Dawn of Ash

by Rebecca Ethington

  He wanted it, too.

  His lip twitched in response, mercilessly too close to mine, his breath hot against the tender skin of my lips.

  I watched the smile in his eyes, watched the twitch in his lips before they pressed against mine, before his magic swelled within me and the lights around us grew. Colors popped in a kaleidoscope of light.

  Ilyan. I tried to get his attention, tried to pull away, but the effort was half-hearted, just as the silent plea inside his mind was.

  “I missed you,” he whispered against my skin as he kissed my neck, his body pulling away from mine as his eyes caught fire. His hand was warm as it held me against him. “I was worried.”

  “I can’t blame you for that,” I gasped, the lack of oxygen making it hard to think, or talk, for that matter. “I worry about myself sometimes.”

  His smile faded into a low frown as he looked at me, his hand soft as the tips of his fingers traced over my face. “What happened?”

  He asked the question despite knowing, despite the fact that he could pull the information right out of my head. I straightened, grateful for his comforting contact.

  “I saw the wall fall,” I whispered.

  “In sight?”

  “I couldn’t tell that at the time.”

  His body tensed against mine, his arms pressing me into him in perfect form, as the deep buzzing of his thoughts moved against me.

  “So they are getting worse?”

  I didn’t want to justify his question with an answer. Besides, seeing the wall fall and my subsequent breakdown was the least of our problems right then.

  And he knew it.

  What about the girl? I didn’t want to say it out loud. I could still see her face in my mind. I could still see the white and red of her skin. I could still see her eyes, so dark and sad they took my breath away.

  “Show me again.” His voice was much harder than I had expected it to be, the heavy tension ripping through me, and I fought the need to step away.

  I probably would have if his arms hadn’t formed a cage around me.

  Exhaling heavily, I placed his hand against my mark, gasping as the strength of his magic rippled through me, my knees shaking with the weight of his love.

  I wanted to bask in the emotion, but I couldn’t, because I knew what was coming. I knew what I was about to see.

  And I knew there was no way around it.

  Moments after his hand made contact with my mark, the recall flared, bright and warm inside of me like a flame. The same scene played before us: the cloaked figure running, my vision following.

  Turning a corner to face Edmund and the child.

  The girl had barely started to turn when Ilyan’s hand pulled away from me, the recall severing along with the connection. His movements were rough as he took a step away, his magic leaving as the contact did. His eyes were darker than I had seen them.

  I had thought the sight of the girl was frightening, but somehow, Ilyan’s reaction to her was even more so.

  “Ilyan?”

  “Have you seen her before?”

  I flinched at the fear in his voice, my feet pulling me forward before placing my hand against his back in a need to comfort him, despite the fear I held.

  “No.” I regretted asking what came next. “Do you know her?”

  “It’s Rosaline.”

  The weight of his emotions smothered me as my brain moved into overdrive. I had heard that name before. Where had I heard that name before? I didn’t have to think on it much before the memory came to me, aided by Ilyan and a million painful moments.

  Wyn’s daughter.

  No, Wyn and Thom’s daughter.

  “What? Isn’t she … dead?” I couldn’t compute it. It didn’t fit. Nothing about it fit. It wasn’t past, not with the city the way it was. And Rosaline was already gone, so it couldn’t be now, and it couldn’t be future.

  I looked up at Ilyan, the alarm in his eyes making it clear he was following my train of thought perfectly.

  “Is she alive?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

  My sight couldn’t be that broken, could it? What was happening?

  “No. There is no way she could be, but something is going on,” Ilyan answered, his steps wide as he pulled me back into his arms, his heart thundering against me, within me, as I leaned into him. “Did the sight feel like the others? Did it feel real?”

  “Yes,” I whispered against him. “It had that pull … like it’s trying to tell me something. And there was none of that static…” I froze as Ilyan stiffened underneath me, a violent pull of warning and magic moving through both of us.

  My head turned away from him, toward the city where the magic began to grow, the close proximity a warning that neither of us recognized.

  Slithering away from his embrace, I dropped to my knees, my eyes scanning the red-tinted rooftops and the shadowed labyrinth of streets before us. My magic pulled in a fervent search for the source of the danger, spreading away from me like lightning as it sped right to the source.

  As quickly as the spike of warning had come, it left, only to be replaced by an identical one, many more miles away and to the left.

  My head snapped toward it, my eyes narrowed as I looked through the world, my magic and mind seeing as one.

  With my heart pulsing in foreboding, my magic sped through the air toward the perceived danger, only to jump again a mile in the opposite direction.

  The same magic moved and shifted around the city as if it was playing nothing more than a game of hopscotch.

  No, as if it was stuttering.

  Stuttering. Seamless movement from one place to another.

  It was something Ilyan could do, something I had almost mastered.

  Besides us, there was only one other person we knew of who could move so swiftly.

  Edmund.

  Fear gripped me at the realization. It pulled through my muscles in a twisted ache. However, I remained still, crouched against the ancient rooftop, my eyes lifted to the red sky, trying to keep my breathing level and my Drak magic at bay.

  “It can’t be…”

  “Edmund.”

  My body uncoiled at the malice in Ilyan’s voice, the conclusion the same as mine, one I was sure he had heard inside of me.

  A hot wind wound around us, tangling our ribbons as I moved to stand beside my mate, my figure as stiff and still as his while we stood, feeling the magic pulse again, feeling it move and shift.

  “Is it the same?” Ilyan whispered, his voice rumbling inside my head as it did out. “The magic, is it the same as his?”

  The question was simple and one I should have asked myself from the moment I had figured out what was happening. After all, I knew Edmund’s magic as well as Ilyan did.

  I had been trapped with it.

  I had been tortured by it.

  And I knew the magic below us wasn’t the same. It felt different. The power was different. The malice and rot within it was different. If only judging by that, it wasn’t Edmund. It couldn’t be.

  And yet …

  “No one else can stutter,” the words seeped out of him as the realization spread inside me. Ilyan’s muscles tightened beside me, his thoughts going into a speed so fast I couldn’t help flinching at the onslaught. “But it’s not him.”

  Looking to Ilyan, my eyes wide as my head swam, I knew I should fight it. I couldn’t risk another disaster like earlier, and if Edmund was here, right below us, I needed to be on guard.

  My head spun painfully as I pushed it away, stomach twisting as Ilyan faded in and out of focus.

  “Nothing?” he asked, knowing full well what had happened and what I had tried to do.

  I loved that my magic was being such a pain in the butt. It was times like this when sight would be useful. I guess it was good I could still fight with the rest of them.

  The Drak might be broken, but I sure as heck wasn’t.

  “Nothing,” I parroted, looking toward the city as the powe
r jumped again, moving from place to place so fast even I was having trouble tracking it.

  I focused on it, focused on the energy, on the hatred and the black undertone that poisoned it, but it wasn’t familiar.

  Except, it was. The anger, the poison within its emotional depth, was the same as the Vilỳs’, the same as what I had removed from each Chosen we had brought into the cathedral. The same as what I had felt from Edmund’s men before they attacked us.

  It might not be him, but it was one of his, which meant one thing …

  Someone in Edmund’s new army could stutter. Some newly awakened magic was strong enough to do that which was deemed the most powerful.

  I looked at Ilyan, his expression making it clear he had heard my thoughts as they had come to me. His eyes flashed to a dark blue, the shade screaming with a painful fear of agreement.

  I knew what needed to come next and wrapped my hand around his, letting his magic fill me as he pulled me into a stutter, pulled me into the dark void between worlds to go after the magic, after the new danger, and into a war.

  Everything was going perfectly.

  Joclyn’s madness was becoming more active, and thanks to this morning’s little orchestrated episode, more public.

  There had been rumors of her insanity brewing for weeks as a result of the speculations I had slowly been spreading. However, she had been hiding what was happening to her too well, hiding the manipulation, the episodes of sight and weakness that I had plagued her with. No one had really been able see the truth of what was being said until this morning when I forced her into a vision that would never be, a sight so perfectly run over with reality she couldn’t tell the difference. And she cracked.

  Then everyone saw.

  Then everyone knew.

  And I was one step closer.

  “Sir! Excuse me, Sain! Sir!” a voice erupted from behind me, concerned, deep, feminine.

  I tensed before I turned, unsurprised to see the same pretty Skȓítek I had whispered to in the hall a few minutes before rushing toward me.

  Look at her eyes, I had whispered, the low voice agitating poor Joclyn more. That’s how you know her magic is destroying her. You can see the madness there.

  Seeing the woman now, I knew she believed me. I knew she had already spread those few simple words around.

  They were little seeds of doubt, but like a weed, they would grow.

  “Yes?” I asked, the sound of her approach echoing in the mostly empty courtyard. Normally, it was full around that time. I supposed everyone had left to see what the commotion was about.

  The thought made me smile.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she mumbled as she stepped closer, her eyes falling to her toes in respect.

  I smiled at the gesture, glad I was being treated the way I should.

  “I … I need to know. Is what you said before true? About the queen’s magic destroying her mind?”

  “I want to say that it isn’t.” I sighed dramatically, placing my hand on her elbow in what I hoped was a fatherly way. “But I have seen this before. It is a common ailment of my kind. When the mind cannot handle the power of sight, it begins to destroy itself—”

  She gasped, the horror on her face evident. “Our poor queen.”

  I bristled, anger and agitation running through my spine. That was not the reaction I wanted. She should not be showing worry or sympathy for one so pathetic and volatile. Disgust, anger, fear—those should be lining her face, the reality of the weakness of her queen filling her.

  Instead, she was worried.

  I attempted to bridle the unrelenting anger that moved through me, numbing my better logic as I pulled my hand away quickly, grateful not to have to touch her anymore. The anger kept growing, but I tried to make the emotion in my face mirror the ones she was obviously feeling.

  Sadness. Devastation. The emotions were there, even if I didn’t feel them, and she reacted.

  “Will she be all right? You are the first of the Drak; your magic is pure. Surely you can see what is coming for her.”

  This time, I couldn’t disguise the smile. I didn’t even try. This was what I wanted—this dedication, this awe. To me, not to the ones who had stolen my throne.

  The smile hid behind my hand before I returned to her, the lie already waiting.

  “I see nothing. When one of the Drak compromises our magic, all sight is broken.” Well, when one of my kind didn’t let me control what they saw, anyway, but I wasn’t going to get into that with this woman. “The sight will not become clear again until after the magic has left her.”

  We need you.

  I visibly jumped as Ovailia’s voice filled my mind, my heart rate accelerating in anxiety as I cut off the lie, her simple command one I could not ignore.

  The woman looked at me, alarmed by my sudden reaction. I knew I should say something. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she expected some information relevant to sight. The eagerness, the awe, it was all there, as it should be.

  Too bad I was going to disappoint her.

  “I’m sorry, but one of the children is in need of my help,” I gasped, forcing as much emotion in my voice as possible. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  I didn’t even wait for her response, for her farewell; I immediately turned and left. I had learned hundreds of years before not to keep Edmund and Ovailia waiting. And, while I had given them my fair share of defiance before, it was not a game I was willing to risk when I needed them as much as they needed me, not that I would let them use me.

  Darting through the people left in the courtyard, I made a beeline for the tiny passage hidden behind the main barracks. The dark hollow called to me the closer I moved. Luckily, the corner was far enough out of the way that no one noticed as I slipped behind the old, brick structure.

  Begin at the third mark. Her voice was a growl. Obviously, she wasn’t looking forward to seeing me.

  I would love to tell her the feeling was mutual, but I still had a role to play.

  Heart pounding, I moved into the shadowed, overgrown narrow that war had rendered forgotten. It was like walking into a jungle—a perfect, little jungle fit to escape, fit to store a certain piece of incriminating black fabric.

  Grabbing the latter, I took a few more steps before opening the old, wooden door that had served as an escape during the coup in the twelfth century. Ironic that I was using it for much the same purpose now.

  The doorway glimmered with a faint sheen of white, the thick barrier Ilyan had placed to protect us, to keep everyone in, glowing brightly.

  Most people avoided it like the plague. Most people would get a shock if they even got close.

  Not me.

  Heat and waves of binding density pressed against me as I forced my way through the powerful barrier. I wanted to scream with the pain, but everything had been sucked out of me. Struggling to move, I pressed on, desperate for the gasp of air I would find on the other side.

  Like a struggling infant, I emerged from Ilyan’s barrier, falling to the ground, my hands spread on the cold, bloodstained road. The shadowed darkness swallowed me as I coughed and sputtered in an attempt to catch my breath.

  It was something that should have been impossible—to move through Ilyan’s barrier as I had—but there was one design flaw that the foolish man had overlooked. One little loophole that suited me perfectly.

  The shield was made to keep all of Ilyan’s people inside, to keep them safe. However, it was also made to let all of those who served Edmund see nothing more than the destruction, their eyes shielded from the cathedral as it really was.

  Ilyan, in all of his naivety, never assumed someone could be both, that someone could be inside the barrier and see the world as it was yet pass through without his blessing into the destruction of Prague.

  He had never assumed someone could serve two masters or, in my case, none at all.

  Coughing, I lifted my head toward the alley, toward the numerous pairs of hungry, yellow eyes that peered throug
h the dark, their vicious natures awakened by my sudden appearance.

  Hissing rang around me, gnashing teeth glinting through the dark as the tiny, infected creatures took off into the air, making a beeline for me.

  Heart seizing in fear and exhilaration, I let the fear fill me, the smile spreading wide, knowing full well the vile things couldn’t touch me if they tried.

  “Zdechnout,” The tiny things froze in mid-flight at the word, their bodies falling with a dull thud. Blood seeped out of the tangles of flesh and bone, staining everything around them with shimmering pools.

  Rippling waves of heavy material broke through the silence as I unwound the fabric, throwing a heavy cape over my shoulders. The hood lay low over my head as I shrouded myself in the dark.

  You have twenty minutes. To the third. Her voice made me grind my teeth in agitation. I didn’t like being ordered around, especially from her. Not with what the divine magic of the earth had created me for.

  I was one of the first, after all, and soon, I would be viewed as such again. Soon, even she would bow to me.

  Centuries of planning, of plotting, of scheming were about to come to fruition. It had been that long since my reign had ended, since the first four who had come from the mud had been stripped of their title in favor of Edmund, a snot-nosed brat with no right to hold my magic, to hold any magic. Regardless, they had seen a god who held everything inside of him.

  I had told them then what fools they were, but the order of the council had been in place since the beginning, and therefore, the council took control.

  The people had won, and their precious kingdom had fallen to the wayside because of their conceit. I would gain it back, remind them of what we were put here for.

  Edmund was trying for the same thing, or at least, that’s what I had made him believe. In the end, however, he only wanted power, not to reinstate our true purpose. He didn’t understand what we had been, because he was the one to ruin it.

  I understood, and I would perfect it.

  Silently, I ran over the streets of the deep red city, the solitary sound of the flapping cloak filling the lifeless city. The fabric was heavy, perfect for the prickly harshness of cold that was familiar for Prague this time of year. Once I was outside the barrier, it would be needed. Now, it was nothing more than a hindrance. What little of winter that made it through the greenhouse effect the barrier had created felt out of place against the stagnant pressure of the heat.