Burnt Devotion

by Rebecca Ethington

  At least I hadn’t chosen ‘you’re a whore’ or ‘how many people have you killed?’

  Come to think of it, those might have been better, actually.

  I stood up straight and looked to my friend as Ilyan’s magic filled me in a comfortable spiral that warmed me from the inside, the contact a steady reminder of his support, even if I didn’t feel I needed it right now.

  There was something else I did need from him, however.

  I looked up to where he walked several yards before us, his brothers at his sides as we all walked through the darkness, the cave feeling more like a tomb with each day. They walked and talked and laughed as though we weren’t traveling into certain death. The interaction seemed far too out of place given the situation.

  Why didn’t you tell me about Wyn? I couldn’t keep the painful accusation out of my internal query if I tried.

  It was not my story to tell, my love. I knew at once he was right, though it still irritated me. Wynifred needs to come to terms with everything that has happened and who she is. The fact that she told you is a sign that she is doing just that. It’s a good thing.

  I tried not to roll my eyes at his acquiescence, but it didn’t quite work, a fact that was not missed by Wyn. She only chuckled slightly, the pain still evident in her voice as she pulled me back down to her level.

  “Yes, I am a mother.” Her voice was soft, the pain that had taken over her quickly giving way to the playfulness I had always known from her. “And Thom is a father. And, together, we had a baby. And that’s as far as it goes. I am not going to be the one to give you the birds and the bees talk. But, dude, if you haven’t had that already, then we have bigger fish to fry.”

  Nothing could stop the way my stomach sagged right to my toes, everything around me freezing in place. Despite the fact that I was still walking, I was positive I had stopped a few steps back. My entire body was far too heavy to have continued moving. We couldn’t be talking about this … could we?

  I was lead, Ilyan was acting like he had choked on his own spit, and Wyn was laughing so hard I was sure this forsaken cave had turned into an insane asylum.

  “Something you two wish to share with the group?” Thom asked with loud irritation from somewhere in front of me.

  Maybe it was an insane asylum, and I just hadn’t gotten the memo.

  Being trapped in a cave for days as we made a mad dash to a city that might or might not be under attack, forced to talk about marriage and children and everything else, had definitely addled our brains.

  I don’t think the cave had felt so restrictive until that moment.

  Even if Prague was already under attack, I would like my escape pass from this tube of peculiarity, thank you very much.

  “No, thank you, not needed. From either of you.” I wasn’t even sure the words made it out all the way. They were only a squeak that get caught in my throat.

  Wyn continued to laugh as Ilyan recovered; however, Thom still looked between us as though he had missed out on some epic tale.

  Oh, Thom, you have no idea.

  “Glad to hear it, all things considered.” Wyn smiled and tugged lightly on the golden ribbon, my back rejoicing at the loss of restraint.

  I straightened quickly and moved away from her, my feet tripping over the uneven ground in my haste to get away, although from what, I wasn’t entirely sure.

  I wasn’t certain I could escape my own embarrassment no matter how hard I tried.

  Wyn’s expression flashed from the playful girl I knew to the saucy woman I had seen before so fast it was almost as if she had been slapped. I watched her for a moment, waiting for it to switch back, but it never did. She eyed me with this weird trepidation that made me feel uncomfortable. More than that, however, it was a stark reminder of exactly what had happened to her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked in a desperate attempt to get the conversation back on point, glad when the angry overlay in her eyes had disappeared.

  “About my past?”

  I nodded.

  “There was never a good time. I wanted to. I tried when I came to your room after your fight, but after that…” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans in much the same way Thom did. I smiled at the similarities, at the way she had already picked up on him or the way she always had. I wasn’t sure, but either way, it suited her.

  “Is that what you meant when you said you have trouble remembering who you are sometimes?”

  Our pace slowed as she looked at me, leaving an even bigger gap between us and everyone else, their bodies fading into the darkness of the cave as they left us standing in the stale air.

  We stood in the dark, staring at each other. Though part of me wanted to race to catch back up, I ignored it. This was something I could tell was needed by the way she looked at me. Her large, dark eyes were filled with enough sorrow to consume the world in grief.

  “Yeah,” she whispered, her voice just as broken. “It gets confusing, like two different people are jammed inside of me. Two different lives shoved into a box and locked up, forced to live together but so dissimilar there is no way they can co-inhabit in peace.”

  It was like the medical definition of schizophrenia, but so much more real. And she was trapped in the middle.

  “It’s not, though…” I began, but she only smiled at me sadly, her hand soft against my bicep.

  “Oh, I know. I think I have finally got it figured out. Sometimes, life takes us on bizarre journeys, and sometimes, we just need to go along for the ride.”

  “You are as wise as he is.”

  “As who is?” she asked, her voice raising an octave in sudden alarm.

  “Thom,” I said as I smiled at her, the softness in her eyes only increasing the grin.

  It looked like she already knew that.

  I opened my mouth to say something more, some wise words or smart comment, but it never made it out.

  Everything froze in the darkness that we stood in as Ryland’s voice flitted back to us, the words indistinguishable through the echo of the cave, the damp air sucking out all understanding, though the meaning was as clear as day.

  I looked through the dark toward the sound, the faded lights far ahead of us as Ilyan’s emotions hit me, a wall of concern and fear that sucked the joy from the air. He had only been smiling a moment before, which could only mean one thing.

  “We’re here.” The words felt dead on my tongue as I began to walk toward the pull of my mate’s magic, toward the light and the voices that were slowly becoming clearer, even though I didn’t want them to be.

  “We can’t be here already, can we?” Wyn was obviously as unwilling to accept this harsh reality as I was.

  I didn’t blame her.

  She had just come through these tunnels from the other direction, and it had taken her a week.

  We had been trapped in the dark, endless lengths of the claustrophobic space for only a few days. Trapped with the spiders and the rats and the water that always seemed to be dripping from directly above our heads like the leak had a personal vendetta against us.

  While part of me was glad to be free from it, we still didn’t know what waited for us outside of the dark depths of the space. We didn’t know how much truth Sain was telling.

  If the Vilỳs had attacked yet or not.

  We didn’t know if we would be walking into war or ruin.

  We could be walking into a trap for all we knew. Although the idea wasn’t pleasant, if another battle was on the horizon, I at least wanted to be prepared for it. That concern was my own, however.

  “What is it, Ilyan?” Ryland’s comment found substance as we reached the tense knot of people in front of us. Their bodies were frozen in place as they looked into the darkness.

  At first, I thought I was wrong, that we hadn’t made it to Prague, and something else was wrong. My muscles tensed at the thought that anything other than a city could be before us.

  That Edmund could be before us.

>   Then I felt what had caused them to stop, the warm breeze so uncharacteristic of the cave that I knew at once it wasn’t right, that something was before us. Something familiar.

  If not to me, then to Ilyan.

  Memories of his childhood filled his mind, flitting into mine like paper airplanes sent off course. The fleeting images only cemented as the smell of warm cinnamon bread and ancient wood traveled on the back of the breeze. The heady aroma reinforced in my mind what was before us, waiting ahead of us in the dark.

  I was right.

  We were here.

  Prague.

  Somewhere before us, in the darkness of the cave, was the city that Ilyan had been raised in, that Ilyan had led. That Ilyan loved.

  His home.

  Our home.

  More importantly, it was the city I had seen destroyed in a sight no more than four days before. I had seen the sky darken, Vilỳs devouring the city in clouds of black as they bit the mortals with their kisses, all in an attempt to create an army. Or so I assumed. It was an attack Sain had sworn had already happened, whereas I knew it had not.

  In mere steps, we would know who was right, if Sain was telling the truth. If the sight was right at all. That alone was enough to make my blood turn to ice, the possibility of my father’s betrayal only growing. Combine that with the connection Ilyan had with the city, and it was no wonder the possibilities had thrown him into a stony silence.

  “Ilyan?” I asked aloud, the sound of my voice in his ear pulling him from his trance for a moment.

  His eyes darted to mine, the brilliant blue filled with the tense fear that had plagued him for so long. I also saw something that I hadn’t seen before, something that was stemmed in a history I knew at once I could never fully grasp.

  It will be okay, I spoke the words into his mind, the fearful torrent of his magic calming as his lip twitched.

  He lifted his hand to run down the side of my face and weave the strands of hair that had come loose back into place.

  He said nothing. He didn’t need to. I could hear it all as his emotions swelled and grew, and his thoughts ran through me. I could feel his love, his pride, and more than that, I could feel his eager anticipation to introduce me to the city that in so many ways was mine, as well.

  It was what could be on the other side of the doors that scared him.

  Ilyan began walking again without a word, everyone following silently behind as if we were being pulled by a string. The anxiety that moved off Ilyan filled the cave with a tense pressure that stifled the conversations that had been going on only minutes before—talk of past lives, and relationships, and Drak folklore and traditions.

  Tennis shoes squeaked, leather soles snapped, and all I could hear was the thunder of my heart, the echo of Ilyan’s, and a gentle buzzing sound that had begun to grow from somewhere before us.

  Another warm breeze moved over us as a tall line of light seeped across the stone, the warm color dim as it stretched into the darkness high above us. The light grew brighter with each step we took, spreading over stone as though someone had captured the sun and drawn a line with it down the side of the cave, one straight staff that moved from the towering ceiling to the grimy floor.

  I opened my mouth to ask about the light, only to have Ilyan’s memories flood me, a barrage of recollections of the doors opening again and again, revealing the antiquated stone court behind it. The images flowed through him as I tried to understand how doors and a cave fit together and where the light came into play.

  I needn’t have bothered, the line of light erupted in brightness that flooded around us, revealing massive stone panels that grew from the stone. Light seeped through them in a beam of brilliance that shone over our battle worn party, showing all of the scars and bruises more clearly than we had ever seen them.

  My shoulders tensed into a ridged line as the gates grew, the massive panels stretching farther than I could reach on either side. If it wasn’t for the light that moved through the gap between the colossal slabs, I probably wouldn’t have even recognized them as doors.

  The stone walls of the cave moved from ragged, uneven terrain to that of smoothly carved designs so I couldn’t even make out a hinge. For all I knew, they wouldn’t even open at all, despite my wanting them to.

  Ilyan left my grasp as he moved away from me, and everyone frozen in place as we stared at the handsome gateway.

  Designs of old medieval peasants danced against the heavy lines and gothic archways that had been carved into the stone. The intricate divots swaying to imagined music as the bobble of light that floated above our heads reflected onto them. It was a million years of history carved into the stone, a million years of Ilyan’s history, of magic’s history, and now of mine.

  The pace of my heart increased with each slap of Ilyan’s steps against the stone, his body hesitant as he moved toward the stroke of light that leaked between the doors. All the while, the babble of what I could only assume to be people flowed through the heavy panels and filled the once silent cave with noise.

  No one dared breathe as Ilyan pressed himself against the doors, his body tense as he looked between the narrow gap. He stood, framed by the sliver of light, the pure brightness blinding as his body diffused it over all of us, illuminating the cave in its brilliance.

  My chest ached as my heart beat, and I searched Ilyan’s mind and magic for clues. The breeze moved through us one last time, the long slender ribbon that ran through Ilyan’s braid reaching back to me as if it couldn’t stand to be away. My hand reached up on instinct, my fingers wrapping around the long, golden strand and holding it against my skin.

  Ilyan, I whispered to him.

  His shoulders relaxed ever so slightly before he turned from the door. His jaw was set in a powerful line as he looked between each of us then finally settled his gaze on me, his magic surging once as his eyes flashed with menace.

  “Everything is calm,” his voice rumbled through the cave as the breeze shifted through the door, tugging at the ribbon I held in my hand, but I wasn’t ready to let go. “That doesn’t mean it will be safe. I need to know if Edmund is close. I cannot assume he has stayed in Spain.” His eyes held mine as his thoughts overran the words he spoke—the anger at Sain’s lies, the fear over what it could mean, broken sights and mislaid trust.

  Knowing the city was safe should have brought calm, but it didn’t. It couldn’t. Not with the new unknown we faced. If the attack hadn’t happened yet, when would it? What trap were we walking into if there was one at all?

  “If he’s stayed in Spain, then I’m about as desirable as a popcorn fart,” Wyn scoffed with a laugh.

  My eyebrows rose as I tried to decipher the words that had leaked from her. She didn’t seem to care. She only rolled her eyes at me before looking back to Ilyan, her jaw tightening as an old magic came over her.

  “I’ll find him.”

  I didn’t dare move as Wyn’s magic swelled and grew before it moved through the floor beneath me, the heat burning the soles of my feet again.

  I stood still in the darkness of the cave, my shoulders tight and taut as I looked from Wyn to Ilyan, watching the way his muscles rippled with a fear that was infecting me as the babble outside only grew. I could tell in the way his magic pulsed through me, his emotions carried on its back like little, black boats of warning.

  Warnings that came louder than I would have liked.

  “I can’t find him, Ilyan,” Wyn said, her body tensing as if she was preparing for the doors to open and a battle to begin. “There is something different, but it’s a long way off.”

  “Silnỳ?”

  I swallowed once as I met his gaze, my insecurities bubbling for only a moment before my jaw squared, and my magic surged in heat and excitement, as if the power itself had heard him and was ready to answer.

  I felt a pulse of Ilyan’s magic surge, his lips twitching as he let his power move through our bond, the heat a heady reminder of support and love. I couldn’t stop the s
mile that spread over my face as the heat grew, as my fingers flexed, and as Ilyan’s voice filled my mind.

  Find him, my love. If anyone can find him, it will be you.

  I knew it was true as much as he did. My heart picked up as my magic bubbled to life, the excitement growing as if Ilyan’s words had been all that was needed to open the floodgates.

  Ilyan’s magic melded with mine, the power seamlessly blending together as I closed my eyes and let the magic spread away from me.

  I could still hear the excited babble of the people beyond the gates, feel the calm and the enjoyment of the crisp fall day of the mortals as they shopped in the markets. They went about their day to day life as if nothing was happening other than the threat of rain the weather forecaster had given them on the news that morning.

  I moved through the city streets with eyes that took in every detail. The white washed stone walls, the ancient statues, the ruddy brown of the river—I saw it all.

  My heart beat faster as I recognized many of the buildings from my sight, saw the red shingled roofs of the old town. Except, it was different.

  There was no fire. There was no screaming. It was a city before the sight had come, a city as I had never seen it before.

  It was beautiful.

  Or it would have been if it wasn’t for the odd pull that was laced behind the laughter underneath the sunny cobbled streets. Something lived underneath the joyful exterior, something that only increased my fear.

  It was different than the rancid magic of the Vilỳs, different than the pained swells of the earth I had felt when flying through the trees in Spain. It was a thing so raw and vile that it twisted through me. It was the pockets of fear that hid in abandoned buildings and the rippling agony that slithered through the sewers.

  I gasped as the tension moved into me, my muscles twisting in anxiety that should have been a warning to stop. However, I couldn’t. I needed to know where Edmund was, and more than that, I needed to know what was coming. How true my sight had been.

  If it had been.

  I pushed my magic farther, away from the center of town, away from the towering doors we were all clustered behind. The more I pushed, the worse the plague of fear grew. The more my magic buckled underneath it.