I could hear the TV. I heard the voices of some cheesy commercial chatter around me, almost like I was in the studio. I lay still, letting the sound wash over me as I replayed the dream in my mind, my face cringing at the lingering picture of Ryland’s contorted face. I shifted my weight out of habit, surprised when my body obeyed my command. Unlike the dream however, the movement triggered a hundred aches and pains. While it didn’t feel as bad as the last pain I remembered, it still was far from comfortable.
“Yes, Ovailia, I have felt them a few times, but nothing close as of yet.”
At Ilyan’s voice, I opened my eyes to a dark room. I lay in a curled position on the long couch, a huge pile of blankets set on top of me. It made my body seem overly large and lumpy.
Ilyan sat on the floor, his back resting against the couch by my knees, looking unfocused at the television directly across from me, the screen dim with some show about crab fishing. I watched it for a minute before Ilyan’s voice spoke again, pulling my mind away from the flickering box.
“Her spine hasn’t quite fused yet, but it is close. Once that has finished, we will be leaving. You need to keep him there; I will reunite them soon. Besides, I am not in the mood to babysit.”
I looked away from Ilyan, feeling awkward for eavesdropping on his phone call.
“Manners, Ovailia, mrȁvy.” Ilyan’s voice was so stern it made my hair stand on end. The raised inflection must have awoken someone else in the room, and I heard someone gasp for air near my head. I rotated toward the noise, the movement sending an even sharper jolt of pain through my spine.
Curled up in the big overstuffed chair, Wyn still slept with a blanket over her legs. Part of me wished that the Wyn I had seen before—the Wyn who had pushed me under the water—was just a figment of my imagination. There she sat though, dark tattoos running down the side of her face and arm. Looking at them now, they didn’t seem quite as sinister as they had before, but their presence still sent an unpleasant clench through my body.
“Finish setting your trails, and wait for my signal.” I heard Ilyan click his phone shut and shift his weight.
I couldn’t look away from Wyn. I didn’t want to try anyway; my body had begun to hurt and I wasn’t sure I could move.
“The marks were a gift from her father and brother when they kicked her out of her home. I believe they had hoped the marks would kill her, but instead, they just linger.”
I turned to the voice, shocked to see Ilyan sitting right by my head, his back arched so he could meet me at eye level.
“Broth… er?” I was surprised when my voice cooperated, even though it was almost agony to get that one word out.
“Yes, her brother. Not me, thankfully, but I might as well have been responsible; she was spying for me at the time, after all.” His voice sounded so angry and upset, the blame he felt still ravishing through him.
“Broth… brother?” I tried again, desperately hoping Ilyan would understand my meaning and explain more.
“No, Joclyn, I am not her brother, but I am a friend.”
I arched my back to get a closer look at Wyn again, the movement sending a violent spasm through my spine. I groaned in pain as it shot through me.
“Why… spy?” My voice strained, the words leaving me gasping, and my throat burning.
“Why was she spying for me?” Ilyan reworded my question, and I nodded my head, letting my back slide back into a more comfortable position.
“It’s complicated,” he said simply. “Wyn was spying on her father, her brother and their boss for me quite some time ago. She inadvertently saved me from a sticky situation and so I asked her to do me a favor.”
“How… marks?” My words crept out, each one hurting.
“Wyn’s kind—the Trpaslík—are a vicious race who punish traitors cruelly.”
I opened my mouth to question further, but he cut me off.
“I would really prefer that you not worry about all this right now. You need to heal, and the faster the better.” He must be irritated again; his accent was getting stronger and causing his consonants to turn into Zs and Vs.
“Please?” I wasn’t begging. The words were coming a bit easier now, my voice stronger and laced with irritation.
“You’re going to want to keep your back straight if you want it to heal properly.” He spoke simply as he smoothly changed the subject, like healing on a couch was the obvious thing to do.
“Hos… hospital,” I whispered, the rough movements sending sharp pains through me.
“I can’t take you to a hospital, Joclyn,” Ilyan answered my mostly unasked question softly. “They will be searching for you at hospitals.”
His hands wound under the pile of blankets I had been placed under, pushing and pulling my body to straighten my back and bringing my head back to look at him. I called out as he moved me, each shift in weight sending pain shooting through my body.
“Besides,” he continued, “I can heal you much quicker.” He winked at me mischievously as he finished aligning my back, causing the pain to stop. He kept his palms flat against the skin on my back, sending that familiar warmth through me.
“What…?” I tried again, frustrated when I could still only manage one agonizing word at a time.
“What am I doing?”
I nodded my head, pain shooting down my back.
“Healing you.”
My eyes must have bugged out of my head. That one statement had opened up a floodgate, and every unanswered question and unexplainable occurrence over the past few days begged to be expanded upon. Everything flashed before my mind in quick succession as they tried to fit themselves together; my mind flashing like a badly animated short.
“How?” I breathed out, not sure if I was asking Ilyan or my mind the question. Luckily, Ilyan answered.
“Your father insisted that he told you.”
My head snapped to him, another jolt running down my spine; I ignored it.
“He promised me he would find a way to explain it all when he gave you the birthstone. I assumed he did, but he seems to have disappeared since then.”
I should have cared more that my father was missing, and I probably would have if we had had any sort of relationship. However, my mind couldn’t see beyond that one piece of information that fit everything together: the objects flying around my kitchen, the sensation of flying, surviving a broken back and who knew what else, even Ilyan healing me with his hands. My father wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t deranged. He had told the truth.
“Magic,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
Ilyan nodded solemnly before replying. “I am sorry to have to tell you this way. I had hoped we would be able to gain your trust a bit more before telling you all that was going on.”
“Magic,” I repeated strongly. My teeth clenched in surprise and anger as my stomach spun in a threatening manner. The warmth of Ilyan’s hands grew and the wave of nausea subsided.
“Yes, Joclyn. Magic.”
I didn’t know how to react. Should I be relieved, excited, frightened? Instead, everything absorbed into me, and my breath picked up in short, staccato puffs as I tried to cope with the onslaught.
“I wish I could make this easier on you. You are probably very scared.”
Ryland had said that in my dream, but he also said he knew. I felt my panic surge as my need for answers grew.
“Calm, please, Silnỳ,” Ilyan whispered. The warmth increased again and I found myself falling asleep, whether I wanted to or not. “If you can stay calm, I will explain a bit to you right now. Can you do that?”
I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to try. As the tired feeling in my body began to subside, I tried to keep myself calm, and my breathing even. Ilyan watched me, his hands still resting on my skin.
“The mark on your skin,” he began, his voice calm and even, “is called a kiss. Although it really isn’t a kiss at all, it’s more like a poisonous bite. When the kiss—or bite—was given, a strong poison entered your bloodstream and changed you. It took the latent powers that you already had and enhanced them. We call those who receive this kiss, a Chosen Child.
“Now, not everyone has to go through this change. I, for example, was born with my magic. It is as natural to me as breathing. You, however, as with all humans who are lucky enough to receive a kiss, have to endure the change to bring the magic into your body.”
“Not human?”
“No, Joclyn, I am not human. Although I do not differ much from your kind, I am part of a race known as the Skȓítek. We are an ancient people who were once very plentiful; now there are only a handful of us left, only about four hundred.”
“Scree…” I tried to say the word, but my tongue knotted around it. I needed to know more; my mind couldn’t stop placing him inside a spaceship, but that didn’t seem right. After all, he had told me he had been born in Prague, but now I was wondering if he had told the truth at all.
“Yes, Joclyn. Skȓítek. Think of me as the gatekeeper for the birthplace of magic—the well in the earth where the powers within you originated.”
I wanted to nod, but couldn’t. Instead, I just looked at him, wide-eyed.
“As you know, the change a human must endure as they become one of the Chosen is very painful. The longer the pain, the longer the recovery, the more powerful is the magic.” He paused and I could tell he was gauging how I was handling everything he was telling me. I tried to keep a straight face, even though I was still panicking just a bit.
Part of me still didn’t want to believe him. If I had been able to string more than a few words together, I would have been rebutting him at every turn. As much as I wanted to argue, as much as I didn’t want to believe him, I still couldn’t get the images of the balls of light colliding in my kitchen, the flying refrigerator, or the sensation of flying out of my mind.
“How long?” My throat burned again as I spoke, my vocal chords cutting off before I could complete my question.
“Your father says you were in the hospital for about six months, which is one of the longest I have heard of.”
My heart beat uncontrollably. The longest? What was I, some ultra-powerful freak? Ilyan shushed me quietly as his thumb traced circles in the skin on my back. I wished I could shy away from the touch. It was something Ryland would do.
“Now, this could mean nothing. Most children focus and begin to use their powers days after awakening. It has been a bit longer than that for you,” he said darkly. I just stared at him.
“A kiss,” Ilyan continued, “is given by a Vilỳ to human children who already have a natural ability. A Vilỳ is a dark creature that most closely resembles a small, winged dinosaur; although their faces are more human. They are brightly colored and almost seem to glow, making them easy to find.”
The flash of blue, the glitter of wings; I remembered seeing both before the pain had hit. I had seen the little creature right before he bit me. I hadn’t been paying close enough attention; I didn’t know what I was seeing. If I had known what it was, would I have recognized it? Would it made anything easier? I doubt it.
“Vilỳs have not been seen in more than two hundred years, which is why, when your father found me in Prague, we came right to you. We would have taken you with us right then, grabbed your mother and ran, but there was a complication.”
My forehead furled; I hoped that my silent question was obvious for him. He only stared at me though, his blue eyes deep and troubled.
“What… complication?” I tried to keep my face calm; I wanted to know more, but was afraid he would stop.
“In all things in life, there is a good and a bad, a light and a dark.” He paused and I couldn’t help but realize that his voice had deepened. The change scared me. “Your kiss is one of those things that possess a dual nature as well. My life has been consumed by this purpose; in many ways it is the sole reason I stay on this earth. Myself, and all those within my family, have spent our entire lives seeking out and protecting the Chosen Children who have been kissed by the Vilỳs. For centuries, I have sought them out and protected them…”
“Centuries?” I cut him off, although my voice was a squeak, but he still sputtered to a stop at my words.
“Yes, Joclyn, centuries. I am very old, much older than I appear.” His lips turned up in a curious half-smile. “I wasn’t lying to you when I told you I was born in the 80s. It just wasn’t the 1980s.”
“When?”
“It was in the tenth century, Joclyn.” His voice was ashamed, like he was worried about my reaction. He had every right to be, too.
I struggled to keep my head, but after everything he had told me, what was one more impossible thing? I held my breath in an attempt to keep myself under control, unsure if I would be able to accomplish it. Thankfully, he continued anyway.
“The kiss on your skin is unique. There has not been a child who has been given this mark in more than three centuries. And the ones who had received their kiss before then have all but disappeared. This is why we had to come right to you. This is why we lied and hid; you are that important. You are the last of the Chosen Children.”
He spoke as if he were done and had told me everything, but he hadn’t. What about the bad side he had spoken of, what about the complications? I looked at him skeptically as I gathered strength to speak again.