Ilyan turned and placed his feet firmly in the soft seat of the car. He stood, his torso extending out of the top of the car as he faced what I could only assume were our pursuers. The wind caught his hair and whipped it around his face. The violent nature of the flying strands matched his face perfectly; his eyes were set in a dark, stoic blue, his jaw set in an oddly patronizing smile. There was so much power and determination that I couldn’t look away from him.
“Hold on tight, Jos,” Wyn screamed from the driver’s seat. “All hell’s going to break loose now that they know he is here.”
I looked up at Ilyan whose smile had increased tremendously as he raised his hand to the side and sliced it through the air.
The car vibrated as a large, abandoned dump truck skidded across the road, rumbling violently in the opposite direction. The truck followed the span of Ilyan’s hand as it swept behind us before a large pulse of light left Ilyan’s palm. The light must have collided with the truck, as only moments later, our car rocked to the side, an explosion violently pushing it around.
Wyn swerved the car to the left, cutting over two lanes. Ilyan swayed, but stayed atop the seat, shifting his feet to compensate for the dramatic movement. He raised his hands above his head again; his palms open to the sky, his face toward whoever followed us. At first, I thought nothing had happened, but then I saw the flock of birds, their path changing to reflect the movement of Ilyan’s hands. The stoic V of the birds was thrown apart as he moved his hands. A rush of wind sped above the car as they made their way toward our attackers, whipping through my hair on its way. It tugged at the bag I sat next to, the destructive force shredding the plastic.
Ilyan moved his hands again, this time to the side. I felt the wind rush past us before it picked up a small sedan that had been abandoned at some point in time. The car lifted easily into the air, the large metal frame spinning like a leaf in the wind. It hovered there until it zoomed away to crash into something or someone behind us. I jumped as the noise of the collision hit us, the sound echoing around the speedily emptying highway.
Ilyan smiled at the impact, his face alight with enjoyment. “There he is,” he growled, and he lowered his torso for only a moment to speak quietly to Wyn. “You’ll need to be on your toes. You know your father’s temperament better than I do; Timothy is going to play dirty.”
“You just keep yours under control, and we may escape this mess we are in,” Wyn responded forcefully.
Ilyan laughed wildly at her before standing again, facing our attackers.
Wyn slowed the car briefly before accelerating again, her driving sending us barreling through empty lanes and around frantically driven cars. Ilyan only laughed at the movement of the car, his body swaying gracefully as we swerved.
His laughing continued as he waved his hands above him. I watched his actions in confusion as a large van came into view, maneuvering through the air above us. My heart jumped at the sight of the family still trapped inside. Ilyan had only been using empty vehicles as ammo, but someone else had thrown more than a vehicle at us. Someone else had thrown people. My anxiety lessened as Ilyan set the van down at the side of the road, and hopefully, into safety. He didn’t waste another moment before sending a massive explosion toward our attackers.
Ilyan lifted his hand again, his eyes taunting the enemy behind us. His hand flexed, sending long strands of violent color from his fingertips, like electricity. The sound of explosions and grinding metal penetrated the air so completely; I could not tell what was going on.
Wyn swerved out of the way to avoid yet another explosion, but the tires still strayed into the broken road. Bits of asphalt flew into the empty cavity that was once the roof, littering me with small burning rocks.
I could hear Wyn’s quick erratic breathing from where I sat, and I could hear her whispers as she spoke to the empty air around her. She spoke to Talon; she moaned his named as tears streaked down her face. She was trying to be brave, but her heart betrayed her. She knew there was no hope; she knew we were going to die.
Part of me knew she was right, and sadly, I was okay with it. I wanted to see my mother again; I wanted to apologize. As much as my heart ached and screamed for my mother though, a much bigger part knew I could not leave Ryland. I needed him, just as much as he needed me.
Ilyan sent another round of ammunition flying past in a steady stream of large rocks, small cars, and everyday mundane objects. Ilyan had grabbed everything he could with his mind and launched it away from us like weapons.
He lifted his hands again as a large, brilliantly-red, ball grew from his hands, shooting away from his palms like a bullet and pushing him back inside the car. The sound of the explosion rolled through me, the power loud and angry. My body called out in pain; my voice moaning and gasping with each movement. I remembered what Ilyan had told me; we had to escape alive and not in comfort. He had also said there were too many for him to fight alone. I looked to his crumpled form in the passenger seat, my heart sinking.
His face no longer held the joy, the solid determination, that it had held a moment before. Ilyan’s face was screwed up with panic, a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. Wyn swerved blindly to the side in an attempt to escape another explosion, the front of the car nicking another of the escaping vehicles.
“Take Joclyn and run, Wyn. Get back to Talon. I will hold them off as long as I can.” Ilyan gripped Wyn roughly, his voice a panicked command that made my stomach flip.
“You’ll never make it out! I can’t… can’t let you.”
I could tell how much it cost Wyn to say the words, to actually be willing to not make it back to Talon.
“Don’t worry about me; I can do a lot more when I don’t have to worry about keeping others safe.”
I twisted myself in the seat, my body screaming out in agony as I moved. Behind our speeding Mazda, a line of black SUVs followed, each one large and foreboding. Their gauntlet herded everyone down the highway, moving us into certain death. In the center of the line, speeding in front of all the others, was a bright yellow Lotus.
My heart stopped beating, my breath caught, and I felt the tears of panic splash down my face out of nowhere.
“Ryland.” Had I meant to say it out loud, or simply speak to him in my mind? My voice caught in my throat, but the reply was right in my ear.
“Run, Joclyn. Stay with Ilyan.” Ryland’s voice was a whisper, but clear as day. I whipped my head to the side, devastation filling me to see nothing but the gray bag. I looked back to the Lotus, desperately searching for his dark curls.
“Ryland.” I lifted my hand and placed it on the glass of the back window. The firm, smooth surface of the glass was hot under my touch. It felt like the burn of the necklace that still pressed against my skin.
I focused on the warmth, on the heat, the image of his face floating into my line of sight. The warmth grew, both in the necklace and in my hand. It moved into me, the heat seeping into every part of my soul. I pressed my hand harder into the glass in my desperation to see Ryland. At the increased touch, the glass shattered under my hand.
A million pieces scattered across the trunk of the car, over the road. I didn’t have time to look at it; I couldn’t be surprised. Only a moment after the glass shattered, the road behind us shifted. I screamed as the asphalt heaved itself into a giant pile, the earth moving to lift it upwards toward the sky, into a mound. The cars began to move up the increasing mountain for only a moment before they were hidden behind the large pile of asphalt, stones and earth that spanned the freeway.
I spun around, my body aching, to face Ilyan. I expected to see him standing with his hands extending out, but instead, he remained inside the car where he had fallen, his eyes wide and staring.
“Drive, Wyn.” His voice was calm and awed.
I flipped my head back to the mound of earth and back to Ilyan, wincing at the pained movements.
“What happened, Ilyan?” I asked quietly.
He just looked at me. The answer was clear on his face—he didn’t know.
I turned my body around, looking toward the distancing earth pile. Behind that pile, somewhere, was Ryland. I lifted my hand to my necklace, the warmth receding. The heartbeat of scorching heat left it, leaving only a slow throbbing. I held it tightly again, still staring back out the window.
“Did I do that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?” I rounded on him; how could he not know? I stared into him in a panic, my throat burning, my body aching.
“I will know soon, Silnỳ.”
“When?”
“Soon.” He reached forward and placed his hand against my cheek. “We will be home soon and then I will know everything. And, I will tell you. I promise.”
“Home?”
“Joclyn, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you know where we are going quite yet.”
I felt the warmth of Ilyan’s magic flood through me, the numbness moving through my body and into my brain. I turned to see the last of the city flash past me before my vision blacked out and Ilyan’s magic put me to sleep again.
“Just wait. You will see what I mean.”
“I don’t have time for this; can’t it wait until later?”
“No, Ovailia, it can’t. If he—”
“Fine.”
I felt the depression of the bed as someone sat down near my feet. A bed. The more I woke up, the more I could tell it was a bed. I could feel the soft and hard combination of a spring mattress made far too long ago, and smell the musty stench of blankets left too long in storage. I opened my eyes, trying not to move.
It looked like I was in an old hotel room; the décor was something out of the sixties. The wallpaper was faded and peeling in places, but still had the obvious brown-on-orange striped pattern that was popular then. An orange, angular lamp sat on a darkly varnished table, a hard plastic chair pulled up to the side. The look of the room explained the musty smell of the bed and the blankets; they all must have been here since the day the hotel first opened for business.
Although the shade to the window near the table was open, the light filtering into the room was dim and filled with the blue light of dusk. Even with what came in through the window, there wasn’t much light, which was further diminished by the dark color scheme.
“Ugh. More commercials. I don’t know if I can wait any longer.” It was the woman’s voice I had heard before. It was deep and nasally. She was irritated, and by the sound of it, she was irritated all the time. Her voice held only a subtle hint of an accent, as if she had been trying to get rid of it for far too long and had only partially succeeded.
“Ovailia...” Wyn pleaded. I could pick Wyn’s voice out now, accented or not.
“You have another minute, Wynifred; that is all. I hate human news; it’s so boring,” Ovailia’s voice drawled out angrily.
I felt the bed move as someone shifted their weight. I just held still. I wasn’t sure I wanted to let them know I was awake. Ovailia did not sound like someone I wanted to meet right now anyway.
“Here it is!” The sound on a television they had been watching was turned up, and someone shifted their weight again.
“We have a further development on the kidnapping of sixteen-year-old Joclyn Despain, who has been missing for twelve days. And in the murder of her mother, fifty-three-year-old Angela Despain.”
Murder.
I thought of her still body spread over the kitchen floor, her beautiful, yellow nails. Ilyan had said it before, and I felt the same destructive force move through me now as it had then. The dilapidated house that contained my soul ripped apart with a violent explosion that rushed over me in a torrent of depression so deep, I was drowning in it.
I was barely able to stabilize myself amongst the flow that swirled around me. I did though; I caught my breath and found a hand-hold somewhere deep inside. I was stable, but empty. I could tell automatically that this pain, this emptiness, would never leave me.
“Ryland LaRue, who was last seen with the young girl, and continues to claim his innocence in her disappearance, has stepped forward in a press conference this afternoon, offering a reward for information leading to her safe return.” The sound cut out as a video clip was loaded.
“Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, and members of the press.”
I sat the second I heard his voice. Ryland, the hand-hold that I clutched onto deep inside me. His voice felt like an electrical current that shot through me. The blankets tumbled down around me as I sat, my body surprisingly not protesting the quick movements. The two women at the foot of the bed did not register my actions; they, too, were focused on the TV screen. I was vaguely aware of them; Wyn with her short, auburn hair, and Ovailia with an absolute sheet of sleek, honey blonde that fell well past her hips and cascaded over the grungy brown bed spread.
“I would like to address you today…” My ears did not hear another word. The sound of his voice faded away into the air around me.
At first glance, he looked like the Ryland I had always known, the Ryland I had always loved; dark curls falling over his face, strong jaw, strong body, bright blue eyes. However, once my heart stopped seeing and my mind was left to linger, I instantly felt the tears come.
He had been beaten.
His left eye was swollen and tinged with an ugly purple, a large gash ran from his cheek and down across his neck before disappearing underneath his shirt. A few more deep purple bruises were just visible from underneath his hair and around the collar of his shirt. Although he gestured with his left hand, his right and dominant arm hung loosely at his side. I could almost see the pain in his eyes, the strain in his face. I recognized the same pain in me, the same entrapment I had felt over the last few days as my body ached and tried to heal. He was in agony.
Then, he flinched. It was so subtle I almost didn’t catch it. His left arm moved toward his chest and then out again. I reached toward the image on the screen, my heart calling out to him. The bed lifted as Ovailia stood and took a step closer to the screen.
“You see it, too?” Wyn whispered.
I tried to focus on what Ryland said, but I couldn’t; my heart beat too hard in my chest. He seemed fine, until another twitch, this one bigger, caused him to stop. He paused and lowered his head, his chest heaving as he breathed. The clip played for only a second more before cutting back to the announcer and then the TV shut off.
“How much time does he have left?” Wyn asked.
I saw Ovailia’s mane of hair shake, her shoulders sagging.
“A week, maybe two, if we are lucky.”
I didn’t flinch at Ilyan’s voice, even though it was so close to me. He stood to my side, beyond my line of sight. I stayed still, my arm still extending toward the television screen.
“Why would he do something like that?” Ovailia snapped. “And to his own
precious
son, too.” The words dripped off her tongue like poison.
“It wouldn’t be the first time he has hurt his own children, Ovailia. You should know that better than anyone.”
I turned toward his voice, my arm finally dropping down to the bed. He stood at the side of the bed, his back leaning against the ugly brown and orange papered wall.
“But if he only has a few weeks before his mind is lost…” Wyn began, her unfinished thought fading into the steadily darkening room.
“It’s true then, everything he told me in the dream.” My voice was so quiet, my throat burning as I spoke. I looked to Ilyan who raised an eyebrow at my question. In my peripheral vision I could see both Wyn and Ovailia whip around to me in surprise.
“What dream, Joclyn?”
I looked at him skeptically, second guessing myself.
“He came to me… I thought it was a dream…”
“What dream?” Ilyan repeated.
I felt a heavy panic creeping through me, the reality of what was happening hitting me hard.
“When you held me under the water, Ryland was there. I thought it was a dream…” My voice gained in intensity as the panic continued to grow.
“What did he say to you?”
My fear rose, knowing exactly what was going on. I knew why he was twitching, what was happening, because Ryland had told me.
“His father… he is deleting his mind. Edmund’s killing him, isn’t he?” I looked hard at Ilyan, my panic demanding the answers I desperately needed.
“He’s not going to kill him.”
My heart swelled in relief, until Ilyan’s tone, his desperation, sank in.
“A Vymȁzat is when someone uses their magic destructively on another person. In essence, they delete, or partially delete, that person’s mind. They remove all memories and personality. A Vymȁzat creates a shell of a person that can be molded to become what the one who uses the magic wishes them to become. In Ryland’s case, Edmund will not kill him; instead, he will delete all of him and turn his body and magic into a weapon.” Ilyan’s voice was so deep, it almost didn’t sound like him.
“No! We need to save him.” I went to remove the covers from me, fully intent on running to his aide; but my head swam so uncomfortably, I was sure I wouldn’t be moving anywhere soon.
“I don’t know if that’s possible, Joclyn. There is no known way to reverse it,” Wyn said.
“What else did he say in your dream?” Ilyan asked gently, pulling my attention from the other two.
“Only that…” I paused as I replayed the dream in my head, trying to pick out important pieces of information. I stopped as I recalled him writhing on the ground, my memory vividly showing me the small mark on his back. The mark he had kept hidden from me. My breathing picked up again.
“He had a mark like mine on his back.”
Ilyan only nodded in acknowledgment at me.
“Why did he have a mark?” I said to Ilyan in a panic when it became obvious he knew and wasn’t going to provide me with an explanation.
“Do you remember when I told you that Edmund and his servants have been hunting the Vilỳ, and that it is the Vilỳ that gives a kiss?”
I nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“Well, Edmund captured them and siphoned off their poison for years and kept it, so that when his next child was born, he could create a child with such a large amount of magic that no one could defeat him.”
“Ryland?” It was obvious who he was talking about, my stomach turned in worry or excitement at just saying his name.
“Yes, Ryland. He injected him with the poison when he was two. He didn’t awake from the injection for eighteen months… it’s a miracle he survived.”
“How do you know this?” I asked, trying to ignore the bile churning its way up my throat.
“It doesn’t matter how he knows, little girl.” Ovailia’s voice was ice against my back.
“But you said I was unconscious for—”
“And yours remains the longest
natural
awakening. Ryland’s mark was forced, and therefore, an unnatural anomaly,” Ilyan cut me off.
“Where were you in this dream?” Ilyan changed the subject as he came to sit next to me on the bed. I shifted away from him a bit, feeling uncomfortable with how close he was.
“I don’t know. It was all white. Ryland said it was some sort of shared consciousness.”
Ilyan smiled almost knowingly at my words, while Ovailia and Wyn gasped in unison.
“A Tȍuha?” Ovailia exclaimed. “How is that possible?”
“What is that?” I asked “A Tȍuha?”
“It is exactly what Ryland told you it was,” Ilyan commented quietly. “A Tȍuha is a place where your minds can go and be together, no matter how far apart you are in distance. It is normally only reserved for those who have gone through the Zȇlství, which is why it is so surprising that you shared one with Ryland.”
“Zȇlství?”
“He means bonded,” Wyn translated the word from Czech for me. “You would refer to it as a marriage.”
My jaw dropped.
“Marriage?”
“I had a feeling your connection with Ryland was stronger than any of us thought after you raised the highway into a mound when we escaped.” Ilyan’s eyes dug into mine sharply.
“I did that?” I asked.
“Yes, but not on your own,” Ilyan continued. “Ryland helped, too.”
A pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a herd of elephants. I could only stare at him, my jaw dropped in awe.
“You don’t mean… the necklace?” Wyn asked, her voice almost a squeak of nerves.
Ilyan nodded in response to her question, his focus still on me.
“What necklace.” Ovailia scowled. “What have you been keeping from me, Ilyan?”
Ilyan finally released me from his gaze to stare down Ovailia with hard eyes.
“I keep from you whatever I deem, Ovailia.”
Ovailia wilted under his sharp gaze.
“You will have to excuse my sister,” Ilyan’s voice was impregnated with something akin to diplomatic anger. “She forgets her manners from time to time.”
“Or on a daily basis,” Wyn grumbled under her breath.
Ilyan chuckled at her comment while Ovailia only growled.
I probably should have been more shocked, given how fuzzy my mind was when Ilyan told me that Wyn was not his sister. Looking between Ilyan and Ovailia right then, I felt supremely stupid for ever believing that Wyn and Ilyan were siblings in the first place. Wyn was so short and darkly colored; she looked out of place between Ilyan and Ovailia with their tall, fair beauty. So much was alike between them; their high cheek bones, the shade of their eyes, and the golden color of their long hair. Ovailia’s features were refined, her high cheek bones and cat-like eyes giving her the look of aristocratic beauty. Still, somehow, her attitude ruined it and turned some of her striking elegance into rubbish.
“Since you have chosen to keep things from me, do you wish to enlighten me now?” Ovailia waved one of her hands impatiently to the side, her long fingers extending like a dancers.
“Show her your necklace, Joclyn.”
“What does any of this have to do with my necklace?” I asked, clutching the ruby tightly through Ryland’s sweater.
“You are going to have to tell her, My Lord,” Wyn spoke, her weight shifting on the bed to face me.