Dawn of Ash (28 page)

“No,” Ilyan growled, his mind going right to where I expected it to, and judging by the intensity of his response, we shared the same opinion.

“He can’t help, either.” My voice was barely loud enough to cover the sound of Joclyn’s mumbling, the words so garbled no one could have made them out even if they were listening.

Ilyan’s eyes widened at my proclamation, his eyes so focused that, if he wasn’t so connected to Joclyn, I would be sure he would have forgotten her.

Ryland looked between us, picking up the pieces to what we were talking about.

“Sain?” he finally asked, but neither Ilyan nor I looked in his direction. “What do you mean Sain can’t help? He’s a Drak. Of course he can help.”

“And he may be double-crossing us,” Ilyan provided like an afterthought, his focus shifting back to Joclyn who was working herself back up into a panic.

“We still don’t know that for certain. Joclyn is his daughter; they are of the same magic…” Ryland’s persistence was unsurprising, but I knew it would be.

“Yes, but just because he can help us,” I said, my voice calm as I looked Ryland in the eye, “it doesn’t mean he should. His help has done damage to this child. I won’t let him do more.”

“You sound like you know more about this than I do, Dramin,” Ilyan said, a terror I hadn’t expected seeping into his voice. I thought Joclyn would have told him of what we had discussed. Perhaps she hadn’t found the proof she was so desperate for.

“He’s doing more than double-crossing us all,” I sighed, my voice as heavy as the weight that was pressing against me.

“I know,” Joclyn whispered, her voice soft as it seemingly answered my statement, her eyes black as she stared at something none of us could see. “I have seen it before.”

Ryland took a step toward me, hardness gripping his jaw. For a moment, I was in no doubt he was going to erupt in some loyalty tirade. However, he stayed still, silent, his eyes darkening as something different began to take over.

My anxiety continued to rise as they waited for me to continue, my own fear for what was coming increasing. The chair felt suddenly uncomfortable and overly wooden beneath me.

“Her sights have been changing.”

Ilyan nodded, his eyes dark. “Yes, she’s been having trouble controlling them, too.”

Ryland looked between us, his expression falling into a deeper shock at what was unfolding before him. “But sights don’t change. Sain said—”

“It’s happened to me before.” I swallowed heavily, the sound audible in the stunned silence of the room.

Ilyan’s focus finally snapped from the air he had been acquainting himself with, one look prompting me to continue, one look telling me I had no other choice except to admit what had happened.

“I was only a child … long before you were born. I saw Ovailia’s true mate, and then I saw it change. No, Sain changed the sight. He created a Zlomený.”

“Ovailia’s true mate?” Ilyan could barely get the words out.

“I saw Ovailia, saw the joy and happiness she was supposed to have…” Then he had changed it, and it was devoid of all the joy I had seen that day. She always was—come to think of it—sour and angry. Even on the day when she had bonded herself to Sain, the man she was not meant to marry.

And he knew it.

He knew it because he had seen that sight. He had also probably seen something similar before. He had already seen her. He had already chosen her.

“He changed it,” I whispered, my focus drifting to Joclyn, even if I hadn’t told her whom I had seen. “He changed what I saw so he could have her. Different angle, different point of view, but it was the same sight, distorted enough I couldn’t really tell what was going on.”

“He’s changing more,” Joclyn gasped. The words were so perfect I was again sure she could hear me. Nevertheless, she still lay there, eyes black as she looked into the void of sight, face blank as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“He couldn’t have.” Ryland’s voice was dead, as though he himself was piecing it together yet refusing to accept it.

“What all did you see in the sight? How did he change it?” Ilyan finally asked, volatile anger erupting over his face, the grip he had on Joclyn increasing until I was positive he was going to break her in half. However, he only buried his face in her hair. The light in his eyes faded, although not enough to sever the hard edge of fear that had come over me.

Normally, I could face Ilyan’s temper, but I was an old man, my magic gone. I wasn’t facing anything.

“I saw the bonding again, but this time, with Sain in the place of the groom. Tatí threatened me, told me of the broken sight, of how some things are wrong. The way Joclyn described her sight to me, the way they pull differently after the change, the noise and the static … It’s the same.”

Ilyan fixed me with the hardness of a scowl so deep that, for a moment, I could actually see a shadow of his father in him, something I had never thought I would see.

“So,” Ilyan began, his voice distorted through his clenched teeth, “he’s spreading rumors about her while he controlled her enough to make all those rumors seem viable. If there was a doubt he was the cloaked man before, there is no question now.” The level of anger in Ilyan’s voice matched the volatility on his face.

I looked at Ryland in a plea for help, but he wasn’t even looking at any of us. He was staring out the window at the now pitch black sky, his face as hard as Ilyan’s.

“Have you ever heard Sain talk about the theory of magic? About how it’s all connected? About the waterfall?” Ryland asked out of nowhere, the question so random the anger in Ilyan evaporated.

“You mean like the délka vedení královsk?” Ilyan asked, his anger vanishing as he spoke of the ribbon that declared his place among his kind.

“No,” Ryland sighed, his focus pulling away from the girl and to the two of us in turn, guilt riddling his face as he dragged his hand through his curls. “It’s something Sain told me about how magic is connected. He said he let Edmund
think
he controlled his sights when he was in prison,” he quickly clarified, as if that made it better. “He told me magic is connected through the races, through the family ties, like a waterfall, or a ribbon. Magic is really carried by one person—the first person. Like how the mud birthed your grandmother and your father and held the end of the ribbon of their magic, controlling it and all the magic of those below him, all the magic moved down through him. One after another, all tied to the first, to the top.”

“Sain
told
you this?” I asked, barely able to get the words out as everything clicked together in my mind.

A ladder, a connection of magic, and a man who might or might not be controlling it all.

“He said all the Drak magic flows through him, that he controls it.”

“Controls.” I looked up to Ilyan whose anger was returning with a force I could feel take over the room. “Just like the Zlomený.”

“It’s like you said; Sain is controlling her … changing her sights.” Ilyan stopped, as though the words had caught in his throat, as though the anger had held them there.

“No,” I announced, something clicking into place. “He’s not. He
can’t
. He’s trying to, but he doesn’t have full access to her magic. That’s why she’s reacting this way, why her sights are doing this to her. Someone is trying to control them, and her magic is fighting it.
She
is fighting it.”

“What do you mean he doesn’t have full control?” Ryland asked. I was actually surprised he hadn’t put it together yet.

“It’s not a ribbon. Not for her. I’m actually surprised Father doesn’t see it,” I mused. “Or maybe he does, but after so much time, he’s too stubborn to believe otherwise.”

They both looked at me, obviously not piecing it together yet.

“Joclyn is one of the Chosen with all of the different strains of magic flowing through her. All of these different abilities are tied to a dozen different people. For her, it’s not a ribbon; it’s not even a straight line. It’s a spider web that is wound through everyone.

“Edmund is the first of the Chosen. Ilyan, the son of him, but also the eldest surviving descendant of Frain. Joclyn’s magic is connected through Edmund because she is Chosen, but also through you, Ilyan; not in binding, but in carrier, as well. The first of the four over all of the Chosen. Silky strings tying everyone together.”

“A web,” Ilyan repeated, his face blank as he put it all together. “And Sain…” He stopped short, the unspoken words clear.

It was one thing to realize how magic was connected and another to know what Sain was doing, to have Ryland confirm Sain had known it all along.

“What is he up to?”

With one look at Ilyan, I could see the questions spelled out quite plainly, his own confusion mirroring mine. I nodded, my lips drawn in a hard line before looking down to my still winding hands, wishing, once again, I had a mug I could at least pretend to drink from.

The hush was interrupted by a loud scream that ripped from the girl Ilyan held in his arms. She shook, she screamed, and her black eyes gazed into Ilyan’s as though she could see him. No, as though she
was
seeing him.

Just as before, when she spoke so plainly, she could see. She was here. It was something I had never seen before. To observe while seeing.

“Joclyn?” I asked aloud, unsurprised when she turned toward me.

She was here.

“Ilyan,” I gasped, my body tipped toward her so far I was convinced I was going to fall. “I think she can hear me.”

“What? How?”

I watched her, trying to find some clue that would tell me what to do. If I had my magic, I could connect with her sight, see what she saw, and guide her through it like I had done when she had seen for the first time.

Simple.

So simple.

The reality of what I had told him hit me, a small, misplaced fact falling into place like pieces of a puzzle.

“Ilyan,” I whispered hesitantly the moment Joclyn had calmed, the last note of Ilyan’s song fading into the silence. “Do you remember when I told you about the water? About how the more you put into—”

“The more I come in contact with it, the more I have in my body? Yes. Are you suggesting Sain can somehow control me, too?”

“No, I was actually going to suggest the exact opposite. Because of the Drak magic your father holds, thanks to his kiss and the magic you hold in your body from the water that has touched your skin,
you
could control
her
.”

“I don’t want to control her.”

“Perhaps control is the wrong word,” I mused, my hands twisting as I shifted in the rickety chair, wishing there was some way I could support my weight enough to pace the floor.

“When we were in the cave, when Ryland had pulled her into Cail’s mind”—the boy recoiled from where he stood, but I ignored him—”you tried to connect with her magic to pull her back.”

“Yes?”

“Do it again,” I gasped out, the tension in my chest growling with anticipation. “But this time, connect with the Drak inside of you to see what she sees. Give her the Drak magic you possess in order to strengthen her, to help her find a way out of whatever my father has done to her.”

“
My
Drak magic?” He was obviously skeptical.

I interrupted him without waiting, something I knew he normally wouldn’t appreciate, but given the situation, I was willing to risk it.

“Yes, that magic that is tied to your father, your mate, and the Black Water that flows through you. Connecting to magic is how Draks share the sights. Perhaps it is what she needs—someone to share the sight with her, not control it. Someone to help her find the base of reality and take control of her ability. Break whatever bind Sain has placed over her. Set her magic free. Set
her
free.”

He gawked at me, his pride keeping him from admitting his lack of knowledge. No one knew anything about Drak magic. It was always carefully guarded with secrets Sain had imposed on everyone since the beginning. Even then, with everything I had ascertained in the last few days, I wasn’t sure how much of that was based in truth.

For all I was aware, I knew nothing about my own magic or even what it could do. I had no tools to give him beyond what I had already shared.

Sain’s rules had kept everyone pinioned under a control so deep they never saw the sun. Now I was breaking the rules. I was going to set them free.

“I have been fighting,” Joclyn moaned, the broken speech drowned by the tension in the room. “I’m going to keep fighting.”

“Sain is trying to restrain her for a reason,” I went on as Ilyan broke his contact with me to look from Ryland to the girl in question. “What her magic is doing is more powerful than any Drak magic I have seen, any Drak magic I have been told exists. Perhaps her magic is what Drak magic truly is. Perhaps it is what Sain has kept hidden all along.”

“If you don’t try, Ilyan, I will,” Ryland spoke up from the foot of the bed, his voice shaking a bit. I was confident he was fighting with whatever demon still dwelled inside of him. “She’s my best friend, and our father’s blood is in me, as well.”

The two brothers looked at each other, locked in a gaze I was positive was not built in competition for the first time, but in understanding. In support.

“No,” Ilyan contested, his hands shaking as he pulled the burned one out from underneath Joclyn. “I will do anything to save her. I have already proven that time and time again, and this isn’t so much saving her as unlocking her.”

The moment Ilyan had spoken, there was only silence intermingled with the sobs of the girl and the shuffled noises of the boy.

No one could look anywhere other than at Ilyan as he pressed his hand to the nape of her neck, the burn on his hand connecting again to the mark on her skin with a jolt that, considering the way he moved, was filled with enough electricity to charge a city street.

He gasped at the contact, hissed at the power, and his eyes flew to mine in a request for guidance.

“Find the burn inside of you, Ilyan. Find the water. Follow it.”

It was advice he would never want to hear. There was so much water in his body, burns and poison that had caused him agony for centuries, pain I knew he had fought against since the day the water first scarred his chest. And now I was telling him to follow it. Now I was telling him to feel it. Regardless, he didn’t hesitate; he closed his eyes, gasping and hissing in agonizing pain as his body tensed, the arms stiffening around Joclyn as the agony became worse.