“You’re going to want to keep your back straight if you want it to heal properly.” He spoke simply as he smoothly changed the subject, like healing on a couch was the obvious thing to do.
“Hos… hospital,” I whispered, the rough movements sending sharp pains through me.
“I can’t take you to a hospital, Joclyn,” Ilyan answered my mostly unasked question softly. “They will be searching for you at hospitals.”
His hands wound under the pile of blankets I had been placed under, pushing and pulling my body to straighten my back and bringing my head back to look at him. I called out as he moved me, each shift in weight sending pain shooting through my body.
“Besides,” he continued, “I can heal you much quicker.” He winked at me mischievously as he finished aligning my back, causing the pain to stop. He kept his palms flat against the skin on my back, sending that familiar warmth through me.
“What…?” I tried again, frustrated when I could still only manage one agonizing word at a time.
“What am I doing?”
I nodded my head, pain shooting down my back.
“Healing you.”
My eyes must have bugged out of my head. That one statement had opened up a floodgate, and every unanswered question and unexplainable occurrence over the past few days begged to be expanded upon. Everything flashed before my mind in quick succession as they tried to fit themselves together; my mind flashing like a badly animated short.
“How?” I breathed out, not sure if I was asking Ilyan or my mind the question. Luckily, Ilyan answered.
“Your father insisted that he told you.”
My head snapped to him, another jolt running down my spine; I ignored it.
“He promised me he would find a way to explain it all when he gave you the birthstone. I assumed he did, but he seems to have disappeared since then.”
I should have cared more that my father was missing, and I probably would have if we had had any sort of relationship. However, my mind couldn’t see beyond that one piece of information that fit everything together: the objects flying around my kitchen, the sensation of flying, surviving a broken back and who knew what else, even Ilyan healing me with his hands. My father wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t deranged. He had told the truth.
“Magic,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
Ilyan nodded solemnly before replying. “I am sorry to have to tell you this way. I had hoped we would be able to gain your trust a bit more before telling you all that was going on.”
“Magic,” I repeated strongly. My teeth clenched in surprise and anger as my stomach spun in a threatening manner. The warmth of Ilyan’s hands grew and the wave of nausea subsided.
“Yes, Joclyn. Magic.”
I didn’t know how to react. Should I be relieved, excited, frightened? Instead, everything combined and my breath picked up in short, staccato puffs as I tried to cope with the onslaught.
“I wish I could make this easier on you. You are probably very scared.”
Ryland had said that in my dream, but he also said he knew. I felt my panic surge as my need for answers grew.
“Calm, please, Silnỳ,” Ilyan whispered. The warmth increased again and I found myself falling asleep, whether I wanted to or not. “If you can stay calm, I will explain some things to you right now. Can you do that?”
I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to try. As the tired feeling in my body began to subside, I tried to keep myself calm, and my breathing even. Ilyan watched me, his hands still resting on my skin.
“The mark on your skin,” he began, his voice calm and even, “is called a kiss. Although it really isn’t a kiss at all, it’s more like a poisonous bite. When the kiss—or bite—was given, a strong poison entered your bloodstream and changed you. It took the latent powers that you already had and enhanced them. We call those who receive this kiss, a Chosen.
“Now, not everyone has to go through this change. I, for example, was born with my magic. It is as natural to me as breathing. You, however, as with all humans who are lucky enough to receive a kiss, have to endure the change to bring the magic into your body.”
“Not human?”
“No, Joclyn, I am not human. Although I do not differ much from your kind, I am part of a race known as the Skȓítek. We are an ancient people who were once very plentiful; now there are only a handful of us left, only about a thousand.”
“Scree…” I tried to say the word, but my tongue knotted around it. I needed to know more; my mind couldn’t stop placing him inside a spaceship, but that didn’t seem right. After all, he had told me he had been born in Prague, but now I was wondering if he had told the truth at all.
“Yes, Joclyn. Skȓítek. Think of me as the gatekeeper for the birthplace of magic—the well in the earth where the powers within you originated.”
I wanted to nod, but couldn’t. Instead, I just looked at him, wide-eyed.
“As you know, the change a human must endure as they become one of the Chosen is very painful. The longer the pain, the longer the recovery, the more powerful is the magic.” He paused and I could tell he was gauging how I was handling everything he was telling me. I tried to keep a straight face, even though I was still panicking a bit.
Part of me still didn’t want to believe him. If I had been able to string more than a few words together, I would have been rebutting him at every turn. As much as I wanted to argue, as much as I didn’t want to believe him, I still couldn’t get the images of the balls of light colliding in my kitchen, the flying refrigerator, or the sensation of flying out of my mind.
“How long?” My throat burned again as I spoke, my vocal chords cutting off before I could complete my question.
“Your father says you were in the hospital for about six months, which is one of the longest I have heard of.”
My heart beat uncontrollably. The longest? What was I, some ultra powerful freak? Ilyan shushed me quietly as his thumb traced circles in the skin on my back. I wished I could shy away from the touch. It was something Ryland would do.
“Now, this could mean nothing. Most children focus and begin to use their powers days after awakening. It has been a bit longer than that for you,” he said darkly. I just stared at him.
“How… Kiss.”
“A kiss,” Ilyan continued, “is given by a Vilỳ to human children who already have a natural ability. A Vilỳ closely resembles a small, winged dinosaur; although their faces are more human. They are brightly colored and almost seem to glow, making them easy to find.”
The flash of blue, the glitter of wings; I remembered seeing both before the pain had hit. I had seen the little creature right before he bit me. I hadn’t been paying close enough attention; I didn’t know what I was seeing. If I had known what it was, would I have recognized it? Would it have made anything easier? I doubt it.
“Vilỳs have not been seen in more than two hundred years, which is why, when your father found me in Prague, we came right to you. We would have taken you with us right then, grabbed your mother and ran, but there was a complication.”
My forehead furled; I hoped that my silent question was obvious for him. He only stared at me though, his blue eyes deep and troubled.
“What… complication?” I tried to keep my face calm; I wanted to know more, but was afraid he would stop.
“In all things in life, there is a good and a bad, a light and a dark.” He paused and I couldn’t help but realize that his voice had deepened. The change scared me. “Your kiss is one of those things that possess a dual nature as well. My life has been consumed by this purpose; in many ways it is the sole reason I stay on this earth. Myself, and all those within my family, have spent our entire lives seeking out and protecting the Chosen who have been kissed by the Vilỳs. For centuries, I have sought them out and protected them…”
“Centuries?” I cut him off, although my voice was a squeak, but he still sputtered to a stop at my words.
“Yes, Joclyn, centuries. I am
very old, much older than I appear.” His lips turned up in a curious half-smile. “I wasn’t lying to you when I told you I was born in the 80s. It just wasn’t the 1980s.”
“When?”
“It was in the tenth century, Joclyn.” His voice was ashamed, like he was worried about my reaction. He had every right to be, too.
I struggled to keep my head, but after everything he had told me, what was one more impossible thing? I held my breath in an attempt to keep myself under control, unsure if I would be able to accomplish it. Thankfully, he continued anyway.
“The kiss on your skin is unique. There has not been a child who has been given this mark in more than three centuries. And the ones who had received their kiss before then have all but disappeared. This is why we had to come right to you. This is why we lied and hid; you are that important. You are the last of the Chosen.”
He spoke as if he were done and had told me everything, but he hadn’t. What about the bad side he had spoken of, what about the complications? I looked at him skeptically as I gathered strength to speak again.
“Bad side?” I said. Ilyan just looked at me before looking down at the couch. I waited for clarification, but none came. My heart skipped a beat in fear; was the bad side really all that scary?
“Complication?” I tried again, the longer word feeling like acid in my throat.
Ilyan looked away from me to focus on a spot on the blankets that covered me.
“There are those among my kind, and among the Trpaslík, who believe that the kiss is a gift, a sign of royalty. For four hundred years, they have systematically exterminated, not only the children who bare the kiss, but also the Vilỳs who are the sole reason the marks exist in the first place.”
“Extermin…” My voice caught; I couldn’t even bring myself to say the word.
“Yes, Silnỳ, they kill them. The men who attacked you in your apartment were there for that reason.”
I knew the men were trying to kill me—they had made that blatantly clear—but that wasn’t why I found myself hyperventilating again; it wasn’t why I found my vision fading in and out so fast my eyesight was almost a flicker. There were others who had wanted to kill me beside those men, and if it wasn’t for Ryland, they would have. If it wasn’t for Ryland knowing about the mark, and what it meant, they all would have succeeded.
“Ryland,” I gasped, my weak voice shaking even more.
“I am not sure we should go over this right now,” Ilyan said.
“Ryland!” My strong voice bounced angrily around the room. Wyn said something, but I didn’t bother to look to see if she had woken this time. I didn’t dare let my eyes leave Ilyan. Ilyan sighed and looked hard at me as my breathing and heart rate continued to increase in tempo.
“Wyn’s brother is Cail. Wyn’s father is Timothy. They both follow the man who gave the extermination order for the children who bear a kiss on their skin; the man who bears the first kiss ever given—Ryland’s father, Edmund LaRue.”
Somehow, I knew; I had known from the beginning. I knew from the moment Ryland saw the mark on my skin. I knew when I saw his own mark, standing out so vividly on his back. I knew, but I simply didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to accept it.
My breathing reached a rate that couldn’t possibly keep me conscious. I looked into Ilyan’s pained face for only a moment more before my vision went black. The warmth from Ilyan’s hands filled me at an alarming rate, his magic seeping into me and allowing me to slip into sleep.
Thirty-One
Joclyn
The sunlight streamed in innocently through the open window, saturating the faded carpet and white walls with the golden light of morning. A light breeze blew through the open patio door, bringing a sweet smell of flowers and grass into Wyn’s living room. My face was warm and felt swollen, as if I had been crying the entire time I had been asleep, which I wouldn’t doubt, given the reason I was sleeping in the first place. I shifted my weight under the heavy blankets that covered me, surprised to feel only a slight ache in my joints.
My rested body and serene mood lasted only until I realized the reason I had woken up in the first place. I could hear frantic yelling from the other room, the voices raised and lowered dramatically as they yelled at each other in Czech. Wyn and Ilyan were not angry though; they were panicked. The sound increased as a door opened and I watched Wyn walk out of the hall, a large bag draped over her back, an even bigger suitcase clenched in her other hand. The bags were so large in proportion to her body it looked like she would topple over at any moment. She caught sight of me staring at her and both parcels came crashing to the ground.
“Oh, thank all!” she sighed, her accented voice still odd in my ears. She rushed over to me, placing her hand right against my cheek. I looked at her in confusion, still unable to take my eyes off her dark tattoos.
“Ilyan! She’s awake.” She looked at me sadly, realizing that I was looking more at the dark marks on her face than at her. “I would hide them, Jos, but it hurts too much and I need to be able to focus right now.”
“Good,” Ilyan’s voice carried from the other room. “Is it hotter than before?”
Wyn removed her hand from my cheek and moved the heavy pile of blankets from off my torso. The removal of the weight increased the soreness I felt.
“Sorry,” she cringed.
She placed her hand against my chest, pressing Ryland’s necklace against my skin. My jaw tightened as the hot stone made firm contact. How could I not have felt that before? The ruby burned against me, making my whole chest feel as if it was on fire. The second Wyn released the pressure of her hand, the heat lessened, but I could still feel the necklace’s intense warmth from within Ryland’s sweater that they had placed me in.
“It’s hotter,” Wyn called back down the hall where Ilyan was.
Ilyan swore in English before he appeared at the end of the hall, his hair pulled back into a pony tail and the knees of his torn jeans caked with what looked like dirt and blood.
“We are out of time. Get that stuff to the car; I’ll be down with her in a minute.”
Wyn obeyed with a nod, grabbing the large bags as if they weighed nothing and disappearing out the door.
Ilyan rushed over to me and stripped the top most blanket off the pile that covered me and laid it on the floor. When he removed the blanket, the aches increased just as they had when Wyn removed half of them before.
“I’m sorry, Joclyn, but they have found us; we have to move now.”
My heart plunged. I knew beyond a doubt who “they” were: Cail, Timothy, Edmund… Ryland. I kept my head about me this time, the magic-induced sleep seeming to have helped me cope with the reality of Ryland’s association with the man who would stop at nothing to kill me.
“Ryland?”
“I don’t know, Joclyn. He could be with them. He could be… I just don’t know.” Ilyan stripped the remaining blankets from over me, causing my body to tense with deep aches.
“I am sorry, Joclyn. I would do this gently, but we really do not have the time. I had hoped to have your spine healed before we moved you, but Edmund has other plans.” He kneeled down beside me and ran his hand down the right side of my face, his thumb resting on my mark. I expected a jolt or a pain like that which had accompanied Ryland’s touch, but I felt nothing.
“I need you to be as quiet as you can. I can’t take the pain away right now; you need to be strong.” He slid his arms underneath my body and I knew what he meant. My body wasn’t as close to being healed as I had thought. With the heavy blankets gone, the aches and pains covered every inch of me. I felt like I had been thrown out of a third story window, which I had been.
I tried desperately to keep the majority of the sound in my throat as Ilyan lifted me and placed me on top of the blanket he had laid on the floor. I lay like a rag doll, my body unwilling to move.
As Ilyan straightened me out, I caught a glimpse of fleece pajama bottoms—the same ones I had been wearing in my dream w
ith Ryland. My heart caught, instantly aware that Ryland was right; it wasn’t a dream. But if it wasn’t a dream, then what had happened to Ryland?
Ilyan wrapped the blanket around me tightly, like one does an infant, and then prepared to lift me. My body tensed as his hands began to slide underneath me.
“Ilyan,” I pleaded, “I can’t”
“You can, Joclyn. You have to. If we don’t leave now, they will kill you. There are too many of them for me to fight on my own. You are the last of the Chosen; the last one between Edmund and his “perfect” world.” He slid his hands under me and lifted me to his chest in one quick movement. I groaned as we moved, allowing too much sound to escape my lips.
“Do it for Ryland, Joclyn. He may need you soon.”
I clenched my teeth. I thought of Ryland, the way he twitched and writhed as his father fought his way into his brain. Ilyan was right; someone had to save Ryland, too.
I turned my body into Ilyan as he ran out the door of the apartment and down the stairs toward the small parking garage that sat below the complex. I kept my teeth clenched as my body jostled around, my hands wrapped around the blanket. I focused on my tensed muscles in an attempt to ignore the sharp pains.
I could tell when we entered the garage; Ilyan’s footsteps changed to a flat gait that echoed around concrete walls. He walked straight to the black Mazda he always drove, the rear driver’s side door opening on its own before we even reached it. He leaned over and placed me in the center of the back seat.
“How many,” he asked Wyn who sat in the passenger seat looking stressed.
“At least a hundred, but they are spread out.”
Ilyan reached around me and firmly placed the seatbelt over my shoulder and waist, placing large bags and suitcases around me in an obvious effort to stabilize me.
“You still need to be strong, Joclyn.” He placed his hand against the right side of my face, his thumb resting on my mark. I twitched away from the foreign, uncomfortable touch again. “It’s more important to get us out of here alive than in comfort.”
Imdalind Ruby Collection One: Kiss of Fire | Eyes of Ember | Scorched Treachery Page 22