Ilyan

by Rebecca Ethington

  I could only moan in response.

  “Good,” She whispered, carefully moving my head into a position that was thankfully more comfortable. “Just rest, it will get better.”

  “Who is that?” Someone asked in Ukrainian, the voice gruff as we hit a large pothole, the jerk of the vehicle sending everyone jumping.

  “Our ticket out of here,” she whispered as she began to remove the IV, her motions rough.

  “That’s him?” The same man asked, his severe face flashing into view as another bomb hit, the truck filling with light as it rocked. “He is the one you have been going on about for months..?”

  “They have drugged him, Andriey!” Kaye snapped, her face looking even angrier from where I lay below her. “If I can get the drugs out of his system then we might have a chance.”

  “A chance to what?” Another question, this time from a woman, the faceless voice hissing through the dark. “The man cannot even sit on his own.”

  “Do you wish to abandon this plan?” Kaye hissed, another bomb swallowing her words as everyone shook and shrieked. “We will not get another chance to escape. And the new regimen… we do not know what will await us.”

  “Yet you will trust Nastya’s puppet,” the man again, his voice growing louder as he shifted toward me. “This man cannot even speak.”

  “I am not a puppet. I was a king.” I attempted to sound as powerful as I knew I could be, but the words only came out slurred and as mussed as I had grown used to.

  I wasn’t sure if the lack of pronunciation was from the drugs or from spending three years in a torture chamber, however. I preferred to think it was the former.

  Either way, the response caused the man to jerk, and although I still could not push myself up to look him in the eye, I turned the best I could, staring him down.

  “They drugged me and chained me in the back of the truck.” I hissed, the clarity of my words slowly returning. “They do not do that to puppets.”

  The man glowered at me before leaning back, his eyes still spelling danger. I looked from him to the others, each one either matching my determined scowl with their own, or looking away awkwardly.

  There were about ten of them crammed into the small space, and all of them were looking between Kaye and I, two in the corner whispering something as they did so.

  “Who are these people?” I was suddenly realizing that with all the months Kaye and I had passed notes, I didn’t know that much about what she had been doing.

  “Workers from the hospital, some of the villagers from nearby.” She spoke offhandedly as she peeked out of the jeep again. “They have been working with me. Working against the SSU.”

  The look she fixed me with was more determined than I had seen, the fight in her finally coming into its own now.

  “Are you a rebel leader?” I asked, the phrasing fitting the powerful woman.

  She chuckled at the question, but she was the only one, everyone else smiled in response, their own sense of respect coloring their faces.

  “What did you think I meant when I said I was fighting back?” she teased, but I could already tell the others did not agree with that sentiment.

  The admission made me smile. She was right, she had told me, and it suited her.

  “What do you need me to do?” My voice was becoming clearer as I was, the spinning fading as the sound of bombs and guns did.

  “As much as you can,” Kaye said, loading a few guns as she peeked out of the fabric that covered the truck. “And don’t give me lip. I know what you can do, Jan.”

  “That’s not my name,” I taunted slowly pushing myself to sit.

  My arms shook under the effort, my brutalized and weakened body struggling to operate. It didn’t matter, I had lived with this fog for years, I would push past it. I was powerful, and not just in my dreams.

  “Well, let me know when you figure it out,” Kaye whispered, helping me to sit up and lean against the truck.

  The truck rattled and shook from the uneven road as Kaye handed me a water bottle, the rickety movements sending cold droplets splashing over the dirty cotton bottoms I had been wearing for the last few years. I grabbed the water greedily, splashing it over my chin as I drank.

  “I don’t know how much I can do,” I said between gulps, desperate for air and water as I slowly felt myself return to normal, even though I knew it would be days before whatever they had been giving me worked its way out. “I don’t know…”

  “You have more control now than you did when you saved me from the Chrlič,” Kaye chastised, interrupting me with one look. “You probably have more control even with the drugs.”

  She looked at me intently, nodding to my hands before fixing me with a stare that only made the magic inside of me buzz more, ready to show her.

  Returning the glare, I sagged against the truck, lifting my hands as the magic pulsed deeper, the strength of the surges becoming frightening.

  As the drugs began to fade, as my magic began to fight it, it was no longer the sludge that I grown used to, it was the livewire I had only felt in my memories.

  Looking from her to my hands, I swallowed, my throat unbelievably dry given the amount of water I had just consumed. The magic roared and rocked just under my skin, surprisingly staying restrained. I had felt less and caused an explosion before. Now, it remained locked in place, until with one thought I sent sparks flying between my fingers.

  Electric spines in the brightest gold jumped between my fingertips, the eruption sending the others in the truck into a panic. They yelled in Ukrainian as they began to scuttle and move, but I couldn’t look away from my hands, I couldn’t look away from the magic I was now controlling, my command of it focused down to the minute detail.

  “Calm,” Kaye snapped, her voice obviously not directed at me. “You must stay calm.”

  The light grew brighter as I willed it to, the light molding and shifting into a smooth bubble that floated just above my hand, making everything glow.

  The truck rattled as another bomb dropped, the entire bed sifting abruptly to the side. We could clearly hear the driver shout something in Ukrainian, his panic shifting through the wall. In the bed of the truck, however, there was only calm.

  Everyone stared at the light as I lifted it higher, letting it hover to the top of the canvas. It grew brighter as another bomb dropped, the light exploding in a thousand multicolored lights.

  A soft scream echoed over the tent, before a sprinkling of laughter followed, the man who had been so gruff and angry before commenting about how beautiful it was.

  “It is,” I said, watching the color as another memory tried to move to the surface, something about the way the lights danced seeming familiar.

  My hands flew to my lips as the lights fell. The awe turned to screams as the sound of a bomb shook everything and the vehicle soared through the air, the massive machine turning end over end as everything became a tangle of limbs.

  I heard the impact before I felt it. Before the hard ridge of the truck bed dug into me, before my mouth filled with dirt and blood. Arms and legs tangled as my screams joined the others, my already pained body rippling with further agony.

  It didn’t last, however. The magic that was once sludge soared through me, following the aches and breaks and swelling around them, swelling inside of them. Healing me.

  I clearly felt a bone snap as the truck came to a landing, a few of us rolling out and over the rubble of what I was sure used to be a city.

  Large sections of cement buildings were scattered everywhere. Broken furniture, bloodied clothing, and the haunted face of a child's toy were littered over the ground. I looked right into the blue eyes of the doll as my magic throbbed, my jaw clamped as the pain lessened. The vacant eyes of the doll, its face cracked and chipped from the battle it had seen, felt familiar. Not as though I had seen it before, but as though it was a mirror into me.

  “Jan!” I heard Kaye yell from somewhere behind me, but I didn’t turn, I wasn’t sure I cou
ld quite yet. Although the pain was little more than a dull roar now, I didn’t trust it enough. I could barely move before the accident, trying now that I had been thrown from a truck seemed like I could be asking too much.

  “Jan,” she said again, her voice was closer now, the sound of rock and stone shifting just behind me as she stumbled over to my side, her hands rough as she began to turn me over.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as she came into focus, my body flopping to the side as she moved me.

  “I was going to ask the same of you,” she said, each word a struggle, although, the corner of her mouth pulled up a bit. “I’ve been worse. I have also been better.”

  The smile didn’t hit her eyes and my heart dropped, a fear moving to my toes as I reached for her, glad when she took my hand.

  “Don’t be scared,” I whispered, the words sounding ridiculous with the quick tap of gunfire began in the distance.

  Kaye looked at me curiously as I clenched her hand tightly, holding it in a vice as I let my magic swell in my hand before pushing it through me and into her.

  The magic was different than the accidental healing from all those years ago. It was a flood of heat, and her eyes widened at the sensation, gasping as she tried to shift herself away from me.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked in alarm.

  “No,” she clarified, her eyes wide as she stared at me and my hand. “It’s just… warm.”

  “Good, let me know if it becomes too much.”

  I let more of it move into her, although I wasn’t sure how much was needed, I wanted to be careful. I had never controlled this, after all, I didn’t know what was required.

  Closing my eyes, I focused the same as I had done in the dream, glad when the magic began to move through her, relaying what felt like whispers of information back to me. Tiny cuts, abrasions, a fractured rib, a bone in her ankle seemed to be out of place. I saw each of them, I felt each of them. My magic pooled around them as she sat before me, her eyes growing wider as one after another they healed, even the cut on the skin above where I held her began to knit itself back together.

  “Jan,” she gasped, eyes wide in shock.

  With a sigh, I released her, falling back against the rubble, the world filled with gunfire as those who had been in the back of the truck slowly made their way over to us.

  I watched them move, blood pouring from head wounds, sheltering dislocated shoulders, and I swallowed. I wasn’t sure I could heal them all, I was honestly amazed I had been able to control it enough to heal Kaye. Besides, I was sure their reaction to whatever had happened would not be as calm as the powerful woman before me.

  “I’ve never seen it heal that fast,” She sighed, still looking at the dried blood that had poured over her arm from where a cut had previously been.

  I looked from her to the others in her team, the closest man now within earshot, and chose to smile in answer, a response that thoroughly infuriated Kaye.

  She fixed me with a look that made me both flinch and smile, before she turned away hastily, rushing toward the others on her team.

  Only the rumblings of their quick Ukrainian was audible as I lay among rock and steel, listening to the gunfire as it moved closer. It sounded like it was just on the other side of the pile of rubble we had sequestered ourselves against. Their conversation stopped at the sound, Kaye rushing past me until she reached the gentle rise of what was once a building, army-crawling over the last of the rubble to look at what was coming.

  “There are a few rebels there,” she hissed to me and the few others who had joined us. “But they may not hold the line for long.

  “Who are they fighting?” One of the older men asked with a groan. The sound of his voice and blood covered arm made it clear he was in pain.

  “The SSU. Although I know we passed a depot for The Kyō not far back.” Kaye responded as she checked the weapons I had seen her loading before, throwing one to the side when she determined the barrel was no longer safe.

  I had heard The Kyō mentioned once by Kaye, years before everything changed. Even without hearing more I could already tell that this ominous group could easily be more powerful than the SSU.

  Judging by the way everyone tensed, they weren’t handing out daisies, either.

  “Both the SSU and the republic in one fight,” a woman said as she too began to check her weapons, her voice gruff and angry. “Igor picked a hell of a spot to dump us out.”

  “Where is he, anyway?” the pained man asked over the gunfire, looking from Kaye to the wreckage of the truck that lay about twenty feet behind us. It was only then that I realized how far I had been thrown. No wonder my body was all beat up. It was amazing that I only broke one bone.

  “He didn’t make it.” Kaye didn’t look at anyone. “Andriey didn’t either. I can’t find Yana.”

  The man swore loudly and threw his gun to the ground while the woman crossed herself and mumbled an old familiar prayer. The other six that stood with us did the same, the same prayer roaring over me and blending with the gunfire in a twisted worship that made my spine twist.

  “So we are surrounded,” the man said, his voice still hard from his outburst. “By both the SSU and those republic zealots.”

  I looked to Kaye in question but she only shook her head, there was only one thing I needed to know, and the man had already made that clear.

  “How far are we from the border?” he asked as the others finally emerged from their prayer.

  Kaye pulled out the same rectangular phone I had seen so many times before, tapping the screen as she brought it to life. The once pristine thing was now dented in several places, the bright screen cracked and flickering. She held it close to her face in an attempt to see and carefully begin hitting the screen. She moved quickly, the screen continuing to flicker before it went out altogether. Two quick taps and it flared back to life, a small sigh escaping her lips.

  “It’s two miles that way,” she sighed, pointing the direction of the fighting. “If we can make it through that, that’s close enough we can make it.”

  Everyone began to nod, the same determination coloring each of their faces. I was sure they had set out from the hospital ready to fight. No escape would be without damage or battle, but their eyes made it clear they hadn’t expected this.

  They had already fought. Now, it was just survival. Now it was just two miles to freedom.

  I would make sure they made it.

  “Now,” Kaye said, cocking her small firearm. “Who can walk?”

  I wanted to say that the question was for everyone, but she was looking right at me.

  “I can do more than walk,” I said, shifting myself to sitting as my body ached from so many years of ill use. None of that mattered now.

  “I think I can fly.”

  16

  Kaye’s eyes widened, the others looking at me as though I had spoken gibberish. I may as well have. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it in my dreams. If I hadn’t seen myself teach Joclyn to fly.

  The admission had my magic erupting in a powerful torrent that rushed through me. A breeze played around my toes, the memory of throwing Nastya away from me all those years ago replaying softly in the back of my mind.

  I couldn’t stop the grin.

  “But bullets…” Kaye said, her voice a soft reminder of my fear, and perhaps my limitations.

  “Maybe I am bulletproof, Kaye,” I said, my smile growing as the eager joy spread. “There is no better time to find out.”

  Kaye’s smile rose to join mine, the grin spreading just as wide as she realized what was about to happen.

  “We need to get through whatever is on the other side of this rise,” her voice was hoarse as she nodded her head toward the gunfire just on the other side. “If we can get through that then it should be a straight shot to the border.”

  Magic swelling inside of me, I nodded once before closing my eyes, letting the power swell into the air.

  Me following right behind.
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  The men and women in Kaye’s group began to shout in shock, their voices drowned out by the wind as it picked me up, my body wobbling and shaking as I worked to control it.

  “Focus only on the wind. Focus on its movement, on its warmth. Focus on how your magic will bring it to you.” My own words whispered through memory, the phrasing unknown to me, although I knew at once what it was talking about.

  So I obeyed.

  My body began to stabilize as I closed my eyes, magic swelling further as more and more of the drugs began to wear off.

  Smiling, I hovered before the group, all of them in differing states of awe and fear, all except for Kaye. Kaye stood beneath me with the widest smile on her face, the sheer joy out of place as she stood against the rubble.

  “Be ready,” I said, only waiting for Kaye to nod her head in acknowledgment before I took off, soaring over the remains of the old building and toward the fight below.

  About twenty black-clad soldiers marched below me, their chests all stamped with the sinister star that I now abhorred. Cleaners.

  The Cleaners were closing in on a small group of what looked like civilians, the small group of disheveled militia taking stock of their weapons from behind a rise even smaller than the one Kaye and her people were behind.

  The rebels were the ones to see me first, their shock and fear rising as they began to lift their weapons. It was only when Kaye and her men ran over the rise that they calmed, but the quiet was short lived.

  The Cleaners turned at the noise, gun pointed toward Kaye before one after another they caught sight of me, hovering above them. Judging by the looks on their faces, even without my hair, they knew exactly who I was.

  Guns shaking, they lifted them to the sky, twenty black muzzles pointed right at me.

  In a staccato explosion of sound the guns exploded, tiny blasts of flame shooting from the mouths as a dozen bullets cut through the air.

  Right toward me.

  Stealing my courage, I shoved my hands forward, heart pounding as an absolute wave of yellow erupted from my fingers. The wall of magic spread away from me like a net, little sparks of red popping against the color as the bullets were devoured. As everything was devoured. Soldiers screamed as they scattered like ants, the one man who couldn’t leave fast enough turning to ash as the magic met him.