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

by Ethington, Rebecca

  As I searched, I sang. I sang the song I had written for her all those hundreds of years ago.

  The song that was only for her.

  I left the song inside of her head, hoping that it would, at least, welcome her home.

  One Hundred Fourteen

  Wyn

  No one came back to the dungeon. Not Sain. Not Ryland, or even Cail. They had all left a week ago, and not even the guards had returned for more than a moment.

  At least, I thought it had been a week. There was no easy way to track the passage of time when you spend all of it in the dark. I had slept six times, and someone had brought the daily glass of muddy water seven times.

  One glass, not two, just like there was only one maggot-covered loaf of bread.

  Just like Talon hadn’t woken up.

  A week alone in the dark, with only my husband’s limp hand for company. I slept next to him, my arms around as much of him as I could reach as I dreamed of the beautiful girl and Henry the Eighth, but never of the torture. I was glad that the dreams of torture had left. I had enough torture.

  I still hurt from what Cail had done to me a week ago. My joints still ached, and my skin was tender to the touch. At least I could move, although not a lot and not very fast. I ambled between the glass of water and Talon, not like there was anywhere else for me to go.

  I clung to him in the dark, a high-pitched wheeze occasionally escaping as his chest slowly rose and fell, his skin getting hotter and hotter. The fever that had appeared two days ago was increasing by the hour.

  I ran my fingers over his skin, the heat feeling like hot stones in summer. With very little water to cool him and no magic to heal him, I didn’t know how to get him to cool down. I was trapped in a nightmare of torment, and all the while, Sain’s words still echoed in my head.

  It will be soon.

  I shifted my weight and crawled toward the filthy glass that sat in the corner of the cell. My fingers clutched at the stone floor, moving over sand, dirt and bits of what I could only assume were rodent bones, until they gently hit the hard surface of the glass. I fidgeted through the air until my hands wrapped around it, the grit on the glass feeling like slime. I clutched the glass to my chest, the small amount of fluid that was left in the bottom as precious as gold.

  I shuffled back to Talon, my knees screaming as my weight rested on them, the water held against my chest. I felt in front of me for the bars, terrified of going too far, of losing my balance and dropping the glass. It took a few tries before I found him again, the warmth of his skin heating the air.

  With shaking fingers, I scooped the water from the glass and pressed it against his skin. I trickled it against his lips and into his mouth. Over and over, I moved, pressed and sprinkled the water, only to have it evaporate into the damp air the second it touched his scalding flesh. I held my damp fingers against him, hoping to keep the water there longer, hoping the chill of my own skin would serve as an equalizer.

  Something deep inside of me was pleading for me to accept that this was hopeless, begging me to save the water for myself, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t abandon him. I would sacrifice myself for him until the very end. Half for me and half for him. Always.

  “I love you,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. It was all I could risk, but it was the most important thing to say.

  The now empty glass clattered to the stone floor, my body giving out to collapse against the bars and slide across the slime covered surface to reach Talon, my hands clinging to him as I attempted to fall asleep.

  I would have, if it weren’t for the footsteps somewhere above me, moving toward me. I didn’t know if it was the whisper, the clatter of the glass, or the groan as I had hit the floor, but something had reminded them of my existence.

  The footsteps were faster than I had ever heard and the voices behind them louder, angrier. I clung to Talon, my overgrown fingernails digging into him as someone began their decent down the stairs.

  “It’s only been a week, sir,” Timothy said, slightly out of breath. “You can’t expect him to have finished her off by now?”

  “I can expect anything I want, Timothy,” Edmund spat, the footsteps stopping as he spoke, “Don’t make me put you in your place, old friend. You have been with me from the beginning, but that does not mean you are on the same pillar as I.”

  There was a pause, a pause that lasted an eternity of heartbeats and tingling nerve endings. I had no idea what they were talking about, and I didn’t care. The only thing in my mind was how close they were.

  “Sorry, sir,” my father gasped, the footsteps resuming almost immediately. Everything clenched as they came closer, my brain panicking in fear of why Edmund was coming down.

  “I gave him a deadline, and I expect results. If he needs a little persuasion, then so be it.” Edmund’s voice grew louder as a bright light blasted through my closed eyelids. I held as still as I could, knowing that no matter how much pretending I did, it wouldn’t stop them. The mere fact that Edmund was down here spelled danger for me.

  “But are you sure this is the way?” Timothy asked, disgusted.

  “You should have seen his face when I threatened to unbind the curse,” Edmund said. “This is the way.”

  Their voices were right outside my cell now, their conversation ending as iron bars grated together.

  “Put him in that end cell down there and then you can go.”

  Footsteps, the grinding of iron, and the rattling of chains. I heard Sain grunt and I fought the urge to turn toward him, my arm jerking on its own before I could stop it. They had brought him back. Ryland was not with him, which could only mean that they had sent him with Ovailia. I needed to get out of here. I needed to find a way to warn them.

  “Get up, Wynifred.”

  My father’s voice was deep with warning. I knew I needed to obey, but didn’t want to face whatever Edmund had in store for me.

  “Come on, Wynifred,” Edmund coaxed, his voice sweet and condescending. “Listen to your father.”

  I didn’t want to listen, but I also didn’t want to push it. I moved a bit and began to push myself up to sit, my weak arms shaking as I lifted myself. My joints groaned and I gasped before letting my body weight rest against the bars, my head flopping back as I looked at them.

  “Hello, Father,” I said with as much ire as I could, but my weak voice swallowed my pride.

  “Why, Wynifred,” Edmund said, ignoring my comment to my father, “you are looking well. Better than I think I have ever seen you.” He smiled at me as he squatted, bringing himself to eye level.

  I clenched my jaw and scowled at him, not wanting to know what was coming.

  “Not going to say hello?”

  “No. I’m not.” I narrowed my eyes, daring him to continue, begging him to finish me.

  “Not going to ask after my welfare?” His voice was still irritatingly calm.

  I stayed still, my jaw clenched. A feeling I could not place was forming in the base of my spine. It was pure irritation blended with spite and it created an emotion I had never felt before.

  “Hmmm, no matter,” Edmund continued and smiled. “By the time I am done with you, you will be begging me to say ‘hello’.”

  I didn’t flinch. I didn’t move. I just stared at him as the door to my cell opened and he took a few steps in to tower above me.

  “Stand, Wynifred.” I almost laughed at him. It was a miracle I was able to move myself to sitting. Standing was out of the question.

  “Not going to obey your Master?” Edmund asked.

  I flinched, words that I knew I should never say to his face tumbling off my tongue before I could stop them. “You are not my Master.”

  “Well, not anymore…” He smiled, his hand patting the top of my head harshly. The weight of his touch sent me sliding down against the bars. “…but once upon a time.”

  I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. He was right. Or, he could be. I didn’t remember my past.

  But h
e did, and he knew something that I was beginning to think I didn’t want to know. I looked away from his towering form, burying my face in the bars to look away from him. Instead, my eyes fell on Talon, my eyes seeing for the first time what the darkness had not shown me.

  His eyes were sunken in, and his skin was pale and covered with a thick layer of sweat. His eyes twitched as he lay still, his lips moving as he mumbled in his sleep.

  “Years ago, you would do my bidding with only a smile and a swish of your hips.” I ignored him and kept my focus on Talon, listening to the tap of Edmund’s feet against the stone. “Well, until you betrayed me.”

  Betrayed him?

  My mind was swimming.

  Edmund stooped down before me, careful to balance his weight on his toes and not touch the filthy ground. I kept my sight on Talon until Edmund’s long fingers turned my head toward him, forcing my gaze to him and his greasy smile. I would not give in to him. I glared right back at him.

  “Tell me, how long did Cail help you? How did you help him to block the Štít?”

  My confidence broke, confusion weaseling its way into my expression as I looked at him. I knew he was talking about my past, but I couldn’t fathom how what he was saying was correct.

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said, refusing to place myself inside of his trap.

  “Did you do the same to Ryland?”

  I waited, his eyes digging into mine. He glared into me, his patience leaving as he slammed my head into the metal bars behind me.

  “Answer me!” he roared, his hand pushing me back into the bars again.

  I howled at the pain, my hands moving toward my head in an attempt to ease the pressure. They had only made it halfway before the heavy iron shackles snaked through the air to wrap around my wrists. The large bands jerked me away from the bars, dragging my body against the stone as the chains pulled me against the wall, arms extended above my head.

  “What did you do?” Edmund roared, his face coming within inches of mine. I looked away from him and toward my father, who stood by the stairs with a wicked smile turning up his lips. I turned from him to Sain, who sat against the bars of his cell, his green eyes narrowed at me in both warning and expectation.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I answered, my voice strained.

  Edmund’s eyes narrowed at me, his face moving in close until his nose was only an inch away from my face, his polar blue eyes the only thing left for me to focus on.

  “Don’t lie to me,” he warned. “Tell me what else he did when he stopped your father’s curse and tried to save your life. Tell me what happened when he put those pretty marks on your skin.” Edmund dragged his finger along the dark marks as he spoke, his finger pressing painfully against my bruises.

  I cringed against the pain, my eyes narrowing at him. Cail didn’t try to save my life, he had tried to kill me. Just as my father had, but the curse misfired and instead marked my skin.

  “N… no,” I managed to stutter out, my confusion growing.

  “What secret did Cail hide inside your pretty, little mind?”

  “What?” I gasped, unable to keep my confusion at bay any longer. Edmund only smiled as he closed the gap between us and pressed his cheek against mine. I felt the uncomfortable warmth of his skin and the iciness of his blood pulsing just underneath the surface.

  “Don’t worry, Wynifred; you will remember everything soon.” He smiled and moved away from me, the chains around my wrists tightening, lifting me up so I could only balance on the balls of my feet.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but what exactly are you saying?” I guess I wasn’t the only one who was confused. My father looked between us as he, too, tried to fit together the missing pieces.

  Edmund, however, seemed to be enjoying keeping more than one person in the dark. He smiled as he turned to face me again.

  “You remember that night, don’t you, Timothy?” Edmund taunted, his eyes feeling like warm lasers cutting into my brain.

  “Texas, 1867. A simple assignment—kill Thom. After four hundred years of flawlessly killing every person I commanded her to, Wynifred here missteps. She tells me Thom is in Texas and not in Italy as I had already ascertained. So off she goes to Texas, to kill the father of her child. But I see through it, and I follow her…”

  My mouth opened automatically, my jaw working in disbelief. Four hundred years of working for Edmund, a child, Thom…? None of this was my life.

  “That never—”

  “That never happened?” Edmund asked, his cynical voice twisting the meaning behind my words. “You don’t remember it? Then tell me what you do remember.”

  He arched his eyebrows, his lips curling in a wicked half smile as he waited.

  That night. The night when I got the marks, I remembered it perfectly. The flash of light, my brother’s face, the yelling. I remembered feeling scared. I remembered… I didn’t… what was said?

  I knew my past had been wiped away, but why was so much more missing?

  My jaw worked its way open and shut like the jaws of a fish as my brain tried to find the words to answer his questions.

  “Don’t remember what happened? How about your childhood? What happened then?” He had moved closer, but I barely noticed. My childhood…? I couldn’t remember. I could see faces, feel emotions, but exactly what happened… how… there was nothing there.

  “Can’t remember, can you?”

  “What are you saying, Edmund? We’ve always known about her memory loss—”

  “Yes, but what if her memory loss, her change in personality, what if it wasn’t a result of Cail’s attempts to bind your curse. What if he did it intentionally to hide something?” Edmund ran his finger along my jaw, his eyes still boring into me.

  I wanted to deny everything he had said. I wanted to tell him the truth. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t say something I couldn’t remember… I couldn’t remember…

  What did I know?

  I was Wynifred, born in about 1795, exiled in 1867. I had a father, Timothy, and a brother, Cail. Ilyan killed my mother in… He killed her because… My father gave me the marks because I was caught giving information to Ilyan… They caught me in… Texas?

  Except that wasn’t what I knew. That was what I had been told.

  My eyes grew wide, Edmund’s smile following suit.

  “What secret did Cail lock in your mind, Wynifred?”

  My eyes fluttered around the room, from Talon’s still body, curled on the cold ground, to my father, to Sain, looking for anyone to give me a different explanation. Sain looked at me and nodded once.

  “Time to open the lock, Wynifred.”

  Edmund smiled as he placed his hand against my skull, his magic rushing into me. I screamed as the pressure moved into my brain, the heat flooding through me as the force increased. My own scream echoed in my ears as Edmund’s powerful magic threatened to rip me apart. It opened up my mind and let everything out.

  My head throbbed and pulsed as things I had long since forgotten filled me. Memories that I had wanted to stay locked away came flooding back—the beautiful child’s screams and the Henry the Eighth wanna-be suddenly made sense.

  Everything made sense.

  Because I remembered it.

  One Hundred Fifteen

  Joclyn

  I pressed my back against the door as it closed, my eyes widening as I came face to face with the longest hall I had ever seen. The hall extended for miles, the walls lined with doors. There were too many doors to count, all of them in differing states of decay and damp. I almost expected Cail to come bursting through them in search of me.

  I tried to control my panic, but I knew it was no use. Cail had trapped me in the worst nightmare I had ever experienced. This was a million times worse than every time he had chased me through the manor, hunted me through the forest, or murdered me into waking. I could feel my neck twitch in fear as I fought the urge to collapse into myself.

  I began to sing Ilyan’s song i
n my head as I walked down the hall and into the unknown realm I had entered. I moved as silently as I could, jumping over open gaps in the floor and tiptoeing around small animal carcasses. Every other step would trigger a sound far down the hall and I would freeze, staring ahead as my fingers tingled. I was ready to face whatever would come for me.

  But nothing ever did.

  I kept moving, my pace slow as I trudged forward. Jumping over the floor. Dodging around bones. Singing. It became a pattern as I moved endlessly forward, the motions running in repetition as I tried to find a way out.

  A way out?

  That was what I was down there for, right?

  I froze, staring down the endless hall as my heart rate peaked. Everything was fuzzy, like the recall in my mind had been broken. I shook my head, twitching as that sound echoed again.

  Yes, I wanted a way out of the Tȍuha. Cail had trapped me here.

  I can’t have been down here so long that I would have forgotten.

  Two hours in the Tȍuha for every twenty minutes in the waking world. I wanted to say it had already been two hours, but it was hard to tell. Maybe it was more. I had been walking down the hall for far too long. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if Ilyan might know how to pull me out of here. I knew he would try, but I still had to get out.

  There was a door that would take me there.

  But where was it?

  My thoughts were cut off as heavy footsteps began to sound behind me. These weren’t like the other sounds, these were rough and heavy. I knew those steps. I stopped, turning toward the black hallway behind me before I picked up the pace, my panic infecting every inch of me.

  I jumped over open caverns, leaped around bones and feces, but the steps grew closer. The sound grew louder. I took one last leap before fiddling with the knob of one of the many doors along the hall. It swung wide and I jumped inside, slamming it loudly behind me before turning to face the room. But it wasn’t a room. It was yet another long hallway with more blood, more bones, and more pits into an endless abyss below.