Soul of Flame (Imdalind Series #4) (24 page)

I had felt it first less than two days ago when I woke to Ilyan and Thom around the table, but it didn’t have the same strength then as it did now. Now it felt like sludge against me, sticking to my soul, weighing me down.

The heavy mire pushed against me as I waded through it, straining to see the tent further, my heart rate picking up at the sight of the guard who stood before the narrow opening, his hands holding a gun tightly against his chest. A gun?

Trpaslíks don’t use guns. Magical people do not use guns.

I tensed as I looked into the nervous apprehension on the Trpaslík guard’s face. He was miles away from us, with no reason to face battle, and yet he was nervous.

The other Trpaslíks that were in the camp sat around a small fire. They were laughing, excited for the battle, for the bloodshed. Something was still off; their backs were stiff, the laughter forced, their eyes continually darting toward that same tent.

My heart beat quicker as I looked back toward the tent, my need to know what was behind the burlap swallowing me. I sped my magic toward the tent, my body and magic weakening the closer I got until the image of the tent began to dim. I pushed through it, ignoring the burn in my chest until my vision faded to black, a sharp pain exploding inside my skull as my head made contact with the cold stones of the floor.

“Joclyn!” I heard everyone exclaim at my collapse, different levels of worry all moving together into one confusing sound that expanded the pressure in my head.

“Is she okay?” Wyn asked from somewhere far away, the alarm in her voice drifting down to where I lay on the floor.

I felt the heat of Ilyan’s hands against my ankle as he tried to hide the touch, his worry so paramount I found myself crying from his emotions alone. Ilyan’s magic flooded into me as I writhed in pain on the floor, while flashes of the Trpaslíks’ fear ignited in the black of my eyes, the panic in their faces alerting me to something much more dangerous.

They were scared of a weapon they meant to use against us.

“You can’t go that way!” I shouted the words through my labored breathing, my panic making it impossible for me to control my decibel level.

“Joclyn?” Ilyan asked, his worry smothering his regality for the moment.

I pushed my way off the floor in a desperate attempt to reach the table. Everyone around me moved away as if I had caught fire. Ilyan reached out to me in an attempt to keep me down, but I only broke through his hold, my fingers clawing at the smooth wood in an effort to warn them.

“Joclyn, what it is?” Ilyan asked, his voice strong as he moved behind me, his unquenchable need to hold me consuming.

I said nothing; I only clung to the side of the table as I stretched my hand over the ink that had returned to the surface of the map. My fingers were shaking as I reached toward the empty space on the map, my heart still thundering at the oppressiveness of the tent.

Something is here,
I sent into Ilyan’s mind, my voice quivering inside of him. “Something bad.”

“Do you know what it is?” he asked, the fear he held for me turning into something deeper, something that scared me.

I can’t see; something is blocking me… I can’t get too close.

“What is going on, Ilyan?” Thom asked in irritation from behind us. Ilyan paid him no mind as he leaned down to me, his hand a brief, forbidden touch before it was gone.

“If you use my magic, can you show me?” he whispered, his face moving closer in an attempt to keep his words hidden, something that I wasn’t sure had worked. I was sure Ryland had heard and understood my failure, my weakness.

I tensed at the thought of using Ilyan’s magic, of needing help, of being as weak as Ryland had told me, as Edmund had made me. Just like Atlas.

Except Atlas wasn’t weak, only a fool; and I wasn’t Atlas. Not anymore.

My eyes darted to Thom at the thought, his eyes hooded as he tried desperately to keep his emotions hidden. Even through the tough-guy look, I could still see his worry for me, for what was happening.

I pushed aside my pride and held onto Ilyan’s hand, knowing I would need it for what was coming.

“Yes.” I closed my eyes as I leaned against the table, pulling Ilyan’s magic into me as I stretched the combined power away from us.

The murmurings of confusion hummed through the kitchen, the sound distancing as I pulled my mind away. I could hear Ilyan try to explain what was going on, but his voice was tinny and hollow, the sound lost over the sound of the birds that filled the trees around me. Everyone else was too far away now.

I was too far away.

I could still feel the warmth of Ilyan’s hand around mine as my consciousness sped through the trees and over the camps until it reached the tense encampment that surrounded the burlap tent. Until I felt the magic that was dead in the air.

The air was stagnated with oppression, but I did not feel the same weakness as I had before. Ilyan’s magic strengthened as he supported me, looking through my eyes, moving forward with me. The guard shook a bit as we approached, obviously affected by the same magic that was smothering us. His fingers were white as they held the gun, his grip so tight I was afraid the thing might snap in half.

I tried not to let the guard’s fear fuel my own as I watched the flap of the tent snap in the wind as if it, too, feared what it was hiding. My heart rattled in my chest as my magic moved through the stiff fabric, bringing us face to face with a terror we hadn’t expected.

“Vilỳs,” Ilyan yelled, the echo of his voice sounding clear in my ears before the distant murmuring took over, everyone’s questions sounding like angry waves in my ears.

I looked around the tent through my mind’s eye, my heartbeat speeding up as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.

Everyone had spoken of Vilỳs as fun-loving sprites, magical creatures who helped man and were gentle and kind. I had seen that idea mirrored back to me in Ryland’s drawing in the Tȍuha, in the sights I had seen. I had expected winged creatures no taller than the length of my arm with odd, sphinx-like faces and brightly colored skin. However, these creatures looked nothing like what I had seen; these beasts were terrifying.

From floor to ceiling, rows of dented, metal shelving lined the fabric walls of the tent, every inch crammed with the large, shackled creatures. The mutated, infected things were folded and contorted in an effort to pack as many of them in as possible, the mania on their faces clear as they screamed and yelled. The once bright hues of their skin were brown and diseased, large gashes littering their bodies from clawing at the ones who sat next to them.

They screamed as they fought against the tiny shackles that bound them, their faces turned up at me, almost as if they could sense my magic amongst them. Even from so far away their magic was so strong I could barely breathe.

Ilyan’s fingers dug into my hand as his own fear gripped him, our heartbeats speeding up in time.

I gasped and pulled my magic away from the contagious hatred that filled me, my eyes snapping open to the dimly lit room. I wanted to say that I was safe, that I had left the putrid magic behind, but I could still feel it. I could still feel the panic wind through my frayed nerves.

“How many more of the tents are there?” Ilyan asked of me, his body shaking in fear as he moved to mark the tent we had just seen on the map.

I did not want to feel the poisoned magic, but I had no other choice. I closed my eyes and sent my magic back through the forest that surrounded us, the glinting tendrils floating through the trees as I counted the tents. My eyes snapped open as I felt the last of them, my palm tensing against the table as I tried to control the fear.

There were ten tents.

Ten weapons.

I stared blankly over the surface of the map as ink spread from my fingertips. It flowed over the surface of the map, forming small, black boxes where each one lay. I stared at them as they darkened the paper, my breathing still trying to regulate from the smothering sickness that had infiltrated me.

“All those are Vilỳs? I thought Edmund had killed them all,” Wyn asked, her voice shaking as the fear in the room seeped into her.

Ilyan said nothing; he only nodded as he watched the last box appear, his lips a hard line as the plan he had formulated crumbled to the ground.

“My Lord,” Sain said, his voice tentative as he broke the silence. “Were they infected?”

My head snapped up at his question, my teeth grinding together in fear. I could see everyone else turn toward Ilyan in question, different levels of fear clear on each of their faces, but I couldn’t look away from my father. I couldn’t look away from an answer I was terrified to hear.

“What do you know, Sain?” Ilyan asked, his jaw hardening as he glared at him.

“I am unsure, My Lord,” Sain replied. “I only saw one, in the beginning, after I made sure the birthstone was delivered to my daughter. They captured me and forced the water into me. I didn’t know what I was seeing at first as I did not know who I was, but I saw it in that sight, a Vilỳ. It was sitting on Edmund’s dresser, like a prized bird.”

“Edmund’s dresser,” Ilyan repeated, his voice suddenly monotone. I looked at him in question, sucking in breath at the weird, distanced look in his eyes. “Was it next to his bed?”

“Yes.” The word shattered through the room in waves of terror.

Ryland’s eyes darted to Sain in shock while Wyn looked like she was ready to explode.

Ilyan groaned beside me, his hand dragging through his hair as he moved away from the table, his steps heavy in frustration. His muscles tensed as he paced in the darkness away from us with mumbled Czech on his lips.

I looked from Ilyan to Thom, to Wyn, desperate for some form of explanation, but no one was looking at me.

“He found a way to strengthen himself,” Wyn said, her voice strangely odd and distanced, like she was repeating something she had heard before. “You don’t think it is the same, Ilyan?”

“I do,” Ilyan replied from behind me, his strong voice echoing around the elongated room.

“But Cail never said anything about a mutation.” My legs almost buckled at the use of his name. I had no idea what they were talking about, but right then, I didn’t care. I could already feel the fear creep in, see the mortar in the wall turn to blood.

I looked to Ryland unwillingly as my body began to shake in fear—his dark eyes meeting mine—and I cringed, the anger pulsing, screaming at me to attack him, to kill him. I gasped as I tried to push the emotion away, my ears filling with the beat of my heart as I gulped in air.

“Cail never spoke of many things, Wynifred,” Ilyan growled, the repeated use of the name like a blunt blade gashing me open. My fingers dug into the wooden edge of the ancient table as I attempted to steady myself, my knees trying their hardest to buckle underneath me.

“Ilyan, you know that he would—” Wyn’s voice was sugary sweet again, and I cringed at the unfamiliarity of it.

“Do not use your prowess on me, Wynifred. This is hardly the time.” The loud snap of Ilyan’s voice ripped through the thin layer of my serenity, my torso folding over as I fought to hold onto my sanity.

“Yes, My Lord.”

“He has obviously done something to them, but what? And why?” Ilyan’s voice was softer now, the volume coming right down on top of me from where I lay over the table. I almost expected his hand to press against my skin, his comforting magic to fill me, but that never came.

“They will turn you mad,” Ryland said out of nowhere, the hard edge of his voice increasing the lack of stability I was experiencing.

I saw nothing other than the blackness behind my eyes as my fingers dug into the map, Ryland’s necklace digging into my chest as I struggled to control my emotions. I could already tell it was a lost cause.

Everything picked up as the voices washed over me, one after another they came. I couldn’t focus beyond the fear, past the way my magic sped through my bloodstream. Everything blended together so perfectly that I wasn’t sure who was speaking or even what they were saying.

“He has scores of them. I don’t know what he has done to them, but if they bite you, you’ll go mad. If they bite a human… well…”

“Edmund will have an army.”

I tried to focus on the voice as it echoed through the tunnel of my mind, to make sense of it, but everything only spun violently through me.

“Hovno, if he builds an army out of the humans, he will be able to end everything.”

“We can’t wait; we have to fight him.”

“Joclyn can’t possibly fight these.”

“The sight has shown that she will be ready… Joclyn...? Joclyn?”

I was vaguely aware that Ilyan was calling my name, that he was scared. I could hear the fear in his voice, feel the waves of it in my mind, yet I couldn’t grasp it enough to pull me back. I couldn’t see behind it. All I could see was red, the flame of an ember washing over my eyes as I drifted into the fluid awareness of sight.

Except this time was different than any other sight I had been given before. This sight felt hollow, open, as if I stood before a wide valley, ready to swallow the world.

It felt powerful.

The ember burn in my eyes drifted into black before a red-roofed skyline I had never seen before came into view. The roofs were tinted in gold as the sun set around them, the beauty of an unknown city covering my eyes before a fountain of black shot through the sun. The spout of brown, muddy water faded into faces of horror as hundreds of mortals ran through cobblestoned streets, their hands and faces covered with blood as they yelled and cried in a desperate attempt to find safety from whatever had attacked them.

My mouth opened as the sight shifted, the air filling with the hollow tones of my own voice, the sound of the sight echoing in my ears.

“The death will come; the sky will fall.”

The sight flipped again to a group of people huddled in an alley, screaming and crying as the small winged creatures I had seen in the tent flew down from the mass of brown in the sky, their teeth bared as they prepared to attack.

“Smrt přijde, nebesa se zhroutí,” a deep, unfamiliar voice spoke through the sight, the man’s voice hollow and distorted.