Soul of Flame (Imdalind Series #4) (6 page)

“She will rise to the path the sight has chosen for her. I expect nothing less from her,” Sain said, his voice deep and mellow.

His words promised his confidence in me, but he did not look into me with the pride my mother always had. He looked at me with a reverent awe, almost as if I was untouchable.

Like I was a god to him.

The thought made me sick to my stomach.

“I would hope not, considering that now we are surrounded by hundreds of blood-thirsty Trpaslíks. You ready to face that, Silnỳ?” Thom turned to me with the same hard look in his eyes, the plea for an answer digging through me.

I wanted to tell him yes. I wanted to say I was strong enough—that I was ready—but I knew it would be a lie, so I held still, my arms clinging to Ilyan even though I was aware it made me look weak. I needed the rock of him underneath me.

Thom’s eyes narrowed at my lack of response, the fear in my eyes giving him all he needed to know.

“Didn’t think so,” he growled before he turned away, his back crouching dejectedly.

“
You must find your strength to protect her, to be near her, for it is only by your side that she can find her true purpose, that she will find the strength to kill those that would end the magic of the world
.” Ilyan’s words flowed from him, the air rippling with the power that they held as my blood warmed. The second the last word left him, thunder rumbled around us, the sky opening up as if the earth felt the power as well.

“The words of the sight, Thom,” Ilyan continued. His voice lowered as the air continued to crackle with an electric charge. “You should know better than to doubt them. Joclyn has been given this path, and this power, for a reason. Without them, Wynifred would have never survived the zánik curse.”

Something that Ilyan said had hit a live wire in Thom. He spun around to face us, his dreads swinging as the fire in him turned into a torrent. “And Dramin would be standing next to us, not dying in his room.”

I cringed at the snap of Thom’s voice. My anxiety flared in warning, the unwanted fears breaking through as he glared into me.

“D-dying?” I stuttered out, unable to look away from Thom, even though I knew I should look anywhere other than at the face that was fueling my fear.

I couldn’t. Because, even though I could feel his anger, all I could see was the pain. It wasn’t the fearful looks I had been given in the Tȍuha. No, it was the same raw fear, the same heart-breaking anger that I had felt every time the demons of the Tȍuha had come after me. It made it so I could almost understand him. I
heard
the pain that seeing Dramin injured had caused him, the fear of losing someone so close to him.

My eyes widened as Thom came undone right before me.

“Yes, Silnỳ,” Thom snapped. “When you attacked him, you killed his magic. Ilyan has been able to revive it, but it never stays, his magic keeps fading to nothing. He’s an ancient. How long do you think his mortal body will last without his magic?”

“I-I didn’t… I th-thought…” I stuttered out, not knowing what to say to take away his pain. How to explain the regret I had felt after the attack had left my hands days ago, the fear that rocked through me now.

“You tried to kill him!” Thom yelled, the blue of his eyes glossing over as his face turned red.

“Thomas Krul!” Ilyan roared as he stepped toward his brother, blocking me from Thom’s rage. His magic flared while Thom cowered before him. Ilyan’s muscles rippled as he stood protectively in front of me, his arms spread wide as he shielded me.

I should have been grateful for the protection, for Ilyan’s willingness to stand up to him right then, but I couldn’t. I was too focused on Dramin’s sleeping body in his room across the abbey; on the gentle lull from all that was left of his magic, on the way he didn’t move. Thom had spoken as if Dramin was moments away from death, and now I could feel that in him.

He couldn’t die, though.

I wouldn’t let him.

Four

My sanity was slipping away, just like it had last night when I had run to Wyn.

I had run from the others without thinking, my feet pounding down the halls toward the weak spark of Dramin’s magic that called to me from the other side of the abbey. I tried to ignore the way the walls that surrounded me crumbled and warped in my subconscious, but it was no use. Thom’s anger echoed through my mind as I moved, flaring my fears, and the horrors of my insanity followed me even though I could still see reality clearly through my eyes. It had all become two parallel universes working against each other in an attempt to drive me mad.

I clenched my teeth as my heartbeat quickened, my hands running along the walls as I struggled to stay standing. I turned the last corner at full speed, my magic opening the door in front of me to a large, dark room less than a quarter of the size of Ilyan’s. The blue light of night seeped in through one of the large windows, casting everything in shadows. The room was a cluttered mess with piles of books, stacks of paper, and shelves that lined his walls. Each shelf was full of the earthen brown mugs from Imdalind, each full of Black Water. In the middle of it all, Dramin lay still on a small, white bed, the blankets pulled up to his chest.

He lay completely motionless, a ribbon of moonlight laying over him, enhancing the dark purple rings which hung like dirty hammocks under his eyes, his skin an ashen grey that matched the ancient stone of the walls. Someone had placed his hands one over the other on his chest; the same way my great-grandmother’s had been at her funeral, as I am sure my mother’s had been when they buried her. It was as if whoever had placed him there had thought him dead.

Except he wasn’t dead; I could see him breathe, feel the weak pulse of his magic that was buried deep inside him.

I had known that I had attacked him—that he was weak—but somehow, seeing him like this made it all the more real. The thoughts of coming battles and the war I was expected to win vanished in a wisp of smoke. They didn’t mean anything anymore, not as much as what I had done to Dramin.

My body folded into itself as a violent surge of regret wound through me, tensing my muscles. Ilyan’s arm wrapped around me as he came up behind me, pulling me into him. I felt Thom and Sain step into the room, but I didn’t turn to acknowledge any of them. I couldn’t look away from the steady rise and fall of Dramin’s chest, my heart pounding against my ribs until they hurt.

I did this,
I hissed into Ilyan’s mind, my anger igniting the words viciously.

“You had reason,” Ilyan whispered, his voice calm despite the worry I felt run through him.

“I had-d no reas-son to at-tack my b-brother,” I stuttered, the acknowledgment that he was my brother an iron barb in my heart.

The world broke around me as I felt the hard stone floor slam against my knees. The impact ricocheted through my bones, my shame breaking free in a wail of agony and fear.

“Joclyn?” my father asked, his confused question drowned out by my howl.

“I d-d-did this. I k-killed h-him!” I cried into the floor, my voice as broken and strained as when I had been trapped, when I couldn’t remember anything. I stared at the floor, the creases between the stone turning red with blood that was not there.

“No, my love,” Ilyan whispered against me, his arms wrapping around me as he kneeled down beside me.

“I h-had-d n-no re-reason.” Tears flowed from my eyes as I tried to pull away, his arms loosening just enough so I could look at him.

“You did not mean to attack him, but you had a reason for what you did. You know you did.” Ilyan looked at me, his love and worry projecting through the deep blue of his eyes, but I didn’t see that. I only saw Dramin’s eyes when my magic had hit him, the sadness as he bid the world farewell. I only saw the magic as it flew from my hands, the last of Cail’s mind disintegrating around me.

I clenched my hands into tight fists, my long nails pushing into the skin of my palms as regret and anger filled me.

Ilyan must have felt my panic because he clutched me to him, his lips pressing against the mark on my neck as he held me. The aggressive shock wound through me in a surge of energy that took away just enough of my anxiety to give me a chance to control it.

“You are strong, my love. You can fight it,” Ilyan reminded me, his voice a whisper.

Emotions and memories ran through my mind as I fought the torment, desperate to regain the strength I knew was still hiding within me. At the same time, I danced with the urge to disappear into the insanity that had opened its arms to me.

“Teď tiše, moje malá. Upokoj se, buď klidná. S novým úsvitem se svět změní. A když se změní, uvidíš, jaký bychom měli být, ty a já.” Ilyan whispered the words of our song to me, the meaning clear even without the tune behind it. His words broke through just enough to give me a jolt of strength, allowing me to banish the fears from my body.

The pain and horrors scattered like light in the dark. I raised my head to my brother, my stiff body uncoiling as I moved to step toward him
.
I could feel the apprehension try to return, but I pushed it away, my need to see him compelling me forward.

I reached out shakily to touch Dramin’s arms, his skin clammy under my fingers. With my skin against his I could feel what I had done. I had destroyed his magic, just as Thom had said.

Just as I had feared.

I hadn’t been able to stop it; the attack had controlled me.

It was just as I had seen in the cave in Italy as I hovered over the pool of Black Water. When I had seen Dramin’s death.

My body collapsed onto Dramin’s, my hands clinging to him as my regret and pain swelled and grew until a howl broke from my lips.

Ilyan was next to me in a second, our song a whisper on his lips as he gave me something to focus on, something to chase away my terrors.

“I s-saw this,” I sobbed as he held me, his song fading as I spoke. I let my magic flow into Dramin as I clung to him, his body feeling cold and lifeless against the heat from my power.
In my first sight, I saw Dramin’s death. I saw the flow of magic, the way the life left his eyes…

I just didn’t know it was me who would kill him
, I said to myself, the words trapped where I wasn’t sure I would ever let them escape.

“Show me,” Ilyan whispered, his breath hot against my skin.

I closed my eyes, the vision coming to the front of my mind as I pushed it into Ilyan the same way I spoke to him.

My vision came like a reel from a movie, flashes of white before the images of the sight came. I saw everything as he did, my body still as I was trapped in Cail’s mind, the yelling as I woke, and then the fire and the screaming. I showed Ilyan the stream of magic that I now knew had come from my hands, the slow fall of Dramin’s body. I showed him the way Dramin was tightly wrapped in white cotton, his face covered in a red handkerchief. My chest tightened as together, we saw the hole in the ground, the frozen dirt covered with snow. I wished I could look away as the next image came, the sight of me standing alone in an ancient cemetery, my face streaked with tears, the imagery fading to black as the sight ended.

I gasped as the sight left, Ilyan’s footsteps moving away from me as I collapsed against Dramin.

“He knew? You knew?” Ilyan asked, the betrayal in his voice generating a bitter taste in my mouth. My regret became a pain as Ilyan’s thoughts filled me—all the years he had hidden him from Edmund, and all of it had been for nothing.

I didn’t know what to do,
I moaned in agony, hoping Ilyan would hear me through his own regrets, that he would understand what I was really saying. That he would hear my fears.

“What is going on, Ilyan?” Sain asked, the stress in his voice flaring my own.

“Dramin… he was…” Ilyan tripped over his words as he questioned having to tell Sain the truth.

That his son, my brother, would die.

My father stood before me, his soul rent in fear of what he would be told. Yet, only minutes before, he had relished the idea of my part in the sight, the sight that would end in my death. Had he ever cried for me? It was a foolish thought and I knew it, one caused by years of abandonment and resentment. I batted it away, my regret at telling him the truth vanishing as the words spewed from my lips like poison.

“I saw him die,” I said, cringing at the shake in my voice, the memory replaying itself in the blacks of my eyes.

Sain stiffened at my words, his magic angry and violent in the air before it receded.

“Did you see it in sight?” my father asked, his voice wavering as he moved toward me. I looked up from where I still clung to Dramin’s body, my hair falling over my face in long, black strands that blocked my vision.

I could see him standing on the other side of the dark room, his eyes widening toward me in desperation to know more, to feel hope. I couldn’t give him that; I couldn’t lie. I tightened my lips as I pushed the desperate look in his eyes from my mind, and I nodded once in agreement.

That one gentle head bob sealed Dramin’s death, and Sain’s face fell, his jaw slack as his breathing lengthened. Sain’s silence stretched through the room, throbbing like the knell of death in my ears.

I couldn’t look at the pain in his eyes anymore. I didn’t want to feel the agony of regret over what I had done to him. I lowered my head, my ear pressing against Dramin’s chest, to the dull throbbing pulse of his heart.

I listened to the rhythm of his pulse, the heat of my magic moving through him, pulling at me in gentle tugs and jolts as it guided me through him. The pressure built in me as my magic swelled, the feeling similar to last night when I had healed Wyn.

Then, I had heard her cries and my magic knew what to do, my mind showing me the way as my Drak blood flared within me. Just like it was doing now.

I raised my head to the three men who stood around me. Thom, standing right in front of me as he wrung his hands in worry. His thick dreads had come loose from his ponytail, his eyes red and swollen. He was haggard and broken. I had felt his desperation before, but now I saw it, and I knew I would do anything to help him.