“You’re a monster!” The words erupted from Ilyan as he stepped around me, the rough edge of his magic cutting through me, making his intent clear.
I lunged for Ilyan as his brother did, both of our magic flooding into the king in a desperate attempt to quell his temper.
Sain, on the other hand, stood still, that disturbing smile still in place while he watched us, laughing.
Ilyan, I spoke into his mind, my hand wrapping around his neck as I pulled him toward me, Ryland stepping between us and Sain protectively. Calm down, my love. I am here. Do not rise to what he is doing. We know his game. If we want to survive this, we need to play it with him.
Ilyan’s widened eyes darted toward me as his thoughts flooded me. His anger made it hard for to him to focus. I had never seen him like this. I had heard about his temper and thought I had seen it before, but this was beyond anything I had witnessed. It scared me. I had never assumed that level of uncontrollability was possible in him.
As I looked at him, fear looked back at me. Dangerous anger rumbled through me in a warning that went unheeded.
Keeping my magic inside of him, I let it soothe him, my love filling him as the unconditional emotion expanded. Even though this side of him was frightening, my love didn’t leave. It only grew, my connection with him expanding alongside it.
I’m here. Now it’s my turn, I whispered to him before I turned away, my hand not leaving his as I faced my father, my real father, for the first time in my life.
My jaw was tight as I narrowed my eyes at him in defiance. The man who had reduced me to anger-fueled hysterics so many times before now only left me with a ripple of annoyance, a heavy feeling of power and control taking over my soul.
This was a villain I had faced many times before, a villain who had walked out of the shadows to show his true colors. I could tell he expected me to wilt under my anger as Ilyan had done, his eyes minutely widening at the strength I showed him, the power I faced him with.
“Well, Joclyn,” Sain said with a growl, his own inability to remain emotionless shining through, “it seems you have finally come into your own … Would you like to test the limits of that magic of yours? Test it against someone who can actually match you?”
He didn’t give me any warning; he just attacked, his eyes moving to the black sheen of sight that was so familiar as his attack sprang forward in a stream of silk that slithered through the air like a fish, moving right toward where I stood as it doubled in size.
Sending a counterattack right into it, I jerked, screaming with exertion, only to watch Sain’s magic devour my defense. The weaving ribbon of power shimmered with light as it absorbed the blast, the perverse creature swelling.
Gasping in fear, I felt my magic flare in warning, my usual ability to feel and track magic, to understand how to counter it, failing. I jumped to the side, Ryland and Ilyan following suit as the attack sped past us, impacting with the road where we had just stood.
I screamed at the assault, scuttling over the road in an attempt to get away from whatever was coming. Before I had moved more than a few inches, though, the street before my face exploded, attack after attack following as I was forced back.
Crawling on my belly, I moved as fast as I could, hissing in pain as magical residue and burning rocks fell over me.
“Joclyn!” Ilyan’s voice boomed as I stared wide-eyed at the smoldering pothole inches from me.
The street erupted in green as Ilyan ran, intent on protecting me, his attack streaming toward my father, only to fall to the ground in a shower of sparks as Sain moved his hand toward it. One movement and his power had faded as simply as if the attack had lost momentum.
“No, no, I don’t think so.” The hiss in Sain’s voice increased with the words, the dangerous ripple of his warning echoing through me. “This fight is between my daughter and me. But don’t worry, my lord, I will keep you and your brother busy.”
I heard Ilyan’s scream as his magic moved away from me, Sain throwing him through the air and into one of the buildings that surrounded us without so much as a twitch of his fingers.
“Ilyan!” His name cut through my fear as I jumped to my feet, turning to face my father whose eyes were still shrouded in black, his white teeth flashing in a menacing grin.
“I doubt you can stop my power, Ilyan. If I say she is mine, she is mine. Besides, I have a much bigger job for you.”
I stood still, my heart longing to run to my mate, but I knew I wouldn’t get more than a step before Sain would attack. I could feel his longing, feel his worry. Even he had frozen. We had all underestimated him.
“No more games, Sain,” I growled, unwilling to look away from the enemy before me.
“Oh, I beg to differ, Joclyn. We still have many games to play. Why don’t we play the best one right now?” His eyes dug into me as he tapped his toe, the hollow sound of his shoe against the street echoing menacingly around us.
I jerked at each tap, not knowing what to expect, and then the carelessly thrown away corpses in the street behind him began to twitch, began to move.
Horror filled me.
Sain’s menacing smile was forgotten as I looked away from the demon, staring as the lifeless flesh convulsed in harmony with the tap of his shoes.
With each beat, I shivered. With each beat, Ilyan moved toward me. With each beat, Ryland stepped back, ready to protect us from whatever was about to emerge from within the pile.
Then the pile itself began to disband, one body after another rising from the dead, their heads lolling to the side as legs jerked and twitched below them, pulling them forward. Pulling them toward us.
“Beautiful,” Sain whispered without even looking away from where we stood, our focus glued to what was happening. “It’s something Edmund never mastered, no matter how hard he tried. Him and all those beating hearts he devoured … He never understood the full depth of that magic. Keep the magic alive and you can use it. You can mold it into whatever you want.”
I could feel Ilyan shake in fear beside me, his thoughts moving into overdrive as he tried to understand what he was seeing, tried to understand what was happening, tried to understand how this was possible.
Magic this powerful shouldn’t be possible. It was a desperate hope that was destroyed by the gleam in Sain’s eye. The way he looked at us made it clear magic this powerful was possible. Magic this powerful was in him.
And if it was in him, then it was in me, as well.
Don’t forget that, Joclyn. You must defeat him.
I will.
“Go get ‘em, boys,” he sneered as he stepped toward me, his magic sparking as it pushed Ryland and Ilyan away from me, their bodies soaring through the air as he separated us.
My shout was loud as I reached for Ilyan, realizing too late that, no matter how hard my magic tried to reach him, I couldn’t. A wall lay between us, keeping me from him and him from me.
I could hear their screams and feel Ilyan’s fear, but my magic couldn’t reach him. I couldn’t pull him back to me.
Sain looked at me as the world around us shimmered, a dome covering our two bodies, keeping us in and them out, trapping me with a man intent on killing me.
Swallowing in pure feral fear, I looked at my father, the warning of his smile increasing as his eyes dipped to black.
Ilyan and Ryland’s shouts rebounded around us, distorted, as if they had come from a tin can. I might as well have been trapped in a glass tank.
Joclyn, Ilyan yelled through my mind, his thoughts making it apparent he was still trying to find a way back to me. I could see him run around the perimeter. I could see him bang on the wall as magic sparked from his fingers, but I knew it was no use. Besides, a different enemy had already reached him.
My focus darted to his as he fought the disjointed corpses in front of him, his hand pressing against the invisible wall before he turned away. His magic coursed through me, his fear and worry traveling right along with it.
“Ilyan…”
>
I am here, mi lasko, he whispered with dread, the words filling me as I turned back to my father, his face still blank, his eyes still black.
“How sweet. I certainly hope you get to see each other again,” he mocked, his head twisting to the side. “Now, let’s see if you are as powerful as the sight predicted you to be.”
He gave me no warning before he attacked. Violent spells streamed toward me one after another, his body moving fast while he continued to look at me with black eyes, his hands barely moving as he fought me.
I moved without question, dodging, countering, my hands flailing as I tried to deter him, but the powerful forces kept coming. In the end, I just threw up both hands, a wall flying from me in a desperate attempt to do away with his endless onslaught.
It was something I already knew would not help.
“There is one among us who seeks to change the magic.” His voice growled through the colorful smoke that surrounded us, his words swirling in darkness as the prophecy that had been embedded into my mind was repeated, the verses sounding even darker as they were spoken by the one I now realized they were referring to. “Someone who seeks to kill the magic. He seeks to kill the magic for his own personal gain. We see him as he fights, as he sheds the blood of us, as he sheds the blood of others. We see him as he stops the reign of magic, as he stops the time of ours.”
He smiled, an attack flying toward me as the smoke fell to the ground, the lingering smell of sulfur and death strong in my nose. “Do you see now, child? Do you see what is to happen?”
“It was your sight, Father. That first sight, the one that showed everything: about me, about Ilyan. She is the most powerful. She will be The Silnỳ, the one who protects us all,” I snapped as I attacked him again.
His eyes widened as the violent stream of magic narrowly missed him, fear glossing over his eyes for just a moment before the smile returned, the glare enough to make anyone flinch. I stood still.
“Do you doubt it now?”
His eyes snapped back to black, digging into me as he smiled.
A ribbon of yellow flew toward me, and I swung out of the way, only to be hit by a jolt of attack, a powerful wave jerking through my spine, freezing me in place.
“I doubt nothing that is based in truth,” he mused as he stepped toward me, his magic still riddling through me, freezing and burning in a confusing agony I couldn’t shake. “Sight, however, is not based on such ridiculous atrocities.” With one more step, he fired again, another attack, the same as the last surging through my body as I screamed.
Ilyan’s yell of fear echoed in my head as he tried again to break through the barrier, tried to reach me in order to kill Sain, to protect me. But the barrier didn’t so much as budge, no matter what attack Ilyan threw at it.
The sound of Sain’s laugh ripped through me as his eyes faded from black to green. “You say your power is free, Joclyn, and I can feel that. Yet you do not use it. You are going to make your death the easiest one yet.” He sighed, his magic leaving me as I fell to the ground in a gasping heap.
Ilyan’s shout continued to rip through me, his worry filling my mind.
“I guess I shouldn’t complain,” he continued. “Once you are gone, everything else will fall into place. You are the last thorn in my side.”
Fight him, Joclyn. Ilyan’s voice filled me as I looked up at my father, looked up at that sly smile, the hatred I felt for him flowing, Ilyan’s magic swelling in me as I pushed myself to standing, my jaw tight as I faced him.
“I knew you weren’t worthy of the magic the mud gave you. No one is. No one but me.” His eyes faded to black as he moved, the attacks coming again in a torrent that, no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to break free from.
Ilyan’s thoughts plunged through me as I fought, his centuries of expertise infecting me, training me as I moved. Still, no matter what I learned, no matter what I did, it was useless.
Everything I fired at him was deflected without so much as a thought.
“Pathetic,” he barked, his magic shooting right to where I was about to dodge, hitting against a small pile of trash and sending it into flames, as though he knew where I was going to go. Because he does, I realized with a start.
I did, too. After all, I had seen this before. I had done this before. I had watched the world move in a wave of sight and reality. I had battled Wyn, seeing her move before she did it.
Knowing what to do.
Just as I knew now.
With one blink, my eyes plunged to the black of sight, my magic swelling as the vision overlaid reality in a seamless prophecy.
Sain moved from point A to point B moments before he actually did, and this time, I was ready—my magic was ready.
With one surge, I attacked. With one surge, I hit him.
“Wonderful,” Sain crowed the moment I glanced at him, my heart thundering in my chest while the reality of what was about to happen increased. “Don’t hold back now. I want to feel justified when I kill you.”
“If I let you.” I attacked as he did, streams of color and magic, walls of fire and smoke. Everything shifted and shuddered around the dome he had trapped us in, the magic moving so fast I was amazed I was able to keep up, my magic and mind both in the present and future in perfect harmony. Everything worked seamlessly.
The shadows of two realities were moving one right after another, my magic moving to mimic what he was doing, what he was going to do, just as he did to me.
He stuttered effortlessly from inside the dome, his body disappearing and reappearing so fast that, if I hadn’t been paying attention, I would have missed it. Instead, I turned, deflecting his attack as he moved back to where he had started, his grin wide.
“Good,” he sneered. “Perhaps you do have the ability, after all. But it takes more than seeing to know what to do.” His smile spread for the briefest of moments before his attacks began again, the complicated motions increasing as Ilyan’s screams of fear and pain moved through my mind, mine moving to join his.
Desperately, I turned toward Ilyan’s shout, toward his pain in a need to help him. That one move, one misstep, caused me to miss Sain’s attack as it moved into me.
A burn plunged through my body like water on ice. I gasped at the sensation, turning to him as I stumbled back, my attack moving toward him in a pathetic attempt to counter.
He only laughed as he side-stepped, another attack moving toward me as a shadow of myself appeared behind him. I watched the movement of my future self, not sure I had the strength, but I followed unquestioningly and stuttered from one point to another, appearing behind him as I had in sight. Jerking my hand forward to attack, he turned, an attack of his own moving right into my gut. His magic flared as he, too, stuttered. This time, he moved away from me, leaving me standing, heaving as my magic tried to dispel the pain.
As my magic began to fade.
“Joclyn!” Ilyan screamed. His magic moved through me in vain as his own pain filled me, the sounds of magic attacking the barrier rumbling around us.
“Oh no,” Sain tsked, the sound reverberating as I watched him through watering eyes. “You were doing so well, too. You just forgot one thing: sight is a guide, not a road map. In fact, didn’t you say that a few minutes ago?”
Without warning, he attacked again, magic slamming into me and throwing me into the air and against his barrier. I tried to fight the hold, to fight his magic, but his attack still raged through me, everything weak and sore as he easily took control.
Sliding down the firm surface like an egg against linoleum, I cringed, still trying to fight before I crumbled against the ground.
“Don’t trust it,” Sain growled as he walked toward me.
“Joclyn!” The sound of Ilyan’s fist against the barrier became a loud, hollow pressure inside my head.
I knew I was done for. Judging by Sain’s smile, he knew it, too. He wasn’t going to hold back.
I could hear Ilyan and Ryland as they fought in vain, their mad atte
mpt to defeat an undead foe ending at nothing.
We were cornered.
Squaring my shoulders, I stared at my father, trying to pull through his attack to gain enough power to attack just once. I wasn’t going down without a fight.
It couldn’t end like this.
It wasn’t supposed to.
“What?” Sain sneered, his magic pushing against me. “Aren’t you going to beg?”
“Girls don’t beg.” The voice came from behind me, loud, angry, and stronger than I was certain anyone else could manage at the moment. “We kick ass.”
As though someone had opened up a flamethrower inches from my face, Wyn’s magic erupted from beside me, breaking through the barrier like a needle to a balloon. The translucent prison fell away as fire exploded inches from Sain’s feet, the flames licking around his ankles in what was obviously meant as warning.
Sain’s eyes widened at the sudden change, his demeanor shifting. For a moment, I swore I saw the sniveling father I had known for the last few months—a rat cornered by a cat.
“But you can beg if you’d like,” Wyn said as she came up beside me, her hand still raised before her, the powerful heat of her magic emanating around her like a space heater. “Not that it would do any good. For you, Sain, I would show you what my magic can really do.”
Like someone had turned on a switch, Sain straightened, the weakness in his face leaving, though his eyes continued to dart around in fear.
“You should be dead, Wynifred! I saw you die,” he snapped, his voice harsh and loud before he vanished into a stutter, leaving us staring at an empty street, at the hoard of corpses surrounding Ilyan and Ryland.
“Ilyan!” I screamed the moment Sain was gone, the moment the barrier had left, my mind registering what he was facing and the danger we had all been left in.
Dawn of Ash Page 34