Dawn of Ash (8 page)

Like a struggling infant, I emerged from Ilyan’s barrier, falling to the ground, my hands spread on the cold, bloodstained road. The shadowed darkness swallowed me as I coughed and sputtered in an attempt to catch my breath.

It was something that should have been impossible—to move through Ilyan’s barrier as I had—but there was one design flaw that the foolish man had overlooked. One little loophole that suited me perfectly.

The shield was made to keep all of Ilyan’s people inside, to keep them safe. However, it was also made to let all of those who served Edmund see nothing more than the destruction, their eyes shielded from the cathedral as it really was.

Ilyan, in all of his naivety, never assumed someone could be both, that someone could be inside the barrier and see the world as it was yet pass through without his blessing into the destruction of Prague.

He had never assumed someone could serve two masters or, in my case, none at all.

Coughing, I lifted my head toward the alley, toward the numerous pairs of hungry, yellow eyes that peered through the dark, their vicious natures awakened by my sudden appearance.

Hissing rang around me, gnashing teeth glinting through the dark as the tiny, infected creatures took off into the air, making a beeline for me.

Heart seizing in fear and exhilaration, I let the fear fill me, the smile spreading wide, knowing full well the vile things couldn’t touch me if they tried.

“Zdechnout,” The tiny things froze in mid-flight at the word, their bodies falling with a dull thud. Blood seeped out of the tangles of flesh and bone, staining everything around them with shimmering pools.

Rippling waves of heavy material broke through the silence as I unwound the fabric, throwing a heavy cape over my shoulders. The hood lay low over my head as I shrouded myself in the dark.

You have twenty minutes. To the third.
Her voice made me grind my teeth in agitation. I didn’t like being ordered around, especially from her. Not with what the divine magic of the earth had created me for.

I was one of the first, after all, and soon, I would be viewed as such again. Soon, even she would bow to me.

Centuries of planning, of plotting, of scheming were about to come to fruition. It had been that long since my reign had ended, since the first four who had come from the mud had been stripped of their title in favor of Edmund, a snot-nosed brat with no right to hold my magic, to hold any magic. Regardless, they had seen a god who held everything inside of him.

I had told them then what fools they were, but the order of the council had been in place since the beginning, and therefore, the council took control.

The people had won, and their precious kingdom had fallen to the wayside because of their conceit. I would gain it back, remind them of what we were put here for.

Edmund was trying for the same thing, or at least, that’s what I had made him believe. In the end, however, he only wanted power, not to reinstate our true purpose. He didn’t understand what we had been, because he was the one to ruin it.

I understood, and I would perfect it.

Silently, I ran over the streets of the deep red city, the solitary sound of the flapping cloak filling the lifeless city. The fabric was heavy, perfect for the prickly harshness of cold that was familiar for Prague this time of year. Once I was outside the barrier, it would be needed. Now, it was nothing more than a hindrance. What little of winter that made it through the greenhouse effect the barrier had created felt out of place against the stagnant pressure of the heat.

To Kozi, near the river.

My power flared inside of me at the sound of her voice, the strength of her command. The deep growl of the pure Drak magic swelled as I pulled it from the place I had hidden it within myself.

The icy chill of the powerful magic swirled as it took control, flooding me, and then, with the tiniest pop, with the smallest amount of effort, I moved, my body stuttering right to where Ovailia had commanded: the Kozi—the long, historic street that extended straight from the Vltava River, the banks of which had overflowed weeks ago, leaving bright red water lapping against the historic buildings, eroding the cobbles and thousands of years of history.

One place to another, without the faintest bit of effort.

A stutter.

A perfect stutter.

As they were meant to be.

Ilyan could perform a stutter because of the magic of his father, the weak strain of Drak magic the Chosen children possessed. It was why Edmund could stutter so flawlessly, and Ilyan was able to because the whispers of the same power ran through his own veins, the tiny magic amplified by the magnitude of his power. It was only the Drak who could truly stutter, who could truly manipulate time and space.

Drak power Edmund had stolen, that Ilyan had seized.

For centuries, I had let them believe it had something to do with the amount of power a body held.

It was an easy lie to let grow, just like all the others.

Like the ‘sight’ that had led Edmund to order the murder of all those bastard Chosen children who were like his siblings. One word to him about their danger and he had killed them all.

I needed them gone, and Edmund had given that to me.

It was needed. I couldn’t control their magic, after all. I couldn’t restrain the Drak power within the Chosen children as I had in my progeny, as I still struggled to do in Joclyn.

Letting that much power roam free would risk the future I had planned. The magic was too powerful for them, anyway. They had not deserved it. No one, not even my precious Dramin, deserved it.

At least I could control him.

Consequently, they had to go.

Joclyn would go, too. I had already groomed Edmund for that task centuries before. Although, at the time, I had assumed I would be able to control her, use her, a bit more than I had. No matter. She would be gone soon, thanks to a little information leaked to Edmund like a slow drip.

They saw her as nothing more than a threat, not what she really was. Edmund would destroy her, and thanks to sight, I already knew how Ilyan’s life would end.

They were the only two who could stop me, and they were half-dead already.

Everything was coming together.

I sped through the alley, moving dangerously close to the high wall of the dead end, as her voice came again. The false sugar she was so good at coating it with grew deeper.
Near the wall, on Na Ostrohu.

The blood-splattered stone wall was inches from me before my magic surged again, pulling me from one side of the city to another. This time, it was to a large street nestled beside the wall, the red-tinged light so deep you could barely see through it.

Running beside the modern homes and buildings felt out of place, the light tinting everything a deep crimson. I should have enjoyed the imagery of a beautiful scarlet world, but something was wrong. Something felt different. Something was here.

I froze in place, the constant movement Edmund believed was required in order to move me through his cage breaking with a snap.

Why did you stop? You are running out of time.
The rare panic in Ovailia’s voice surprised me, but I didn’t let it show. I looked toward the rooftop, toward the building where a faint popping noise of another stutter had resonated from.

Ilyan.

And I was sure, knowing them, Joclyn would be with him.

I had never been able to track her magic.

It was too pure, too close to my own. Besides, she was learning to master it faster than I could figure out how to block her, even though she had no idea that was what was happening. To her, it seemed like everything was broken, not that everything was starting to work properly.

That was probably thanks to my own interference, but we didn’t need to let her in on that little tidbit.

“Hello, daughter,” I whispered, a grin spreading over my face.

I knew Ovailia would be mad. Even if I tried to alert her to what had happened, she wouldn’t be able to hear. It didn’t matter. It was only a matter of time before they saw me, before they saw the man in the cloak in person.

It was sooner than I had planned for Joclyn’s nightmares to come true, but it would have to do. I had been preparing for this for far too long to let the perfect opportunity go to waste.

It would appear I had another game to play.

You need to keep moving.

I fought the irritation at her oh-so-obvious statement, hating how right she was.

Nový židovský hřbitov.
The old Jewish cemetery. Perfect.

He would follow me there, but I knew it well enough that he would never catch me. See me, yes, but not reach me. Besides, what was more haunting than an apparition amongst tombstones?

Moving through the stutter, I kept my eyes wide, ready to begin running the second I reappeared in the old graveyard. The lines of past and present moved through the darkness I traveled in, the colors bright against my vision before they left me staring at the red world again.

Darting through the old, broken tombstones, my heart thundered in eager anticipation, shoulders tense, everything in me trained on the silence, waiting for the faint pop of magic to signal the chase had begun.

As I ducked behind a large mausoleum, the same pop boomed in my ears. Then there was a low grunt of pressure as someone fell to the ground.

Wonderful.

They were here.

Now I needed them to see me, to see the cloak, to have Joclyn feel my magic. It was something that should be concerning since she was my daughter and should know the signal of my magic. But she didn’t know me.

Even with my magic fully charged and broadcasting, she would never know it was me. Even as her father, she would have no idea. She had never felt the full magic of the Drak before.

No one had. I was the only one who possessed it, after all.

But soon, everyone would feel it. Everyone would know what Draks were fully capable of.

Darting from behind the large, cement building, I ran between two smaller tombstones, attempting to give them the best possible shot of me, trying not to laugh as the gasp of fear and surprise hit my ears. I was grateful for the large headstone in front me, the massive thing perfectly placed to dodge the single stream of violent magic fired my way.

Swearing loudly, I plastered myself to the back of the massive pillar, gasping for air as my heart raced. I hadn’t counted on that. They were closer, more aggressive than I had thought.

I needed to be more careful.

It was a shame, really, that I could not control her magic right then, that I was not able to trigger another broken sight within her mind. It would be enough to send her reeling. However, my magic was too focused on the task at hand. Besides, connecting to her now, letting her feel my magic from a different side could be dangerous.

The soft crunch of dying grass bounced off the forest of stones, their steps slow as they approached me. The heavy pulse of my heart seemed comical against the snails they were.

I didn’t dare move out from behind the monument, certain they would hear my heart race if they got much closer.

Too bad I didn’t have a choice.

Last one.

It was all she needed to say. The last jumping point was always the same. It had to be in order to intersect with the underground pool of magic that gave me enough power to pull through the barrier.

Sucking in a breath, I steeled myself against what was coming, knowing I didn’t have much choice. I couldn’t throw up a shield if I wanted to have enough power to make it through the barrier. I had one shot, so I had better make it good.

Running out from behind the old headstone, I darted between a garden of ancient statues as stream after stream of debilitating attacks were sent my way. Then, disappearing with a snap, the stutter pulled me into the long, endless street of old town, the high buildings surrounding me on all sides.

I had run down this street a million times before, run to the same intersection, burst through the barrier unscathed. For the first time, however, I was scared.

They were close, and they had already shown they weren’t afraid to stop me. Here, there was no cover, no alley, nothing more than a straight runway until my next stutter when I would exit the tepid confines of the dome.

The vulnerability of it made me a sitting duck.

At a dead run, I moved, everything tense and fearful as I tried to focus. The dread increased tenfold at the sight of the long, blond mane of a man who landed right before me. It was all I could do not to scream.

I could see his tall frame, the anger and hatred gleaming in his eyes, waiting to attack, his hair fanning around his powerful build. He looked right at me, but I knew he couldn’t see me, not with the hood shadowing my face, not with the darkness and shadow that surrounded us.

The glow of power sped from his hand in a brilliant purple flame that would incapacitate me if it had time to make contact.

I never even saw it leave his hand before the faint pop of the stutter surrounded me, sending me out of that space and into a field that had been a farm, but there, in the dead of winter, it was little more than endless rows of withered corn stalks. Twisted crumbs of lifeless flora swayed in the bitter winter wind that tugged at the cape that was now a necessity.

My heaving breath flowed before me in millions of specs of white ice, the yellow sun and blue sky hovering above like crude shapes in a child’s drawing.

The other side of the barrier.

Try as others might, only I could move through it … Or rather, only I had the power needed to do it. However, I let Ovailia and Edmund think the move was made possible by their connection, by the control they had over me.

Another simple lie, ripe with benefits.

“Hello, Sain,” Her voice was the distorted silk it had always been, the sound of seduction and pleasure and gain. So fake, so forced. I had heard her true nature a few times before, and I would always prefer it to this. She seemed to think whatever she was putting into this façade was an asset; however, she was all acid and vice, everything about her coated with so much malice any lust she tried to conjure was cracked.