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

by Ethington, Rebecca

  My mind was screaming against the iron bars that surrounded it, pounding and raging as they pointed at the attack, at me, and made their terrible plans.

  “I don’t see why we just can’t send him to finish it all off now. Screw the girl, he can take down Ilyan for us…”

  “I will never do that!” The words burst out as I exploded out of my cage, my feet taking one staggered step forward. “I will never hurt her!”

  “That is why,” Edmund said with a sigh, his lip twitching. “The bastard has not been tamed. Yet.”

  ‘Stand down, son.’

  “No!” I screamed in response to the voice in my head and forced another step. “I will never obey you.”

  ‘You are worthless, Ryland. You will never be anything other. Give up, now.’

  “Do you really think you can fight me?” He continued, his words echoing both in the cave and in my head. I took another step forward, the panic in his eyes growing.

  “I will. You…” My words were coming slower now, as though they couldn’t press themselves out all the way. “Will never…”

  My tongue froze, just like the rest of me. They all smiled as my father’s voice, his commands, grew louder in my head.

  ‘You will do as I say, Ryland…’

  His power wound through me as though it was my own, it twisted up my spine and I stood up straighter, my arm jerking violently as I continued to fight him off.

  “I will always fight you.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Edmund seethed, my arm twitching again. “By all means, keep fighting. The more you fight, the more I take. The more I control. You know you can’t fight this, Ryland. You were never strong enough. Never good enough. No matter how much work and power I put into you, you were always a disappointment.”

  “Maybe we should let him keep fighting then,” Timothy said, the guy actually sounded bored. “Destroy him completely and we won’t have to deal with his pathetic outbursts.”

  “Agreed. He whines about as much as Wynifred does. ‘Please don’t hurt me. Why are you trying to kill me?’ Pathetic. Let me just beat him, master, weaken him so you can finish it. So you can control him.”

  “No. This shouldn’t take long.”

  “I won’t—”

  “You won’t what?” My father interrupted my stuttered words, the three of them stepping closer. “You won’t bow? Fine, but you also won’t remember who you are when I am done with you. Keep fighting. I’ll just take more of you faster. Give in and perhaps I will let you keep a memory or two.”

  His eyes were pools of hatred as he reached me, his hand on my forearm as his magic spread through me deeper than it had before. My heart beat rattled in my ears as his magic moved into my mind like slimy fingers. I could feel it penetrating, all of the puppet strings moving to attention as images flashed before me.

  My mother’s smiling face.

  The first time I drove my Lotus.

  The smell of the pines when Jos and I drove up the Canyons.

  Jos…

  At the thought of her, my mind snapped together, those fingers curling back into him. He may be deleting me. Stealing me. He couldn’t have that. I would never give him that.

  “Do you really want to fight me, son?”

  ‘Not that you can, you’re pathetic. A fool. Just bow, Ryland.’

  I wanted to snap. I wanted to tell him how ridiculous he was, how I would never bow to him. But just watching the three of them stand there, murder and hunger in their eyes, I knew I would just be wasting my energy. I needed to conserve, I needed to find a way out of this.

  To fight this.

  I knew I could.

  So, I just stood like my father’s puppet, my arms and magic jumping as he pulled the strings and my magic came right back into his control, the sparks jumping between my fingertips.

  “Good. Good.” Edmund looked absolutely overjoyed with himself. “You see, Cail. Never doubt me.”

  Before any of them could react, my magic was pulled from me, soaring right towards Cail. This time he couldn’t dodge in time and my magic sent Cail backwards, right into the still burning stone behind him.

  I couldn’t even be happy that I had hit him.

  “If you can’t dodge Ryland, no wonder you couldn’t take down your sister,” Edmund said to Cail as he turned to leave, Timothy behind him like the shadow he always was.

  “Yes, master,” Cail said as he stood, facing me as I stared at him, wishing I could look anywhere else. But I was still stuck in broken marionette form.

  “Now, I will leave the rest of this lesson to you. Remind him what happens when he fights me.”

  “Gladly.”

  My father and Timothy left, leaving Cail before me with magic growing on the tips of his fingers, and me with absolutely no way to defend myself.

  With what little control I could muster, I forced my eyes closed and pulled at the bit of warmth that remained in my soul, the line of the necklace that was the only safe place.

  The only place I could hide.

  I sunk myself into it, just as the first attack of Cail’s magic slammed into my chest and I felt my ribs crack.

  Thirty-Four

  Ryland

  “Here you are, little Prince. Your suite.”

  Cail didn’t even chain me up anymore. He just placed the heavy metal shackles on my wrists and threw me onto the wet stone, locking the heavy barred door to my cell with a clang.

  “Another day like this, Ryland, and I doubt you will even remember your own name, let alone hers.”

  I groaned and attempted to shift my weight into something more comfortable, but I only managed to fall back down to the stone with a grunt.

  “Normally, I would have killed you by now,” Cail taunted, the sound of his retreating feet echoing up the stairs. “Too bad your father still needs you. I’ll just have to enjoy my time with you in the meantime.”

  ‘Unless you just give in. You can’t fight me, Ryland.’ Even here there was no escape from my father’s control.

  The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut, plunging the lines of cells into darkness.

  I tried to shift my weight again, but my body wasn’t having it, so I just lay there on the cold stone, water dripping over me as I let my mind wander.

  Every night I lay here, what little of my magic that I still had control of trying to heal my body as I pulled through my memories and took an account of how much I had lost.

  ‘There is no point, you are weak. Pathetic.’

  It was getting harder and harder to pull things to the surface, luckily, I had felt like this before.

  Felt this muscle ache.

  It was a start.

  “I play rugby,” I whispered, rolling onto my back. “I was the captain at… uh… Whitmer Preparatory Academy. We won the championship. At the last game, Cail was there. She fell and I helped her. I protected her.”

  I knew I had protected her. I had felt the line of the necklace burn hot and I had rushed to her so that my father or Cail wouldn’t see her. I could remember healing her cut with my magic, and taking her to my car… and the kitchen… Someone was there.

  Who was there?

  Who was always there?

  “No… I can’t have forgotten.”

  I twisted on the ground, eyes blinking into the dark as I tried to find something more recent. Who was in the kitchen?

  ‘You belong to me.’

  The shadow of the memory bled down the stairs as I remembered Cail dragging her body down the stone.

  “Angela Despain.” Joclyn’s mother.

  The pile of rags in the cell next to mine shivered as I said the name, this time a small noise seeped from it as though it was crying.

  “You okay in there?” I asked, my spine screaming as I sat up, leaning against the bars.

  I had tried a few times before to speak to the pile of rags, and it hadn’t answered. I still hadn’t completely ruled out the possibility that I was hallucinating.

  No
movement, no noise.

  I sat back after a moment, trying to find someplace comfortable to sneak in some sleep before Cail came back for me in the morning.

  “Did you know her?” I jumped at the scratchy male voice that rustled over from the rags like sandpaper.

  “So, you are alive.”

  “Did you know her?” he repeated, a hand appearing from the rags to wrap around the bars between us. “Angela Despain?”

  “Yes. She is… was my father’s cook. She’s dead.” Saying it aloud brought the memory back. And the pain.

  “Yes, I know. And you are who they say? Ryland LaRue?”

  I looked around, suddenly wondering if this was just another part of Cail’s tortures.

  “I am.”

  “I should have never come back.”

  “Come back?” I shifted my weight, moving forward as I searched the rags for something more human than an arm.

  “What… who… are you?”

  ‘You are mine.’

  “Your father’s other prized possession.” The pile of rags shifted as they sat, blankets and towels and everything else he had been using to keep himself warm down here falling away to reveal a man with feet of dark knotted hair and a beard that was just as long and just as matted.

  He looked as though he had been down here for years. Knowing my father, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been.

  If he had gone through what I had.

  ‘I saved my worst for you, son.’

  “Is he deleting your mind too?” I asked as I twitched, as though the motion would somehow banish my father’s voice from my mind.

  “Is that what he is doing to you?” Filthy hands wrapped around the bars of the cell, the man leaning in. His eyes were so dark that they looked like pools of ink. “A Vymȁzat?”

  “Yes. He always wanted me to be his greatest weapon…”

  “You’re not going to let him, are you?”

  “I am fighting him, but I am starting to forget.” I sagged against the bars again, hand fluttering over my heart. Over where the necklace I gave Joclyn hung on her neck.

  “Forget people like Angela Despain? She wasn’t that important.”

  “Even cooks can be important.”

  I really didn’t want to get into it with this guy. I didn’t know him, I didn’t trust him. The way his dark eyes were pouring into me was making me uncomfortable, anyway. Especially because he wouldn’t look away.

  “I lost my memory, too,” he continued and I sat up straighter. “Not by your father. From someone else. But I am starting to remember. I can help you remember too.”

  “Can you help me stop this? I need to stop this. I need to get out of here.” I turned to face him again, his dark eyes trying to swallow me. This close, they almost looked green.

  “I can, but on one condition.” I was sure he was smiling under the rats nest of a beard.

  I wasn’t in the mood to barter, but seeing as we were both prisoners in my father’s dungeon, I didn’t see any other option.

  “What’s the condition?”

  “When the time comes, you are getting me out of here. You don’t leave me behind.”

  The idea that we could get out of here was nearly laughable. But looking into his eyes I could tell that he wanted it as bad as I did. If he had recovered his memory, and could help me do the same and regain control of my magic, then maybe we could stand a chance.

  Maybe I could get back to her.

  Trust was going to be hard, especially locked down here, but I had to try.

  “Who are you, besides my father’s prized possession?”

  He smiled, dark eyes squishing together like beetles as he stuck his hand between the bars toward me.

  “I’m Sain.” He said it as though I should know who he was, or why my father had him here. I didn’t. I shook his hand once, his brow furrowing a bit.

  “Ryland.”

  Thirty-Five

  Joclyn

  We watched the news conference all day, everyone ripping it apart until Ilyan had suddenly excused himself, saying that there would be a council in an hour and he needed to prepare. Ovailia had followed close behind him, her nasally voice whining about something I didn’t understand. The second the door had closed, Wyn rushed to me, flinging her arms around me in a tight bear hug.

  “I am so sorry, Jos, so sorry. If we could have gotten you out earlier, this never would have happened. If we…” Her voice caught and I could tell she was trying not to cry. I returned the hug, my arms hesitantly wrapping around her.

  “I wanted so badly to just run away with you the night we watched the movie at the apartment, but someone had caught sight of Ilyan that morning, and he didn’t want to risk being followed or trapped. If only we had...” She jabbered on and on, and even through the accent, I could tell she was the same old Wyn. Hearing this bit of normalcy made me smile. It took the edge off the desperate panic I felt with Ryland’s situation, and the crushing depression over my mother. I sighed deeply and leaned into her, grateful for the emotional support.

  “Can you forgive me?” she pleaded, pulling me away from her to look at me. Her eyes were so off putting; the all-encompassing blackness of them, combined with the dark tattoos, made her look ominous. I moved my hand up a fraction of an inch, as if to touch her skin, but put it down again. The movement didn’t go unnoticed.

  “I know I look a little... odd. You’ll get used to it. It took me a hundred years to come to terms with my new face, so take all the time you need.” She smiled widely at me, but my jaw had dropped.

  “A hundred years?”

  “Yeah, I am a ripe old lady. I was born in about 1795 and received the marks on July tenth of 1867.”

  “1795?”

  “Yeah, and exiled before my hundredth birthday. That’s why Ryland didn’t recognize me; we’ve never met, and I highly doubt Timothy ever spoke of me after he marked me. So in a century or so you can tell me if you think they suit me or not.”

  “Wait, what? A century? I can’t possibly live that long.”

  “All magical beings possess some realm of immortality, Joclyn. But it’s kind of contingent; if you don’t use it, you die. So, I guess, no, you won’t gain your immortality unless you actually start to use that magic of yours.”

  I had accepted the fact, almost without question, that Ryland and Ilyan, and even Wyn, had and used magic. In the back of my mind, the idea that I possessed a magic of my own still felt like some kind of joke.

  “But you won’t be living until the world ends unless your back is healed. I apologize in advance.”

  Wyn lifted my sweater and placed her hand firmly on my bare back and instantly began to spread her magic into me as she checked my spine. I shuddered involuntarily. Her magic felt like ice inside my veins; it was the polar opposite of the relaxing warmth I got from Ilyan and Ryland.

  Ryland.

  “Will Ryland be all right?” My question was that of a child, and I knew it. I needed answers; I needed to know exactly what was going on so that I knew how to save him.

  “He will if we get to him in time.”

  I shivered, my shoulders jerking uncomfortably. I wasn’t sure if my jolt was due to Ryland’s fate or to the icy magic that was moving through me.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “The magic of a Trpaslík tends to be very cold. Of course most of my kind use their magic to kill rather than to heal, so that may be why.”

  I could almost hear the sarcasm in her voice.

  “A Trpaslík?”

  “Yes. Once, a very long time ago, my kind were the keepers of the fire magic.”

  Ironically, I shivered as the icy cold of her magic continued to move into me, chilling every part of me.

  “Sorry, I’m almost done.”

  “Why is your magic so cold if you used to keep the fire magic?”

  “I was told as a child it was taken from us by the Skȓíteks, and in the absence of heat, we froze. But I don’t believe that anymore. Everyone here is a Skȓ
ítek; I am just the odd man out.”

  “A Trpaslík.”

  “Yep.”

  “So why have different names at all, if you all look so much like humans?” I asked.

  “It relates to our magic. Skȓíteks are the keepers—or the warriors—of all magic. They were once a powerful army that kept balance over the rest of us, but have since been almost driven to extinction. The Trpaslík are destructive by nature; our magic relates more to earth elements, and we can control them at will. We were the builders. Draks were the keepers of foresight and worked as some kind of government. Vilỳs were the givers of emotions, and kept the humans from their vices. The names relate to what we do, not who we are.”

  “Then why do you still call yourself a Trpaslík if you no longer live with them?”

  “Because I am destructive above all else.” She grinned menacingly. “Trpaslíks are very good at making things explode. I’ll show you sometime.”

  I couldn’t help the shiver that spread up my spine. She enjoyed that reaction and smiled even more.

  “Well, your back feels fine.” Wyn jumped off the bed and flung the covers off me. I still wore the mysterious fleece pants and Ryland’s sweater. I sat and picked at the soft fabric. Thinking of Ryland had made me edgy, like I needed to go run a marathon. My soul called for him, begging him to be okay, to wait for me.

  “Broken back, huh?” I asked quietly.

  “I know, hard to believe, isn’t it? It actually broke in two places. Right here,” she placed her hand at a spot right between my shoulder blades, “and here.” Her hand slid down to rest a bit above the small of my back. “If it wasn’t for Ilyan, you would have died.”

  I only nodded. Ryland had saved me, too. The images of Ryland’s beaten face and my mother’s broken body filled me. I felt my heart constrict again in its futile attempt to control the waves of emotion behind the dam I had built. I tried to push the heartbreak away; I needed her to be proud of me, wherever she was.

  “Are you okay?”

  I could only nod, my emotions moving far too slowly back behind their fortification.