“I know what I am doing,” I repeated defiantly.
“No,” she continued. “You have no idea what you are doing. You are going to be terrified; you are going to be a hindrance to us all. I’m just trying to make it so that you don’t accidentally kill anyone.”
I squared my jaw and lifted my head. I was beginning to wonder if hate was a strong enough word for how I felt about her right now.
“I am not going to kill anyone.” I was confident.
“Oh yeah? What about your beloved Ryland. What if, when he holds you, the barrier shifts just enough that your magic surges? What if you can’t control it? What if you kill him?”
The mention of Ryland’s name, combined with my anger and frustration, was a tidal wave; the barrier shifted aggressively off me. My pent-up magic began to surge under my skin; it rippled over my body like the prickling fur of a wild animal. That’s how it felt within me- wild. I clenched my hands in an effort to keep it inside. No matter how much I hated Ovailia right now, I knew she was right. She sensed what I was going through, and her smile widened broadly.
“You can’t even control it right now, can you? I don’t know what Ilyan sees in you. There is no way you are the Silnỳ.”
“What?” I whispered . She had used my nickname like a title.
Ovailia smiled at my lack of knowledge. “Ilyan hasn’t even told you. He must not trust you with such valuable information, just like he doesn’t trust you to save Ryland.” Her voice was snide, condescending; it only increased my power more.
I aimed my hands at her just as the magical energy reached a breaking point. A stream of light and flame burst out of me, hitting Ovailia in the dead center of her chest. She flew through the air before landing and skidding against the long grasses of the courtyard, leaving a long trail behind her.
Part of me was worried for her, while another only cared if I was going to get in trouble or not. My magic continued to stretch out of me as I brought the wind up and lifted myself into the air, only to land next to her a moment later. I was about to ask if she was alright when she slammed her hand across my face. The slap, combined with the angry magical pulse she had filled it with, sent me spinning through the air to land hard against a small bush.
“You stupid little girl!” Ovailia spat as she flew at me. “You know absolutely nothing. You think you can just waltz in and steal your boyfriend and everything is going to be fine! You’ll be lucky if you even leave alive.” She raised her hand again, a large crack sounding through the clearing as the earth next to my head exploded.
“I can do this!” I detangled myself from the bush, desperate to move in case she aimed for my head next time.
“No, I don’t think you can!” Her hand rose toward me again.
I dodged out of the way, the smell of burning wood filling my nostrils. The smell was so similar to Ryland; it filled my head and mind with him. The smell that I always dismissed as campfire was really the smell of magic; the smell of a million spells, a million burning targets, the smell of each nightly practice he had with his father. It was him. I turned around to face Ovailia again. The images of Ryland causing my magic to crackle on my fingertips, the electric energy determined to escape any way it could.
“You are going to kill us all!” she growled, her hands rising toward me.
I swung my hands forward; the powerful electricity that shot out of my fingers combined with the wind I had already conjured and collided aggressively with Ovailia. The energy pushed her across the courtyard, slamming her body into the wall of the building.
I looked after her, watching her crumbled body slide down to the ground. I heard her yelling angrily at me in Czech, the furious anger dripping from her voice. I didn’t wait for her to regroup. I took advantage of the temporarily-shifted barrier and launched myself off the ground.
I took off into the sky, my body flying away as fast as I could manage, terrified she would follow me. I made a beeline to the forest where Ilyan had taught me to fly and glided into the leafy canopy.
I shot through branches and flung myself around trunks and over small meadows before coming to a stop on a large branch of an old willow tree. I clung to the tree as I caught my breath, air pumping out of me in energized spurts. My breath was coming way too fast; my face stung with my over-emotional heat. It wasn’t fair. I was stuck training with Ovailia who had rung me ragged, belittled me, and was determined that I was too dangerous to help. And in the end, I only proved her right. I slunk down on the bough of the tree, my legs dangling over the sides as I waited for my heart rate to slow down. But it wasn’t my heartbeat I was feeling.
I pulled the necklace out from underneath my sweater, letting the ruby sit on the palm of my hand. It had the normal warmth from its constant contact with my skin, but I could have sworn the ruby was beating. I wrapped my hand around the gem, surprised to feel the throb of a heartbeat, the quick tempo not matching my own.
I felt the beat; the tempo almost panicked and desperate. Ilyan had asked me not to push anymore of my magic into the necklace, but I didn’t care; I didn’t even hesitate. I let my magic surge out and fill the ruby. I felt the beat of the necklace fill my mind, the rhythm echoing around my skull like a drum. I let it consume me as Ryland’s warmth followed steadily behind it.
I let my magic surge again, this time pushing the magnetic energy out of me. It collided with the necklace, and I felt my body grow heavy, like my bones had turned to lead. I closed my eyes, calling out when I saw the white room that Ryland and I shared.
I spun around, scanning the white space for Ryland. Finally I saw him, a boy sitting on the floor only a few feet away from me. I could tell he was younger, and my heart sank to my toes. He wore clothes that were ripped and stained, each article sagging off his body, many sizes too big. He sat quite still, humming a song that I was sure I had heard him sing before. His hands moved as if he were playing with something, but as I walked around to see what it was, nothing was there. He jumped back, clutching the invisible toy to his chest as my feet came into view.
“Who are you?” The bright blue eyes of a thirteen-year-old looked up at me; the blue, deep and heavy, like he had already seen too much of the world. “Are you my new nanny?”
“Yes,” I answered hesitantly before moving to sit next to him. “My name is Joclyn.”
“Joclyn?”
I nodded my head.
“I like that name. My very favorite friend’s name is Joclyn. I call her my diamond girl.” He froze. “But you must never tell her I call her that! Can you promise?”
“I promise,” I said sadly.
“Good.”
“Why do you call her that?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Her eyes... they are beautiful.” He smiled widely for a second before the grin faded to nothing. “They are gray like yours, but much more beautiful. They are almost silver, like diamonds.” He looked at me intently before returning to play with what I could only assume to be a car. The toy and his actions were out of place for how old he appeared, but something else was off. I couldn’t quite place it. He moved his hand around the invisible object, back and forth, back and forth, as he continued to hum.
“Do you know why I need a new nanny?” he asked, his focus not leaving the car.
“No, why?”
“I scared the other one too much.”
I didn’t miss the strong mocking in his voice.
“Oh, really?” I smiled. “And how did you scare her?”
“I told her what my father did.”
“What did he do?”
He looked up from his toy to look at me
“Not going to tell you. You remind me too much of Jos. Besides, I like you.”
“I like you too,” I conceded, “but you won’t scare me.”
“Yes, I would.”
“Try me.”
He sat back and looked at me closely, his nose scrunching up a bit. The look made me smile; he had stopped making that face when he was
about fifteen.
“He made me kill my mother.” His voice was calm and plain, but I didn’t miss the pain behind it.
I controlled my reaction carefully, knowing he was watching me, even though I wanted to panic. “I am sure he didn’t...” I stated what was in my heart, willing what Ryland had said to be false.
“Yes, he did,” Ryland snapped, his voice hitting a higher octave. “He kept her locked up until I could control myself, and then he made me kill her.” He started to cry, and I instantly regretted making him tell me.
“Why... why... would he...” I couldn’t finish. I wanted to run away; I didn’t really want to hear the answer.
“I let out some of the Vilỳ’s when I was seven, so he locked her up. He doesn’t want anyone else to be like us.” He dried his tears and went back to playing with his car, his humming loud and broken as he cried.
“You’re not going to leave me are you?” He didn’t look up, but I could hear the longing in his voice.
“No.” I reached forward and ran my finger through his curls, the soft hair moving through my fingers. “I’ll never leave you.”
“What if I asked you to?” My hand froze. His voice had deepened into that of an adult, his head still hanging down.
“Ryland?”
“What if I asked you to leave, Joclyn?” He looked up at me, his thirteen-year-old face looking strikingly like my Ryland, the Ryland of today.
“I can’t leave, Ry.”
“I’m sorry, Joclyn. But it’s too dangerous now.” His hands reached up and grasped my shoulders tightly, his small fingers digging into my skin through the sweater. With one mighty jolt he pushed me backwards. The white room disappeared as it faded into trees and sky. Ryland’s face continued to look down at me as I fell, fell away from him, fell out of the tree.
Wind I didn’t control came out of nowhere and caught me, just as my hand hit the ground in a precursor to the impact. The wind ceased as I dropped the last foot, landing hard on my back. I grunted as I sat up, rubbing the now sore spots that had been so recently broken.
“Ow.”
“Yeah, I’d say so,” Ilyan spoke from behind me. “You’re just lucky I was looking for you or that would have been much worse.” He was smiling broadly, but his smile faded away as he looked at me. It was like he could see right into me and knew what I had just seen.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“What did you do, Joclyn?” Ilyan asked; his voice sounded like my mother’s.
I flinched. “Oh, you know, the usual. Got mad at your sister, threw her into a wall, flew away.”
“You’re not the first to do that,” he smiled, “but that’s not what I am talking about.”
“Then what are you talking about?” The cornered teenager reflex was coming on strong.
“What did you do, Joclyn?”
I backed away from him as he continually stepped closer to me.
“Pushed my magic into the necklace, even though you told me not to, shared a Tȍuha with Ryland, who was younger, by the way, and told me all about how Edmund made him kill his mother.”
Ilyan’s face went from angry, to concerned, to furious as I spoke.
“Is it true?” I asked softly, hoping to deflect his anger away from me.
“Is what true?” he snapped.
“That Edmund made him kill his mother.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Ilyan pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, his eyes screwed up tightly. “Edmund tortures his children, Joclyn.” He dropped his hand to look at me. “He uses them to increase his power, to bend their will so that they only answer to him. He trains them to be destructive weapons and pawns in his little game. He holds no love for Ryland; he probably made him torture his mother as a way to break him, to teach him a lesson.”
“Them?”
“Yes, Joclyn. Them. All ten of them.”
I stared at him, my hands opening in a question.
“What do you want me to tell you? It’s nothing good.”
I could tell how uncomfortable the subject was making him; he was very edgy.
“I think I have handled quite enough to prove I can handle a bit of bad news.” My voice was firm.
He sighed exasperatingly at me before turning away, his hand running through his long blonde hair.
“Ilyan.” I wasn’t sure if I was angry or worried. The way Ilyan was reacting, it was so unlike him. I could almost feel the waves of negative energy flowing off him. He spun around to face me, his eyes damp.
“He tortures them, Joclyn. He tortures them until he breaks them, and then he uses them or he kills them. It’s not a monarchy he is running here. There is no next-in-command. It is only Edmund and the children he gobbles up and spits out. He did it to Zetta, he did it to Markus, Drayven, Ovailia, Sylas…”
“Wait,” I interrupted him, my heart clenching in my chest, “Ovailia?’
Ilyan breathed out deeply, his face looking like a cornered dog. He looked away from me, his hand dragging through his blonde locks again.
“Ilyan?”
“Yes. Ovailia. He tortured my sister by making her watch as he killed her mate. He forced her to track down and kill her friends. She bears a scar from her neck to her tailbone where he cut away, bit by bit, until she agreed to do it.” His voice was so bitter, so pained. I reached out to him, desperate to comfort him, to make it go away. But then my hand dropped; the awful truth of what he was saying hitting me hard.
“Your sister.” My voice was a whisper.
“Yes.”
“No!” I took a step back in horror.
Ilyan looked into me, that unyielding defiance I was used to, coming on strong. His eyes, so familiar, so much like Ryland’s. I had been too focused on Ryland to put the obvious puzzle pieces together. I felt ridiculously stupid.
“No!” I repeated, but my voice had lost its shock.
We just stared at each other; I had no idea what to say. All my life I had hidden. I had moaned and groaned and whined about some stupid mark. I had let it ruin my life, and all the while my best friend, the one person who meant the most to me, was being tortured every day of his life. But it wasn’t just him; it was the man who had saved me, it was his sister, it was seven others who had lost their lives. I could have cried; my body almost begged me to. But instead I squared my shoulders and held it in.
“We need to save him.” My magic surged beyond the barrier as I spoke.
Ilyan looked at me for only a moment before striding away from me. I ran up beside him, his pace winding me.
“We are going to save him, Ilyan, aren’t we? He’s your… your brother.”
“We are going to try.”
“Try? I thought this was a sure thing!”
Ilyan looked at me, his pace quickening even more. I wanted to ask him to slow down but didn’t dare.
“Edmund has increased the security around the estate. We will have to get through a lot more of his ‘henchmen’ than I had originally hoped. What I could glimpse of Ryland did not paint a pretty picture; he can barely move at times, and when he does, he twitches so badly that he can’t accomplish much. However, the party seems to still be ready to go on as planned, which can only mean that we are walking into a trap.”
I stopped in my tracks, remembering all of Ryland’s warnings to stay away from him, to leave him alone. He was still trying to protect me, and here I was preparing to stroll into the lion’s den to save him. It was ridiculous. Ilyan noticed I was no longer walking beside him and trotted back to get me, now dragging me by the shoulder beside him. My feet stumbled before I caught up to his pace again.
“Don’t sulk like a child; we are still going in to get him.”
“We are?” My spirits soared.
“Yes, I need you two together.”
“Why?” I knew I needed him with me, but it seemed odd that Ilyan felt the same way. Ilyan grunted and stopped walking right at the edge of the forest. I could see the door to the mot
el through the break in the trees. He pulled me around to face him.
“I saw the video, Silnỳ. He risked everything to talk to you, to tell you how much he loved you. And I know you love him, no matter how hard you try to keep it hidden.” He smiled sadly, his hand reaching up to cup the side of my face. I moved away a bit, but his hand stayed firm against my skin.
“Your bond is the strongest I have ever seen, and I am becoming worried that if he dies, you may not be far behind. And I can’t let that happen. Because I need you, too.”
“You need me? Why?”
“I just do.” Ilyan leaned forward and kissed my forehead softly. I felt dirty for letting him touch me that way and moved away from him quickly.
“Wynifred is waiting for you in your room. We leave in the morning.” He left me standing in the trees, feeling grimy and guilty. I wiped my forehead angrily before storming toward my room.
---
It was official; I hated the smell of hair dye. It burned my eyes and nose, the ammonia smell making me sick. I shook my head a bit to get the smell out of my nose, but it was no use; it was burning off my nostril hair, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Hold still or I am going to dye your face pretty colors, too.”
I said nothing but let her move my head to where she wanted it. When Ilyan had told me Wyn was going to help me get ready, this was not what I had in mind.
I had arrived in my room to a very excited Wyn who was armed with a pair of scissors and a bottle of hair dye. Even though they could alter my appearance magically, it would be easily seen through by Edmund and his men, which meant they had to alter my appearance physically. I had tried to convince Wyn to do something simple, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said that I needed to stand out enough that no one would guess it was me. It didn’t make much sense, but I didn’t want to argue.
I had been sitting dutifully in the chair since Wyn placed me here, my eyes closed as I refused to see what she was doing. I bit my lip until it bled when she cut off all my hair. My head felt instantly lighter. I only felt a bit of it fall around my face and on my neck before she began to coat it with the thick, sticky stuff I was now being tortured with. I huffed angrily in the hopes of showing my frustration, but regretted it instantly; my throat was now coated with the burn of the fumes.
Kiss Of Fire (Imdalind Series) Page 27