The heavy, wooden door opened and closed. I stretched my hand out over the cotton sheet, laying it flat on the warm part where his body had just been. My heart rate stayed steady even though he had gone; the warmth almost a promise of his return.
Almost.
I wasn’t sure, and that worried me.
I didn’t even have time to think about it before the door opened again, this time closing with a thunk before heavy footsteps moved toward me. I jumped at the noise, my body instantly rolling into a tight little ball. I tried to convince myself that it was just Ilyan coming back, but I knew better. I knew that gait. My brain had memorized that breathing. I peeked out from behind the covers, not wanting to see.
Ryland stood before the bed, his hands calmly at his sides, his dark curls falling over his bright blue eyes as they had always done, but my mind didn’t see that.
My mind replaced the happy smile with a wicked grimace, dark curls with greasy strands, and even the wall behind him began to turn red in my panic.
My breathing picked up as I scuttled over the covers away from him, pressing myself against the headboard as though I could move through it. I panicked and stuttered, his eyes growing wide at my reaction.
“Jos? Sweetheart? What’s wrong?” His voice was kind and gentle, but I didn’t trust it. He had played this game on me before, only to end up hurting me.
“G-go a...a...away.” I tried to make my voice strong, knowing from the start that it wouldn’t work.
“Jos? I’m not going to hurt you, honey,” Ryland pleaded as he leaned against the foot of the bed, prepared to crawl towards me.
I howled as he moved onto the bed, my voice making noises that had no recognition in any language in an attempt to get him away from me.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay. I had to see you. I had to know you were all right. After everything that Cail did…”
“Go. Away!” I was surprised at my own voice, but tried hard not to let it show.
I balled my fingers into fists, grateful my fear kept me from attacking him, but not knowing if it was the right choice. I wanted to attack him.
I wanted to fire my magic at him and end him. Make him pay for what he did to me.
“Jos! I’m not going to hurt you!” he yelled in frustration. He was practically on top of me now, my heart felt like it was going to beat right through me with how hard it was thumping in my chest.
We were both silent at his outburst; my breathing ragged, his heavy. He didn’t remove his eyes from mine as I watched him calculate what to do with me. Then we both heard it, yelling voices in the hall.
I recognized them both immediately. I had heard them enough. Ilyan and Ovailia. My eyes widened as Ryland looked at me, a million different puzzle pieces clicking into place. But the picture still didn’t make any sense.
“Ovi…Ovailia b-brought y-you hee...here?”
“Yes. Ilyan wouldn’t let me see you. I needed to see you, Jos. You are all I think about. One of the only memories I have left.” I could see the heartbreak in his face, and for one moment, I almost pitied him. I almost understood him. But even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t trust him. I still waited for him to hurt me even as I continued to fight the desire to hurt him.
“Ilyan p-protec-cts me.” I had wanted to explain to Ryland how safe Ilyan made me, that he was doing what I needed, but Ryland’s face changed.
His eyes grew dark, and I watched his body shake. What little calm I had been able to find was washed away.
“Ilyan hides you from me!” He rose up above me, his shoulders squaring dangerously.
“N-no!” I tried to move further away from him, but his legs had pinned me down. I was trapped.
“Yes! He wants you all to himself as he feeds you lies about how dangerous I am; how mean I am! Even though I would never hurt you. Ilyan made you break our Zȇlství!” Ryland’s yell rose as I continued to panic.
“N-no!”
“Ovailia was right.” He roared at me, and I almost missed what was coming. His fist pulled back as the skin of his hand glowed red, his magic fueling his anger as he moved to punch me.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t make my magic respond. I stared at him, tears flowing down my cheeks. The part of me that had held out hope that this was not the Ryland who had hunted me died when he did what I expected him to. Hurt me.
He punched me.
I howled at the impact. My voice rising up as burning pain spread through my skull, as I fought to get away from what Ryland would do next. Before either of us could make another move, a gust of wind flew through the room and lifted Ryland off of me. I didn’t look to see who had rushed in, I only howled as I rolled off the bed onto the ancient stone and slid myself underneath the heavy, wooden bed.
Hiding was my first defense now. It felt safe here. I could feel the pressure of both the bed and the floor pushing against me. I tried to keep my breathing and cries to a minimum in the hope of not being found, but I was not sure it mattered. Ilyan and Ovailia’s shouts had entered the room, the screaming match in Czech intensifying.
“But he didn’t hurt her did he?” Ovailia yelled as she transitioned smoothly to English.
“Ovailia, he punched her when I came into the room!” Ilyan moved toward me, his stocking feet coming into view as he guarded my hiding place.
“I didn’t see that.” Ovailia lied, I heard Ryland chuckle next to her and my insides stiffened.
“He’s going to lie anyway, Ovailia. He’s been feeding her lies. Just as you said.” I stuffed my fist in my mouth at the sound of Ryland’s voice to keep from screaming.
“What lies have you been telling him, Ovailia?” Ilyan asked, the amount of fear in his voice alarming.
“Nothing much. Two can play at this game, Ilyan.” Her voice was sweet as honey, but I knew better because this wasn’t a game; no matter how many times Cail had told me that it was.
Cail.
Without warning I began to howl again. My safe place suddenly felt like a prison. I could hear Ovailia laughing beyond my screams.
“I want you out, Ovailia! Leave the Abbey and take your games with you,” Ilyan roared above my yells. I could just make out Ovailia’s laugh as Ilyan removed her and placed the door back in place.
It took a second before his face appeared in the gap under the bed, his hand reaching to help me out. I couldn’t see through the fear enough to respond, though. I was frozen there.
Ilyan’s magic flared inside of me, his warmth moving through me as he steadied my heartbeat. Ilyan reached forward again, but I just looked at him, not quite willing to leave the security the bed provided me. Ilyan waited another moment before lying down on the ground beside me. His body stretched out on the floor while mine was crammed under the bed.
“I’m sorry, Jos.” His voice was soft, and while I could feel some of my panic edge away, it wasn’t quite enough. “I will make you safe. I will make you whole again.”
I stared at him, my eyes wide. I tried to convince myself that what he said was true; that I was safe, that I would be whole again, and that I would no longer feel this panic and pain that controlled my body.
But I didn’t know if I could believe him. I wasn’t even sure if that was possible.
Ilyan wedged himself under the bed; his tall, wiry frame moving right up against me. I could feel the warmth radiating off of his skin.
Without thinking, I reached up and pulled at one of the short locks of hair that covered his head. He smiled. “I cut it for you after what you said in Italy. When you couldn’t wake up… I was…” his voice caught, and I could almost swim in the emotion that was emanating from him, the fear and the terror. I knew what he must have felt because I had felt it too when I had first been trapped in the Tȍuha.
I curled myself into him as he lay beside me, his body wrapping around me tightly. I laid my head against his chest as the space around us filled with his song. Ilyan whispered the words roughly, the sound surrounding me in comfort.
&n
bsp; I stayed stiff in his grip as he sang, his hand rubbing over my back, his lips heavy against the skin on my temple. All the while, deep inside I was still waiting; waiting for someone to attack, waiting for blood to come. Waiting for Ryland to hurt me; Ryland, who wasn’t even safe in the real world anymore. I knew that place was gone. I had made it out, right to where I wanted to be.
Where I yearned to be.
I was where I had held out hope that someday I would be again. It was the reason I had never forgotten his song. My heart had held onto him. As he clung to me, as he soothed me and held me, I felt everything begin to relax.
My heart opened me up, taking me away from the panic that still clung to my body and hid deep inside my muscle tissue. The panic, fear, and anxiety deep inside of me continued to be there. I knew it wasn’t gone, yet somehow Ilyan made it better. He made my heart calm.
My heart.
Love.
It was so strong. It filled me, consumed me. If I focused on it, I could almost feel normal. Normal. No twitches, no stutters, no rats scurrying through my brain. I could easily remember every moment of my life, every heartbreak, every joy, and every fear. Every moment I’d shared with every person that ever meant anything to me. I saw it all with perfect clarity, the emotions sharper than I had ever remembered them. They weren’t as raw as the terrors I had escaped from, they were just me, and with only those thoughts inside of me, I could just be me.
Just a girl in Ilyan’s arms.
Slowly I uncoiled my body, my arms disentangling from against my chest to wrap them around Ilyan. My fingers dug into his shirt, wrapping the fabric around them. I pulled him close to me, and he enveloped my body with his own, keeping me close, keeping me safe.
Danger was everywhere. Heck, danger was now tucked deep inside my brain. I knew without a doubt I would be haunted by it for the rest of my life, but right there—right then—I was bigger than it. Ilyan helped me be bigger than it, helped me be stronger than it.
Ilyan made me stronger, and there in his arms, I felt everything open. Every magical vein in my body was alive, surging with fire—with power.
I wasn’t as scared anymore. I wasn’t as confused. I could do anything.
I was also certain of where I was going to start. I didn’t know if it was based in fear, or pain, or revenge for what he had done to me, but one thing was clear...
I was going to start by killing Ryland LaRue.
One Hundred Thirty-Six
Wyn
The Abbey was ahead of where we stood in the Spanish forest, the crumbling stone of the bell tower peeking out from over the tops of the trees. Ancient brick that I had seen a million times before was illuminated by the bright lightning that cracked above us. The decrepit building looked like the Taj Mahal after what we had escaped from.
Now, we only needed to get to Ilyan before it was too late.
Although, judging by the masses of Edmund’s army that surrounded the ancient space, we might already be.
Figures.
I get my memories and the fire magic back in time to wipe out an army. Part of me wouldn’t have it any other way.
Bring it on.
Telling Ilyan what had happened to Prague, to his people, wasn’t a conversation I was looking forward to having. Neither was the ‘Oh, by the by, I have all my memories back, and your best friend is dead’ conversation.
My heart pulsed painfully at the imagery of Talon’s hand against mine for the last time, of Rosaline, of everything that I had chosen to forget.
“We are almost out of time. We must move quickly.”
I tried to restrain the eye roll at Sain’s raspy voice. He had repeated the same phrase since the lid of Ilyan’s tomb had enclosed us into the tunnel system under Prague. He had repeated the words every night as I tried to sleep, each day as we walked toward Rioseco. Each time the phrase rolled off his tongue, his eyes moved over the lines that covered the left side of my body.
Seeing as I had killed my father, I would have assumed the marks to vanish—as Cail had promised—but still, they remained, staring at me as dark as my sins.
“We must move quickly.” Sain’s whispered warning echoed again through the chilled air; and this time I rolled my eyes, looking back up to the tower again.
“Something is wrong.” I turned to the old decrepit man, his eyes wide as he stared at me.
“I know.” I couldn't even fight that one. I could feel it in the way the magic pulsed in the Abbey, the way that the weak magic flared and the strong pulsed. It wasn’t a castle full of strength and power that I had been expecting. Something was off. Something is wrong.
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure if the addition of my magic would tip the scales in their favor.
It was a blow to my pride that I wasn’t interested in accepting.
Lightning ripped above us, the thunder following right behind in a roar that caused all the Trpaslík in the camp before us to jump.
They were the last of Edmund’s men who separated us from the tall bell tower of the Abbey, our destination.
“We are almost out of time,” Sain gasped again.
“So, you’ve said, Sain,” I nodded and pulled him from the security of the trees and into the drunken hoards that Edmund controlled.
Our heavy footfalls were abrasive in the still air, the obnoxious laughter of the Trpaslíks barely enough to cover the sound of crunching leaves and snapping twigs. I supposed it was good they couldn’t hear that, anyway.
The trees ahead flashed white as the sky did, showing the line of refuge only moments away. I reached toward them, expecting the thrill of calm that our destination promised, the relief of security. The moment my fingers made contact with the jagged edges of the tree’s bark, however, my magic pulled in the opposite direction.
An electric shock snapped through my tense muscles. Pressure swelled like a massive balloon as it pressed against my bones, against my lungs, through my skull. I gasped, trying to take in air as the pressure grew, as my magic tried to fight against it, to stop whatever was happening to me. It was no use.
Even though I already knew.
My eyes opened wide in horror as I stared at the dark, jagged lines that stood out like flames against my pale skin, flames that licked and moved against the skin.
Moved.
I kept the scream inside, kept my breath steady and fought against the pressure that consumed me, the pain that, try as it might, my magic couldn’t defeat.
I had felt fear before—fear when I was chained in the bowels of Imdalind, fear when I had worked as Ilyan’s liaison for two hundred years. But, this fear … This fear was bound in agony and heartbreak. It rumbled through the earth with such supremacy that I was amazed I hadn’t felt it before, that I hadn’t understood. Sain hadn’t been speaking of the battle that was coming. He hadn’t been warning me of the camps that surrounded us.
He had been speaking of me.
I was almost out of time.
“If I can only bind the curse, not send it into Edmund, and I die before my father, then the curse will be unbound, and it will be unstoppable. Wynifred will die. To save her life, my father must die first.”
Thunder drowned out the whisper of my voice as I repeated the words that my darling brother had said so many centuries before, the day he had made the promise to keep me safe, the day Ilyan had made the promise to keep him safe.
Neither had happened.
Now Cail was dead. Dead before my father.
Dead before Ilyan could save him.
And the curse was unbound, and I was to die like all the others.
But how?
I had killed my father, bound the stone into his belly, fused his throat shut, and thrown his body into the pit where I had lost the only man who had ever truly loved me. He should be dead. The curse should have unbound itself days ago. I should have been set free, which could only mean one thing.
Cail had been wrong.
Even if Timothy was the first to die, I would still die. Th
e Zánik curse would always unbind itself, and I would be cursed to face the traitor’s death, to literally be burned from the inside out.
The thought, the knowledge of what was about to happen to me, wound up my spine in a ribbon of horrific, agonizing fear.
I called out in pain as I collapsed against the tree, my hands wrapping around the rough bark as I tried to support myself, my whole body seizing under the attempt.
I turned toward the old man who looked at me with sad eyes that echoed the truth I now understood. I was going to die. And, judging by the dark, hooded look he gave me, he had known all along.
Was he really so heartless that he just stood there? In my pain I could have sworn he was smiling.
“We are running out of time.”
“Sain?” My voice was a gasp as I reached toward him. My fingers were distorted and broken as the lines snaked over my skin, a heat I hadn’t expected burning against my skin as though they were on fire.
The curse was seeping it’s toxin into me, slowly killing me. I tried to fight it, to press my magic against it, but I already knew it was no use.
“Sain.” The word was a whimper, a plea, a promise. It was the last word I would speak before the heat grew into an agonizing peril, before my legs gave out underneath me, and my vision faded to black.
I wasn’t sure if I had fallen. I wasn’t sure if he had caught me. For all I knew, I had fallen through the earth and was trapped between layers of rock and stone.
The world around me had become nothing except pain and pressure. Heat wound its way through me like knives and rope.
I tried to fight it, but the magic that had always been so powerful, had always been so capable at destroying was gone.
“We need to get you to Joclyn,” the words flitted to me through the darkness I was trapped in, the voice distorted by my own screams, by the television static that cut in and out like the signal was broken, but the only station that was coming in was that of my own agonizing shouts.
Imdalind Ruby Collection One: Kiss of Fire | Eyes of Ember | Scorched Treachery Page 101