Eyes of Ember (Imdalind Series #2)

by Rebecca Ethington

  “You promise you’ll come back today?”

  “Of course I do.” I ruffled his hair before turning the knob of my door, my eyes opening instantaneously to the brightening apartment.

  “Ilyan!” I noticed the empty mass of blankets on the floor and turned to the bed to find it empty. I hadn’t been gone long – less than twenty minutes in the Tȍuha, meaning it would only have been a matter of minutes in the real world. I stood up and ran to the bathroom door, hearing water running behind it. Steam seeped underneath the door, filling the room with a warm musty smell.

  “Ilyan!” I called through the door, knowing he would ignore me the first few times. Ilyan needed his morning showers to wake him up or he was grumpy all day.

  “Ilyan!” I called again, this time letting my magic flow through the door to turn off the water. I heard Ilyan swear loudly in Czech before turning it back on. I knew I shouldn’t bug him, doing this would only make him more upset, but I didn’t care. My heart beat uncomfortably, the drawing still visible in my mind’s eye. I knew I shouldn’t dare to hope, dare to dream – but I couldn’t stop myself.

  “Ilyan, it’s important!” I tried again.

  “Is someone dying?” he yelled back. “Are you dying? Because I think I have reached my quota for saving your life this year!” Yep. Definitely surly.

  I kicked my toe against the door and offered up my own brand of cussing. Fine. If he wasn’t going to come out, then I would send the drawing to him. I pressed my palm against the door and sent the image right into Ilyan’s mind. I waited a moment, and then I heard it, a sharp intake of breath. The water shut off and a moment later the door opened to reveal Ilyan, wet, soapy, and only covered by a towel from the waist down. His wet hair fell over his shoulders, dripping down the skin of his chest which was zigzagged with scars. I gulped and looked away. This wasn’t the first time I had seen him like this, but it always made me uncomfortable.

  “Where did you get that?” he said, ignoring my reaction to him.

  “Ryland. He drew it,” I said, my face breaking out into a wide smile.

  “He drew it?” His eyes narrowed like he didn’t believe me. I folded my arms and stared him down.

  “Yes, he drew it. He wanted to play a game about it. He didn’t understand what it was.”

  “Show me.” Ilyan grabbed my hand and placed it against his forehead. I sighed as his magic pulsed and flowed into me, pulling the memory out of my head.

  I watched the Tȍuha play before me, the speed picked up and slowed down, at times portions repeated, as Ilyan gleaned the information he wanted. The second he was done, I pulled my hand away. Ilyan had done that to me once before, when he was trying to teach me how to do it myself, and it gave me a headache then too. He could only perform that particular magic with certain people, and seeing as I was one of them, I guess he figured he had permission to do it whenever he wanted to, without asking.

  “See?” I asked, still bouncing on my toes in excitement. “He remembers, doesn’t he?”

  “I am not sure. He could, or it could simply be a desire he had at that age.”

  I stopped bouncing immediately, my hope falling to my toes. “What do you mean, a ‘desire’?”

  Ilyan shifted his towel and ran his fingers through his wet hair, his tell for when he didn’t want to share something with me. I folded my arms over my chest, refusing to look away from him.

  “Ilyan,” I said, “tell me.” He hesitated a moment longer.

  “Edmund kept the Vilỳ prisoners in that cage for hundreds of years. Ryland must have known about their existence from the day he was born. He is not without a heart; he can’t look at a trapped creature and not wish to release them. The drawing could very easily be a projection of his desire to let them go at the time. I didn’t even know it was Ryland who had let the Vilỳ out until you told me last spring. And, besides that, who knows how he let them out, or how many, or even what color.” He finished, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “But the Vilỳ was blue, Ilyan. The Vilỳ who bit me was blue, too.” I said, my resolve weakening as I clung to my last bit of hope, but Ilyan’s irritating logic was drowning it far too fast.

  “It could be a coincidence.”

  “So, you are saying he doesn’t remember me at all?” I snapped.

  “You know where I stand on this, Joclyn. He’s gone.” Ilyan reached out to put a wet hand on my shoulder, but I moved away from him. He had ruined the little bit of hope I had found, dashed it into a million pieces.

  “But, I saw it. He can’t... He has too...” I stumbled around, my chest heaving angrily.

  “I am sorry, Silnỳ. I didn’t know you were still holding out hope.” I snapped my head up to him, the magic in my fingers prickling angrily.

  “You should be holding out hope too, Ilyan. Even if you don’t think it could ever happen, you should still believe there is a chance. He’s your brother. You can’t turn your back on that.”

  Ilyan opened his mouth to rebut, but said nothing. His lack of response making me more upset.

  “Enjoy your shower,” I spat, and with one thought I sent him flying away from me. He hit the shower curtain and crumpled into the shower as I turned the hot water on over him. I looked at his startled face for a moment before slamming the door between us, my hands still in balls by my sides.

  Five

  Isat with my back against the sliding glass door that led out to the tiny balcony. The balcony I wasn’t allowed to enter that was filled with fresh air I wasn’t allowed to breathe. I sat this way so I didn’t have to look out onto the city of Santa Fe and dream of leaving my prison. With my back toward the world, I couldn’t be reminded of all I was being forced to sacrifice. Of course, it couldn’t take away the thoughts, but it didn’t make them quite so sharp.

  My head leaned against the cool glass, my eyes closed in concentration. My hands sat on my folded knees, fingers extended. I allowed my magic to pulse and flow into the air and used my mind to control the objects that littered the ground in front of me.

  A top spun gracefully on its point, a block changed color in a rainbow of hues, the carpet they sat on grew in length while fluxing and bending around the other two objects. All the while, a flurry of conjured snowflakes danced and spun around me as I sat cross legged against the glass.

  It was probably a little excessive, but I needed to keep my mind off of my fight with Ilyan.

  Ryland’s drawing had dug up my passionate hope that he was trapped, and not erased. And Ilyan’s offhand comments had just as quickly dashed them. I was trying so hard not be mad at him, but I was fighting a losing battle.

  I closed my eyes tighter as the water from Ilyan’s shower stopped, my anxiety increasing the speed of the top, the influxes of color, and the movement of the carpet. Without opening my eyes I could still see the objects moving in front of me. It was just as Ilyan had taught me while I lay dying. My magic served as my second eye, the whole room visible within my mind.

  The door to the bathroom creaked open and my mind glanced away from its work to see Ilyan exit the bathroom. His blonde hair was wet and hanging down to his shoulder blades, soaking the top of his yellow, button up shirt. I returned my sight back to the objects in front of me, increasing my workload to include the carpet in the color changing cacophony. I accelerated the snowflakes that danced around my head until they were a white blur.

  The distorted mass of white and color all became too much and I shut off my internal sight to sit in the blackness, the cool glass pressing against the back of my head.

  Ilyan’s soft hands wrapped around my fingers, distracting the flow of my magic. His touch was gentle against my skin, his hands held tight to mine. I felt the top fall to the side and the snowflakes instantly melted back into the air as my magic disconnected from them.

  I looked up at him, ready to bicker or battle or whatever he had in mind after I threw him into the shower, but instead his eyes were closed. His face was calm as he sat before me, his tall frame
folded gently.

  “I was thirty-two when Ovailia was born, an old man by human standards at the time. I remember running to Prague to see my parents, leaving the monastery I lived at in the middle of the night. There had been some complications with the birth, but I was told my mother was healing fine. I was still worried, which is why I didn’t wait to go to them. I ran into her room expecting healers and burning oils, but my mother was alone. She looked so fragile in her giant bed, her small frame swallowed up by blankets. She placed this tiny baby in my arms, a girl, with hair that looked like sunlight. That’s what Ovailia means, ‘light of the sun.’”

  Ilyan looked at me, his face blotchy enough that I knew he had been crying in the shower. His grip tightened on my hands, keeping me close to him. He knew me well enough now that he could tell when I began to shy away from contact, but this time even I was fighting that impulse. I had never heard Ilyan open up before and I desperately wanted to know more. His voice was so soft that I leaned in to hear him better.

  “She had blue eyes, like me, like my father. He was so proud.” It was weird to hear such a normal memory of Edmund; my brain almost fought the image of him as a normal, loving father to Ilyan.

  “He clapped me on the back and said soon it would be my turn.” Ilyan smiled, but it was a sad smile. For the first time I wondered why he wasn’t married, why he had never bonded. I opened my mouth to ask, but thought better of it. It wasn’t my place, and besides, I really wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “I held this little baby in my arms and promised to protect her. To keep her safe. I guarded her as she grew, taught her, and played with her. She could beat me in a flying race before she was ten… and then my father turned. Ovailia had always been closer to my father than I was. They had gone everywhere together, had secrets I would never understand. I didn’t know what had happened until it was too late. Until I couldn’t protect her anymore. She had seen one hundred and twenty years when she came to the small chapel in France where I lived, covered in blood and begging for help. I wasn’t even sure then that I could trust her. I am still not sure.”

  I squeezed his hands, not knowing any other way to comfort him. Without thinking, I reached up to touch his face, but my hand stopped half way there and fell to my lap. Ilyan dropped my other hand and stood, turning his back to me as he dragged his hand through his hair in frustration.

  “He has done it to all my siblings, Joclyn. Destroyed them. Hurt them. Ovailia was the first of many. He’s destroyed all of them, leaving me only one shattered sister that’s willing to side with me. That’s why I don’t hold out hope. Because I know what he is capable of. But, please, I don’t want to dash your hope. I never want to hurt you, never want to break your heart. If you believe, then I will believe too. Can you forgive me for dashing your hope before? For being so rude?”

  I stared at him for much longer than necessary, my brain still processing this little bit of his past. For the past few months I had gotten to know Ilyan better than I had anyone else. Anyone but Ryland. I had thought I understood Ilyan, but hearing this part of his history made me realize how little I knew. There were a thousand years of him I did not know.

  Even with all of that, I knew the face he had when he was truly sorry. I knew of his goodness. And I saw both of those now.

  “Yes, Ilyan, of course.” His face lit up at my words.

  “Thank you,” he replied softly before his eyes gleamed with the maniacal energy I had seen too many times before. I cringed at what I assumed was coming. In the last few months it usually accompanied our training sessions. “I have a little proposition for you.”

  “Do I need to be worried?” I asked, sliding my hand through the air in front of me to send the block and the top back to their places on the table.

  “Perhaps.” Ilyan lifted his hands and the table and the nightstand moved themselves into the kitchen, the bed standing up on end in order to give us the most space possible. I groaned and leaned my head back against the glass.

  “Sparring, Ilyan, really? This is how you make it up to me?” I hated sparring. I hated holding weapons that were only meant to kill. I hated hitting him with power and magical attacks, but most of all I hated being hit with them. This was punishment, not a reward. Ilyan seemed to find my response humorous; he laughed and slid his hands down in front of him, a large sword appearing from nothing.

  I groaned. The use of swords was so archaic, but when battling ancients I guess it was necessary, even though they were rarely used anymore. Magic alone was more effective to use fatally against another magic user and guns were of no use, bullets being easily disintegrated by a simple shield.

  “Oh trust me, this is half reward and half punishment for throwing me into the shower.” His eyes twinkled as I moved to stand. I could stubbornly sit on the floor and refuse to participate, but he would attack anyway. I had tried it before and the results were not positive.

  “I am sorry, about that,” I pleaded, even though I knew it was no good. “Can you at least tell me the reward portion of this?”

  I slid my hand through the air to produce my own sword for the battle I was about to endure. My weapon was nowhere near the caliber of Ilyan’s. His was engraved with jewels, the metal twisting beautifully. Mine was a boring, solid metal t-shape, the kind I had used in theatre class for years. I needed to work on creating something a bit better, but I wasn’t sure I cared enough. I could attack Edmund with magic after all, if I ever became strong enough to fight him, right? I groaned and swung the sword, the metal feeling awkward in my hands.

  “Well, you have decided that Ryland’s mind might still be intact.”

  “We,” I corrected him, rolling my eyes.

  “Yes, well if he is in fact ‘there’ I know someone who can help us, but he is a bit too far away at the moment. Which means, we will have to go to him.” Ilyan began swinging his sword around in preparation while mine clattered to the floor.

  “We’re leaving the apartment?” I said.

  “Yes, but....”

  I didn’t let him finish, I squealed and ran to him, wrapping my arms around his neck tightly.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I sang as I danced around on his toes.

  “You’re welcome, but you do need to let me finish.” He pried me away from him. I stepped away, suddenly very uncomfortable for having rushed at him.

  “We will leave the apartment, once you can beat me in a sparring match.” Ilyan said.

  My energy dropped, my jaw falling agape.

  “Not fair! I’m never getting out of this hell hole.” I kicked my sword in frustration, the heavy metal popping my toe out of joint. My magic quickly repaired it and I stomped around a bit, cursing the tiny apartment and its lack of hiding options. I gave up after a minute and pulled my hood down lower over my head.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Ilyan said from behind me. I rounded on him.

  “If it’s anything like your last deal, I don’t think I am interested.” I folded my arms and glared at him. Ilyan took two steps forward and tugged on some of my hair that stuck out of my hood.

  “If you can mark me once, right now, I will take you out on a date tonight.”

  “A date,” I scoffed, grossed out a bit. I stepped away from him, and he laughed darkly.

  “Alright, well not a date. A non-committal dinner and movie outing with a friend.” He winked and I felt my insides shift.

  “I just have to mark you once?” I was very skeptical. Marking Ilyan once was usually still the equivalent of winning a match against him, only slightly more attainable.

  “Just once,” he assured me. I nodded and reached my hand out, the sword flying into my grasp.

  “Just once,” I repeated. “Right, I can do this.”

  I moved my sword in front of me as Ilyan had taught, the point looking him right in the eye. Ilyan did the same, but his face held a curious little smirk, not the terrified expression I am sure I displayed. I held still, clenching my jaw and silently
begging him to make the first move. When it became obvious he wouldn’t, I lunged at him. He smoothly moved from one position to another, his sword clanging loudly as it hit mine. The impact of the swords sent me off balance and I stumbled off to the side, ramming my shoulder into the wall.

  “My point.” Ilyan announced. I scowled and turned around to see him shifting his sword from side to side, spinning the blade. I didn’t wait. I lunged again. Ilyan moved quickly and our blades hit together loudly as we fought.

  I continued to try to mark him, to hit him, or throw him off balance with no success.

  “Ugh!” I yelled. I had to be able to do something. Ilyan smiled at me and continued his attacks.

  While I wasn’t bad at this by any means, Ilyan was that much better. I swung wide and aimed for his blind side only to be pushed away by his swift movements. He swung wide for another attack, but he wasn’t counting on me stumbling again and I flailed around as I tripped in an attempt to block him, my sword barely meeting his.

  “Come on, Silnỳ!” he yelled, his accent deep and rumbling. “Play hard, fight hard.”

  “I hate swords,” I growled under my breath.

  “I heard that,” he smiled.

  “Why do we even have to use them? You told me no one does anymore.” I said, letting a little whine escape into my voice. Ilyan smiled at me.

  I shook my head and came at him again, this time trying for his legs. Ilyan saw my move and jumped away, his sword moving to tap against my shoulder.

  “My point,” he announced, his cocky undertone grinding on me.

  I jumped up, instantly going for another attack. I almost had him when an invisible barrier blocked my path. I always forgot how quick he was until he used his magic against me.

  “Not fair! Foul Play!”

  Ilyan smiled at my outburst.

  “You can do it too, Silnỳ. In fact, I ask that you do. In battle you will not be restrained to weapons, if you use them at all.” He bowed deeply to me, his sword disappearing back into the air it had come from. I swallowed and let my sword fall to the floor, clanging loudly. Now I was in trouble, our sparring matches always led to this. And, I always failed miserably.