Ilyan

by Rebecca Ethington

  “It will be okay,” I whispered into her hair as the palms of my hands pressed against her arms, and my magic flooded into her.

  Her sobs stopped with a gasp, her body stiffening in a way that made me sure I had hurt her. I tried to pull away, but she held on tighter, pressing me against her as she buried her face in my chest.

  My magic continued to swell, the power strong as it filled her, as it felt her, as I began to understand her.

  The power pressed against my heart in pulses of emotion, brief little whispers of sadness, and joy, sorrow. The emotions flowed without reason, each one making no sense without the thoughts behind it. But it didn’t matter.

  The more magic that flowed into her, the calmer she was.

  The more comfort my magic was able to bring her.

  I was able to bring her.

  When all of the emotions had ebbed, only one stood out, a faint whisper of pain that I didn’t fully understand. My magic reacted on its own, flooding through her as it sought out the pain, sought out injury, and finding it in a cut just below her shoulder blade.

  I could see it clearly in my mind, the gash was deep and had obviously become infected.

  Shock and confusion filled me as I pulled her away, her few words of gratitude stifled as I lifted the torn sleeve of her shirt to reveal the large gash, the angry red skin and puss only spelling danger.

  “How did…” I asked, not sure if I was asking her how it happened, or how I knew.

  Holding her sleeve up, seeing the angry gash flashed against my soul in a moment that I had seen in a dream once before. Joclyn in a cave, blood pouring from a gash in her stomach.

  “I’ll be fine,” she had said, her voice distorted in my recall. But it wasn’t her voice that stuck with me, it was how my magic surged, just as it did now. It was my hand pressing against her skin.

  A rock formed in my chest as I lifted my hand, placing the palm over the cut without a word. Magic surged at the contact, flooding through me as it burst into her. She gasped at the contact, the sound full of fear as she tried to step away.

  This time I wouldn’t let her.

  This time I held her still as my magic moved, as I felt it grow warm and hot against my palm, as I felt her skin began to knit itself together.

  I fought my own fear, fought my own need to pull away as I felt it, everything beginning to shake as an exhaustion I hadn’t expected took over.

  Falling back on the bed, the connection left as I gasped for air, my body physically unable to hold my own weight anymore.

  Kaye dropped to her knees with a heave, hand fluttering over her shoulder in a reaction that I wasn’t sure was done in pain or fear.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, voice broken by my strangled puffs.

  Her hand was flat against her shirt as she looked at me, breath held in her chest as she turned, lifting her shirt to reveal perfectly smooth and healed skin.

  Only the dried blood remained.

  “How did you do that?” Her voice was an amazement that I felt mirrored in myself, my own awe breaking free as I lifted my hands from where they were tangled in my short hair, staring at my palms, one smooth, one rough, as if they would show me what had happened, show me what I did.

  “I don’t know,” but for the first time I wished it was a lie. I wished I could do it again. This, I wished I could control.

  This magic was not done in death or destruction - it was beautiful. I wanted to master it.

  “You healed me,” her awe was a wash of emotion as I tried to work through what had just happened, as I tried to understand it.

  “I didn’t know I could do that…”

  “I’m starting to wonder what you can’t do,” Kaye said as she stood, glancing at the smoke stain on the wall before she stepped to stand over where I had collapsed. “We have got to get you figuring this out. More than just to get out of here, we have got to figure it out before they do.”

  Her hand reached to cup around mine, the soft touch one I would normally jerk away from, but this time I froze, eyes narrowing at the sudden change in tone.

  The awe was laced with that determination I saw in her from time to time, her eyes taking on the far away look of a girl with a plan. No, A girl who knew something. It was the same look she had given me when I had asked her mother about the blood.

  “Why did you get stuck in a wall, Kaye?” I asked carefully as I pulled myself to sitting, she flushed instantly.

  “I heard Domor talk about you.”

  “You were eavesdropping on Domor!” All exhaustion left as my magic surged, the strong pulse sending me to stand as sparks erupted around my fingertips.

  I knew I was too loud, but luckily so was the dramatic teenager on the TV who was now talking about ‘those dangerous Hungarians’.

  “Yes…”

  “We talked about this Kaye,” I interrupted her.

  Her childish impulses were going to give both me and her mother ulcers. My magic flooded me as my irritation did, the warm power stifling the emotion, although just barely. “Listen where you can, but right now you need to find us a clear, gun-free, path out of here.”

  “Or you can just learn to stop bullets.”

  “I’m not even sure if I can do that.”

  “You just healed me, Jan!” She hissed stepping toward me until she was inches away.

  “Yes, but I’m not dumb enough to try. I’m not even sure how we would test that.”

  “I could throw a chair at your head.” She offered, the offer laced with far too much malice. Even then it stopped me short, the ridiculousness pulling me back down to reality.

  “Kaye. We need a gun-free path. I couldn’t remove the locks on my restraints this morning, I’m not consistent, and I am not…”

  “Stop with the lecture. It’s not like you are that much older than me. Not like anyone could tell Mr. ‘Always-look-fabulous-even-though-I’ve-been-locked-in-a-prison-hospital-for-six-years-and-still-look-twenty-two.”

  She spoke very fast, letting the last of her irritation our in a rush.

  “Are you quite done?” I asked, perfectly willing to side-step that conversation. It was one we had gotten in before and one I wasn’t interested in repeating. Yes, I didn’t appear to age, everyone had noticed, and I wasn't about to fight them on it. Nor was I about to share the memories that pointed to entire other explanation

  From what little I have read on Kaye’s phone, magic comes with immortality. While Kaye wasn’t as apt to believe it, I wasn’t going to dismiss it. I also wasn’t going to entertain her lingering alien theory either. None of my memories occurred on another planet, as I had told her many times.

  “Quite.”

  “Good,” I sighed, leading her over to the bed to sit her down. “Now tell me what your journey into the wall revealed.”

  Kaye crossed her legs on the bed, her shoes leaving brown smudges over the white sheet, with her lips pinched together she looked up to me.

  “They are using your blood to try to find a way to control your power. To replicate it.”

  Ice water ran over me, any response that I may have had washed away as what she just said hit me head on.

  “How close are they?” The words felt distant, far away, as though they came from someone else.

  “Not close as far as I can tell,” She sighed, her hand reaching for me before moving back to tangle in her lap, obviously having thought better of it. I stood up anyway, thankful my legs had recovered enough that I could pace.

  “It’s not like I can ask questions though. But,” she continued, cutting me off at the intense look I had given her. “From what they are saying they have identified a few things that “slow down” what they think is the power in your blood. It’s been hard work because of your transplant medication… I guess that has slowed them down for some reason.”

  I stopped pacing, my eyes drifting toward the movement on the screen and the teenagers who laughing beneath a giant painting of the purple sinister star.

  �
�So they have found what they think is my power,” I spoke more to myself than to her. “But they can’t get it out.”

  It made sense. As much as Kaye had told me they had experimented on me while I was in a coma, and as much as Commander Domor talked up his control, the last few months had been little more than weekly CAT scans, new medications, and odd interrogations that circled over the same information. What do you know of Prague? How would you get a new heart? Do you know who this is...

  They were testing my resolve. Testing medications. Testing me.

  “No wonder they always keep me restrained, “I laughed, looking to the filthy restrains that still lied open on the bed.

  “So they can test you?” Kaye asked, clearly not understanding.

  “So they can control me.” I clarified, still watching the characters on the television, their characters whispering in class while the teacher in the background spoke of proper extermination techniques for people bitten by a Chrlič.

  “It makes them feel safer, thinking that they have control, that I can’t break out.” Kaye snorted a bit at that, the ridiculousness not lost on either of us. “They are scared of me. And like any good dictatorship, they control what frightens them.”

  “Do I frighten them?” It was obvious the reason that she wanted, her eyebrows had perked up again, her eagerness snapping right back into place.

  “Oh yes,” I said, stopping my pace to look at her. “All of their people do.”

  “Does that mean it’s time to fight back?” She asked, the eagerness expanding into a bubble that I truly hated to defuse.

  For the first time, I wished I could agree with her.

  “Not yet.”

  “I can’t help but think that we are running out of time, Jan,” She snapped, folding her arms over her chest.

  “That’s not my name.” While often the response was in jest, this time it wasn’t, this time it grated against me.

  “Does it even matter?” She snapped, her fists hitting against her things as she came to stand before me. “You may never know your name if we don’t get out of here. We have to fight back.”

  “You can still fight even when you are in chains,” I said, my calm response catching her off guard and she recoiled. “You are about to put your chains on too, Kaye. But I know you will still fight too.”

  “My registration,” The cruel reality smacked her hard and she sat still, any frustration vanishing as pure shock took over, widening her eyes.

  “We will fight even in chains,” I said as I kneeled before her, my heart constricting as I took her hands in mine. “We will get out of her.”

  She nodded once.

  “You need to control that power before they do.”

  “And you need to find us a safe escape route,” I responded, squeezing her hands before I released them, standing before her in the tower that I was.

  “Do you remember the last two lines of the Ukrainian Anthem?” I asked after a moment, the images on the television sparking my frustrations.

  “No one is allowed to sing that anymore,” Kaye responded with a hiss. “It is forbidden.”

  “And for good reason,” I said with a smile, turning back toward the girl who was slowly blossoming into a determined woman. “Ukraine is not yet dead, nor its glory and freedom..”

  Her eyes welled with tears as I sang the song, my voice quiet as the last few lines of the song rang clear, even the television silencing to hear.

  “We'll not spare either our souls or bodies to get freedom, and we'll prove that we brothers are of Kozak kin.”

  “Are you ready to fight?” She asked, her question honest as we faced a battle we had expected, with a timeline we had not.

  “No matter the chains they bring.”

  10

  “How about this one?” Detective Bondar spoke in English, his Slavic accent thick and burly against the familiar language.

  His dark eyes pierced mine as he slid an image across the scratched surface of the table I was handcuffed to. It was the same image he had shown me every day for the past year.

  Since the Vilỳ attack that I had woken up in, since he had begun the vendetta to break me, to use me.

  To find The Oheň.

  Every day they would walk me down an older wing of the old hospital, chains grinding against the cracked floor as The Cleaners yelled and smacked the butts of their guns against the doors, igniting yells from the other patients.

  No, from the prisoners who had thought they were coming to a sanctuary, a country without war, without The Chrlič, only to find themselves locked in a purgatory.

  A prison, posing as a hospital.

  We would walk to this room, the only other room I saw, as Detective Bondar showed me pictures. The same pictures. As though seeing them so often would spark a memory.

  Of course, I knew exactly what this image was, and exactly what he wanted to me say.

  He would get neither.

  “There is a green baseball cap near a dumpster. A door is ajar in the background…” I rattled off the memorized details without looking. I didn’t even look at him. I just stared at the double mirror that covered the dark wall behind him and what I was sure was officers behind it.

  “What else?” The Detective said, the low rumble of his voice pulling my focus from the glass, although I would still not look at the image. I would look anywhere else, even at the ugly green of the sinister star that graced his lapel.

  It was that that I landed on.

  “A pile of cloth, it looks like…”

  “What else,” he interrupted with a snap, tapping his finger against the portrait,

  That was new, he very rarely lost his temper.

  Perhaps I could use this.

  “Where is Commander Domor?” I asked in Ukrainian, finally turning to look at him.

  Detective Bondar sighed, bristly mustache dancing in agitation as he snatched back the photo, shuffling it with the others.

  This was new. He had never given up so quickly. I had only been chained to the desk a few moments ago.

  I had bristled him.

  I had upset him somehow, but why? Something had changed. Something was different, it made my stomach twist.

  “Is he here?” I asked, the chains around my ankles clanging loudly as I shifted my weight, feigning an attempt to see through the glass.

  Except this time I wanted to.

  My magic bubbled through me, stretching through air and floor to reach the glass as I had mastered before. The wall of glass began to melt away in my mind, my vision shifting as my magic revealed the tiny room just behind. The same men stood there every day, the insignia of the red and yellow spark embroidered on their lapels. The Tykha Shistʹ. They would stand in circles, smoking as they talked, as they yelled at their prized prisoner as time and again I foiled them.

  Today, however, they stared at me in frightening eagerness, their bright eyes and smiles clear from behind their large smoking pipes, the insignia of the red and yellow spark embroidered on their lapels.

  Commander Domor paced to the side of the other five, each one stiff as they stood around a woman in a large black cloak, the five of them looking like ladies in waiting against the powerful confidence that was bleeding off this woman.

  Her aura saturated the air, and although I had never seen her before, although I knew nothing about her, I found myself growing just as agitated as the Commander was. The way she was looking at me, right at me, made me twitch. The movement was slight, but I was sure she had seen it with how her lip twisted into a demented half smile, the wicked grin growing as she began to remove her black leather gloves, mouth moving in some command I couldn’t hear.

  “How about this?” The snap of aggression was gone, replaced by a careful phrasing and an eagerness that pulled me right from those behind the glass and to the now smiling one right before me.

  Detective Bondar slid another picture across the table, even from my peripheral vision I could tell it was part of the beautiful city I
had seen destroyed in my dreams for the last few months. I had watched it burn. I had watched buildings fall under my will. I had watched her, Joclyn, as she smiled, as she laughed, as she slept in my arms.

  I had seen pieces of a life. But so much was still missing.

  I still didn’t know my name.

  “The blood filled river,” I began, still focused on him, “the ruins of…”

  “Look again.” The man interrupted me with a snap, the nefarious humor in his eyes was making me bristle.

  His finger tapped loudly against the table in an attempt to get my attention, the tap continually growing louder, until I finally looked from him to the large square image that lay flat against the scratched surface.

  “How about this,” he repeated, the tap-tap-tap of his finger slowing.

  It was the sister of the image I had seen for months. The same scene. The same part of the city.

  A murky river ran along the bottom, the bank lined with the remains of the white stones and red roofs that had made up the heart of Prague. Except the remains were gone, they had been cleaned away. The ancient bridge that had previously fallen into the river was being rebuilt, the old sections blending seamlessly with the new.

  I could clearly see where it had once stood. The St. Vitas cathedral. I was sure I had lived there once, but the tower, steeples, and ancient stone work were now only flashes of memory.

  The few buildings that had been spared in the destruction, were clustered in the bottom corner, a few people milling around as life slowly began to return to the city.

  This was not the picture of the ruins from years ago. This was now; this was recent.

  And there, under his ink-stained fingertip, was her.

  My magic sparked as I leaned closer, the power rolling over my skin in waves as I kept it restrained, albeit barely.

  A girl in a blue tank top and jeans ran along the river banks with a boy who could have been her brother judging by the dark curls they both had.