She took another long inhale, taking some of the stress that was in the air with it. “They probably aren’t going to keep him somewhere away from their main complex either. We find him, we find whatever snake is at the head of that beast.”
“And then we finish this.” It felt good to say that, even if we both knew that was nowhere near the end.
“Well, until we let Wyn take her crown as Empress Supreme and it all goes to hell again.” She grinned, both of us laughing at the ridiculousness of it. Part of me actually thought Wyn would be a good ruler. The other part was scared about just how much she would burn to the ground, especially with how crabby she had been lately.
“We may not have found Ilyan, but our trip to Ukraine was still worth it.” I grabbed her arms again, ready to pull her into a hug if she was going to collapse again. But she just stood there smiling at me, her hand soft as she placed it against my arm.
“For you too.” Oh god, I knew that look. It was the same one Wyn had given me. Jos may have been oblivious before, but she knew now.
“Fucking Thom.” I suddenly felt the need to slam my fist into the wall. She just laughed.
“Yeah, it’s like he’s excited for you or something.” She rolled her eyes and slugged me in the shoulder. Same as she always had. “Now go check on Míra. I’m going to go get a team started on scouring upper Mongolia.”
Jos smiled and raced off, if she wasn’t trying to be all queenly right then she probably would have been skipping. As her second I technically should be following her. But she was right, I was already being pulled in another direction.
I knocked once when I reached Míra’s room, the muffled ‘come in’ sounded a bit too much like the angsty teenager who liked to destroy her room and my heart dropped as I opened the door. Her room wasn’t in shambles, however, she just sat on her bed, wearing a pair of fuzzy pajama pants and a matching shirt as she stared at the two torn pieces of paper in her hands.
I recognized them immediately: the letter she had left for me. I was pretty sure my stomach turned into a swarm of angry bees.
Nervous energy rippled through me as she looked up and promptly shoved the pieces of paper under her leg, clearly trying to make everything look as normal as possible. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be possible with the bit of damp in her eyes and how my entire being seemed ready to burst through my skin and run away.
“How are you doing?” I asked, foolishly stumbling on each and every word as I stepped into the room and let the door swing shut behind me.
“I’m showered and wearing clean clothes for the first time since I almost died, so I think it’s safe to say I’m doing hunky-dory.” She swung her arm over waist like some old timey dancer. “How did interrogating the fake Ovailia go?”
That was one way to quickly dampen my nerves. “About as well as interrogating a bear. I guess they just confused her for Ovailia in all those pictures from when the zit popped and she went along with it. Made the guns and the electricity machines.”
“So your garden-variety villainess.” She forced a laugh, shifting her weight as I moved closer in an obvious attempt at hiding the note better. “Oh the mountains I could have climbed if I hadn’t switched sides.”
Another laugh, this one accompanied by a forced smile as I sunk into the bed next to her.
“I read your note.” I used to be so much better at being debonair. I had lost some of that while being tortured, and the rest while being used as bait. Now I was just a tactless weirdo. Míra blinked at me, those tears she had been trying to hide coming right back to the surface. I was off to a great start.
“Did you tear it up?” She pulled the two pieces out from where she had hidden them and I nodded, realizing a second too late what exactly I had done.
“Oh! I did, but not like that. I was just so excited to see it, I opened it too fast and…” I mimed my overexuberant paper opening and subsequent ripping, which mostly just looked like I was making air origami. Real smooth, Ry. At least she was laughing now.
I took a deep breath, forced my head to get screwed on straight and tried again.
“Do you know how magic connects in a mated pair?” I asked and she blushed so fast that I once again only realized too late what I had said. Well, no turning back now, which was great because Míra had noticed my blush and was already leaning in to me with her biggest grin.
“No, I don’t Ryland. Wanna tell me?” The sassy girl was already turning me to jelly. I was having a hard time feeling my face, everything felt numb.
I ran my hand through my hair, jumping off the bed as I instantly began to pace.
“When I met you in the hospital way back before… ummm… everything…” Better not to go into that any more than necessary. For both our sakes. “When I first touched your hand I was supposed to test your magic, but w
hen our magic interacted it sparked. A light bulb flickered--”
“I remember.”
“It was our magic recognizing its other half. Sometimes it’s small. Sometimes it’s an explosion.” And takes out half of the giant mansion your father built. Although with Jos, everything was different, our magic sparked in the same connection, but for a different reason.
I shook my head, not wanting to think about that now.
“Are you saying that I feel the way I do about you because of that connection?” she asked, and I actually wasn’t sure how to answer without hurting her feelings. Not that I hadn’t already been doing great at phrasing things poorly.
“No. Because I wasn’t the biggest fan of yours for a while, even with that connection.” I tried not to harden my voice, but it did anyway. “You didn’t like me either, Míra.”
Her jaw hardened, her eyes growing dark as she stared at me. It was the face she had every night she couldn’t sleep and would come to my room. The same face as when she was working through something hard, or when that someone else’s voice was loud in her head.
“Tell him to leave, Míra. This conversation is just for us.” I was firm, and she nodded, her face instantly relaxing.
“I feel the way I do about you because I have grown to feel that way, not just because our magic has sparked,” I said after a moment, and she stood, standing just a few feet from me as I continued to pace. “The connection of our magic just makes the feeling stronger.” And makes everything more confusing. I didn’t say that last part aloud, but mostly because Míra had grabbed my arm, pulling me around to face her.
She stood there, more than a foot shorter than me, this tiny girl with long blonde hair and an attitude so sassy she put Wyn to shame. But right then she was the vulnerable girl I saw at night, the strong one that put on a brave face. The capable Chosen that she only let me see sometimes.
“Míra?” I asked, my heart choking on the word.
“You said ‘I feel’.” Her voice was just as constricted as mine. “How do you feel, Ryland?”
Flare of Villainy: The Imdalind Series, Book 10 Page 14