Imdalind Ruby Collection One: Kiss of Fire | Eyes of Ember | Scorched Treachery

by Ethington, Rebecca

  “Lift her!” Ilyan yelled over my screams.

  I screamed louder as their strong hands moved me, sending another violent flame through my whole body. My screams bounced around the tile of the bathroom, trapping us all in the sound.

  They lowered me into the tub, the hot water folding over me to envelop my body like a blanket, its touch relieving the pain. The mass of the water was heavier than what water normally felt like, but perhaps it was just my broken body that made it feel that way. My bottom hit the base of the tub with a thud, the impact sending an uncomfortable jolt up my back that made me call out in pain. The water smelled like an odd combination of burning wood and mint.

  “I don’t think this is moving fast enough, Ilyan; she is still weakening,” Wyn whispered into the silence. “She is going to have to go under.”

  “I’ll go get the drevo,” Ilyan said, the door opening and closing before leaving silence in the bathroom.

  “Joclyn,” Wyn’s voice was hesitant; I couldn’t help but notice that the accent had disappeared. “You’ll need to go under the water. It is only for a minute, and Ilyan and I will be right here,” she said, hesitating again. “We… we won’t let anything happen to you.”

  The door opened and shut.

  “Should we take the necklace off?” Wyn asked, her accent returning.

  “No. Perhaps the kouzlo will transfer to him and we can save two lives tonight.” Ilyan paused and I heard something heavy hit against the side of the tub. “Joclyn? Don’t be scared, Silnỳ.” His voice was too distant; I focused on it as it echoed around my brain.

  His hands pried my mouth open and something large and rough was placed inside. The large mass was coarse and uncomfortable against my tongue, the bitter dirt taste shocking me. I tried desperately to spit it out, but Ilyan’s hand stayed tight around my jaw, not allowing it to open again.

  “It’s okay, Joclyn. It will help you.”

  My body twitched in panic as I continually tried to force the uncomfortable mass off my tongue. I fought against Ilyan’s hand that was against my jaw, I fought against the invisible bonds that tied my body, but nothing responded.

  What were they doing? Why wasn’t I in the hospital? I tried desperately to piece together what I had been told, what had happened. I knew the answer was right in front of me, but I couldn’t see it; I couldn’t piece it together.

  My eyes snapped open to see the two faces peering over the bath at me. Ilyan looked down with something akin to worry and fear, but it was Wyn who was shocking. At first, she looked the way she always did—chin-length auburn hair and dark eyes—but her features had changed so drastically, she almost didn’t look like herself anymore.

  Wyn’s eyes were darker than normal, but not only in color, the whites of her eyes were almost nonexistent. Her eyes were not the most shocking change; against the side of her face was a dark tattoo that ran from her hair line and disappeared down the side of her neck and under her shirt. The deep black lines swooped and spiked over her skin with jagged edges that were sharp like the barbed tendrils of a wire. My stomach clenched tightly, afraid the wire was going to cut into her fine skin and rip her apart. The marks looked like the swirls and flowers and thorns of a tribal tattoo, but turned so much more sinister almost, as if it were an infection.

  She didn’t look ashamed or embarrassed as I looked at her, even though I was sure the surprise and confusion was clear on my face. She just looked at me sternly, her jaw set, before she reached forward and shoved me down, holding me under the water.

  I panicked and fought against her, but my body couldn’t obey my mind. I could only stare at them from under the water as I tried in pointless desperation to move. I opened my mouth to scream, but it wouldn’t obey; instead it stayed clamped shut around the wad of dirt that still rested on my tongue. My chest began to burn for want of air. My vision began to darken again. Weight left my chest as Wyn removed her hand, but it was too late. I willingly drifted into the blackness.

  Twenty-Seven

  Ryland

  “Leave her alone!” My voice rattled as I screamed, still listening to her footsteps as she ran in the opposite direction.

  Away from me.

  I had spent weeks wondering how to protect her. How to save myself.

  Now, as I stood in the center of the hallway, facing the rage of my father so that Joclyn could get away; I knew exactly what to do.

  I let my magic explode.

  “What have you done, son?” My father’s rage rattled the air, boiling through my blood and pulling every bit of my power to the surface.

  “He has betrayed you,” Timothy began, Cail standing beside him as the air around him rippled with darkness. “He is no better than Il—”

  My magic rushed through my skin, pulling into the palms of my hands as I grabbed at all the heat in the air and shot it right at my father and his army.

  The ball of flame barreled toward him before Cail stepped forward, swiping his hand to the side as he deflected my attack. It was barely enough.

  My attack went wide, slamming energy and fire into the wall.

  The ancient building creaked, glass shattering as the floor rocked and heaved.

  I was going to have to give more if I was going to get out of this.

  “You dare attack me?” My father roared, clapping his hands as his own magic began to grow there, light and dark and fire swirling together. I could feel it suck the oxygen out of the air from here.

  “I will do what I need to do!” My throat tore with my shout, muscles throbbing as I pulled all of my strength and power to the surface. “I will not let you get past me. I will not let you reach her.”

  “You would protect her?” Cail laughed, stepping to me like a hunter to prey. “Use your brain, stupid child. We would never hurt her. We need her alive.”

  Alive was a sliding scale with him, and I wasn’t willing to risk it.

  “You can’t have her.”

  “She’s the piece we’ve been looking for, Ryland. Did you really think you could stop us?” Grease smeared over my father’s face as he sent that giant ball of destruction right at me.

  I had been trained to restrain. To control. To be the perfect son. The perfect warrior. The perfect weapon.

  I would need to be all of that now.

  But not for him.

  As long as I could keep my father, Timothy, and Cail busy; Joclyn could get to Ilyan and any sacrifice I made would be worth it.

  Ilyan could keep her safe.

  I dodged my father’s attack, shuffling to the side as I pulled my power forward, twisting my mind and threads of air into a spear that I sent into the opposite wall. It impacted with an explosion that sent glass over everything, each of those shards their own weapon that I guided toward the three men.

  That time they weren’t quick enough to stop them.

  “No. But I will do everything I can to stop you.”

  Edmund’s smile stretched, Cail’s growing right alongside. “You seem to have forgotten something.”

  “What?”

  “We are not restrained by walls.”

  No.

  “Cail. Find her. Kill anyone who gets in your way. The girl is mine.”

  “Yes, master.”

  “No!” I screamed as I attacked, power ripping from me as I raced right to Cail who smiled before he turned and jumped through the broken window to his right. I caught a glance of him soaring through the air toward Joslyn’s side of town, my feet were pulling me to follow before a blast of heat hit me right in the gut. I stumbled back, already sending my counter attack towards my father who laughed and attacked me again. Heat wrapped around my arm, crushing the bones.

  I clenched my teeth, refusing to scream, as bones and tendons snapped. I attacked again.

  Again. Again. Back and forth we sent our magic as my father tried to kill me, tried to keep me from flying out the window after Cail. Fire ripped over carpet, glass lifted from the ground only to fly right at me like daggers. I waved
my hand and turned them to dust with a shout, but it wasn’t enough. A few snuck through, the sharp points embedding themselves in my neck and arms.

  I yelled in pain that time. The pain just pushed me forward.

  “You can’t have her.”

  My father laughed darkly as he stepped forward and snapped his fingers, the tiny action sending a wave of magic towards me so strong that I was thrown back, right into the far wall.

  “Oh, Ryland, haven’t you learned by now, I can have anything I want,” he snapped again, my body flattening against the wall, pinned there by a magic stronger than my own. “Including you. You will always bow to me.”

  He walked toward me slowly, Timothy turning to direct the rest of his minions into lines and formations. As if they were all going to battle me.

  Or capture me.

  “I will never be your minion, not anymore,” I gasped through the pressure on my body as it built, his magic flattening me.

  “You are my son, my creation, you are just like me…”

  “I will never be like you,” I spat at him, snarling as I quietly let my magic build so I could face him one last time.

  Maybe I could make it to Joclyn… Maybe it didn’t have to end this way.

  I could escape him.

  Escape this life.

  “I am nothing like you. Never again.” I was ready, one last attack and I would be out of here. She had to have made it to Ilyan by now.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ryland.’ Joclyn. My magic flickered as her voice filled my mind. My magic buzzed as the connection with the necklace came to life, warning me as it had a few times before.

  “You are exactly like me.” My father took a step forward, more of my air drained from my lungs and sent the burning hallway into a dark flicker.

  ‘I failed.’

  My magic sparked at her voice, shadows of a room I had been in a hundred times before filling my vision. Joclyn’s kitchen, except the person standing in the center of it shouldn’t be there.

  Cail.

  “You will always be like me.” My father slapped me, sparks of his magic flaring through my jaw. I could feel the bone splinter.

  ‘I didn’t make it to Ilyan.’

  Pain flared as he hit me again, more bones protesting under his attacks. I needed to fight his hold on me, fight back. I needed to get out of here. But as more of my air left, the shadows of the room became clearer, the image of Cail bright as he lifted his hand, his trademark attack glowing bright in his palm.

  “No!” I screamed the word as my magic exploded out of me. But, instead of exploding against my father’s magic, instead of ripping the hallway apart and granting me my escape, it traveled through the necklace. Through the line I had created to keep her safe.

  With the last breath my father gave me, I sent an attack to Cail instead and let myself fall into the necklace, my focus on protecting Joclyn, even as my father began to tear me apart.

  Twenty-Eight

  Ryland

  She was safe.

  I knew that much, even though the last pieces of the connection between us had been filled with screaming, the shadow of her spine breaking still strong in my mind. It was a miracle she was alive. That she was safe.

  The knowledge was the small thread of hope I clung to as I hung here, wrists and ankles bound by magic restricting irons in the bowels of my father’s monstrous manor house.

  The large manor house had been built sometime in the 1800’s. Built for a war that had been going on since before the Crusades. These cells seemed to be pulled right from then. Stone floors, thick iron bars, a penetrating wet that came from who knows where.

  I think, deep down, I always knew I would end up here.

  “You just going to leave me here to rot?” I yelled into the dark, my shout echoing over stone and iron to come back to me in a monstrous howl. My mouth filled with blood at the shout, all of my bones aching. I was sure that more than one was broken, with my magic restrained there was little I could do to heal myself.

  “Did you get what you want from me?” I yelled again, iron chains rattling as I shook them. A large shape moved off to my left and I turned, narrowing my eyes to see better. Even with the heightened vision of my kind, there was nothing there but a pile of rags.

  Great. I was weak. Drained. Beaten. And clearly hallucinating.

  What else had he done to me while I was out?

  “Bastard.” I sagged against the chains, trying to find some flake of my magic that I could bring to the front.

  There was nothing.

  I should have left years ago. After what had happened to my mother. After what my father had wanted me to do in the forest. I knew what he was. I knew what he wanted me to do.

  But, I also knew what he could do.

  Who he was.

  Which is why I never left.

  Mostly because I had nowhere to go. I had no guarantee that Ilyan would take me in, I was the youngest son of his sworn enemy after all. I could have been some kind of planted bomb, which ironically was exactly what my father had planned for me.

  At least that future hadn’t played out.

  Plus, if Ilyan had Joclyn; if Joclyn was who everyone thought she was, then Ilyan could end all of this and none of this would be in vain.

  The creak of heavy iron doors ground through the dark cavern, a beam of light shining down stone stairs to illuminate the cluster of cells at the base. The pile of rags shifted again, shivering against the wall as heavy footfalls began their dissent. Okay, so I wasn’t hallucinating. I also wasn’t alone down here.

  Still trying to pull at my magic, I watched as two pairs of shoes made their way down the stairs, a large mass of a body dragged behind them.

  “No!” I screamed before I could see clearly, pushing against the chains to reach them.

  It couldn’t be Joclyn. She was with Ilyan. I knew she was.

  “Oh no,” a familiar voice whined as Cail came into view, one of his lackeys by his side. “Did the poor little prince lose again? Poor little prince proved he was useless all along?”

  “What did you do?” Chains rattled as I fought, as I screamed. “What did you do!”

  “What we could,” Cail said darkly as he reached the bottom step and threw the body to the base of the cells.

  My heart was on fire as I watched her roll, hair flailing, black kitchen shoes clunking the bars of the cell next to mine.

  It wasn’t her. Not that it was any better.

  Angela Despain looked into the dark without seeing as she lay lifeless on the ground. I cringed, heart wrenching together painfully. She had mattered. She had meant something, and he had taken her away. Just like all the others. The bundle of rags made a sound that was close to a gasp and a sob as it shivered against the wall, Cail giving whoever it was a grin before his focus turned right back to me.

  The door to the cell swung open without anyone touching it, Cail striding in as more quick steps began to descend the old stairs.

  “How long did you know, Ryland?” Cail asked, stepping right up to me.

  “Know what?”

  “This time you can’t play dumb. Tell me!”

  “Know that I loved her? Since we were children.” I was prodding him, but the truth still stung.

  “Is that why you hid her?” I couldn’t tell if he was angry or intrigued. “Is that why you thought you could protect her?”

  “I did protect her. I will protect her.” I was confident, even though I didn’t feel it. Cail didn’t see through the facade however, the guy was posturing me as though I wasn’t chained to the wall.

  “Then tell me where she is.”

  I couldn’t help it, I smiled. I smiled, and then I laughed with a boom that sounded like a drum against the stone walls.

  They hadn’t found her.

  “I think you already know. I think you were just too scared to finish the job. I think you were too scared to face him. You knew Ilyan was here. You just knew you couldn’t win against him.”

  “I
can rip that bastard to shreds!” Cail’s rage grew, his breathing picking up as he roared and slammed his fist into the stone beside my head, his magic spider webbing over the rock in bright blue lines.

  “Is that why he still lives to defy us?”

  “Do you dare—”

  “Calm Cail.” Edmunds voice was anything but soothing, but Cail stepped back as though he was a mechanical wax works, his eyes glossing over as my father stepped into my cell after him. “You will get your chance.”

  “Yes, master.” Cail’s slimy smile was back.

  “In fact, you might get it sooner than you think.” Edmund turned to me and I fought the need to recoil, and instead leaned against my chains to face him. “Ryland will tell us all that we need to know.”

  “I already told you, Father.” I couldn’t help it, the moniker was acid. “I will never help you.”

  He stepped closer, his tight lipped smile widening to reveal unnaturally white teeth. “You say that as if you have a choice.”

  “I do. I will never help you. Besides, I don’t know where she is anyway. Do what you will to me, Father, I will never help you.”

  I was firm, facing the man in a way that I never thought I would.

  He had instilled my fear in him from a young age. Not just in the brutal way that he trained me, but in the things he had me do with that training. It was why I had stayed. With what I had seen I knew I could not escape him. I was trapped. I had been forced to kill when I was only eight, I had faced my own mother as my soul contorted not into the monster my father hoped to create, but into something more. Something stronger.

  I just didn’t know it until now.

  It took love, friendship, and companionship to build that.

  “I will always protect her.”

  “I know,” he leaned in, Cail snickering behind him. “That’s what makes this so perfect. You love her, and if I had to guess, she loves you. It’s perfect.”

  “You have clearly underestimated love, Father.”

  “Have I? Love is a weakness that I know exactly how to extort. How do you think I have gotten this far?”