Authors: Rebecca Ethington
While they were definitely not as bad as they had been when I first woke up a few days ago, my stint to visit Joclyn last night hadn’t really taken them away, either. Less Mack truck, more elephant gun to the chest now. Either way, everything still hurt.
I knew I should have been upset that I was still being babysat, especially with Ryland fighting with his own mind. I couldn’t be, though, not with the tiny bit of information Sain had let slip and with what I knew it must mean, especially with the dream I had woken from.
“I was talking in my sleep?” My voice sounded flat.
“Yes, seemed to upset Thom some.”
Ugh. I knew why, and it only upset me more. My blood pumped in disappointed irritation.
“I wonder why that would be.” Sain spoke calmly, despite the fact that his eyes dug into me with the same intensity I had always hated from Draks. Even as a child, the way they looked into me creeped me out. I was so glad my best friend was going to start doing that, too.
Sarcasm is a beautiful thing.
“You tell me.” Yes, I was surly, but I had every right to be. Thom should know better after everything and all the centuries that had passed since I had seen him, the many lives I had been weaving my way through.
He should know.
It made me upset that he had gotten wrapped up in the “what ifs” that even I was still fighting with.
“I have no need to tell you what you already know.”
That did it.
Draks and their endless open thoughts and all-seeing ventures. He might as well be wearing purple robes and carrying around a crystal ball.
I slammed the water bottle down on the side of the bed with a thunk, droplets flying from the lip from the force. Sain moved away from them as if they were poison, his lip curling into a sneer of disgust.
“He was my husband, Sain. My mate for over a hundred years. I can’t walk away from that and back into a life I willingly left behind.” I tried to keep the snottiness out of my voice, keep the murderess at bay, but she came out anyway. As sour as the day I was born. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“You know as well as I that your heart is fighting the same way his does. Do not place all the blame on him.”
And there it was—the words that weighed me down and made it hard to breath, the truth that stopped me in my tracks and froze my anger in place. I was fighting the same thing.
Part of me expected what Thom did—to move forward without question. The other part of me knew that couldn’t happen. Not because of the death, not because of the memory, not even because of the life I had led without him, but because of the dream I had awoken from and the gentle way it pulled at my soul with all the possibilities of what it might mean.
“Sain?” I asked, my voice faltering a bit with nerves at what I was about to ask. “Can you still have Tȍuhas after your mate has passed on?”
“I wouldn’t know…” He didn’t even look at me as he said it; he only clutched the mug to his chest, his voice sounding a million miles away as he stared out the window at something I couldn’t see, at a life I could never comprehend.
I stared at him, waiting, trying to squash the irritation and the snide comments away. I knew that, the longer he waited, the higher the chance I would demand an answer, and that was something I wasn’t really interested in doing.
Then it hit me.
His
bonding,
his
mate,
his
Tȍuhas, they had been stolen from him. What was more, as much as he insisted that he no longer loved Ovailia, I knew better as much as he did. Love didn’t simply go away. It was always there. It was just that sometimes it was hidden, sometimes it was more pain than passion. That love, that connection, and that Tȍuha had been stolen from him, and there had been no death there.
I regretted my question at once, my breath shaking with exhale before I aggressively drank from the water Sain had given me while my forehead furrowed in agitation.
“But Dramin would.” It had been so long I hadn’t expected a response, and that one was the last one I would have wanted to hear.
“Dramin? Your son?” The words were little more than a squeak.
“Yes.”
If I had been confused and lead-filled before, it was nothing compared to now. The last time I had seen Dramin was in a cave in Africa, a cave I had filled with the blood of his children, his grandchildren. I had slaughtered them all. I had walked through the pools of their blood in my attempt to reach him, the hem of my dress soaked with the deep red magic that had once held the power of sight. I would have gotten him, too, if his mate hadn’t flung herself before me. Before I could finish her off, he had already gone.
“You are aware of my tie with Dramin?” I could barely get the words out.
“I am. After all, it’s the same tie you have with me. You killed all of my progeny, as well.”
Let’s just add to the dread, why don’t we?
I could barely breathe. I hadn’t thought of that before, but now that it was out in the open, it was all I could see. This old man who had led me out of Imdalind, whom I had traveled with for months, had his kind massacred by me.
“I still talk to you.”
I stared at him, my eyes narrowing as I tried to figure out what to say, tried to understand what he meant and what the peculiar look he was giving me was. It wasn’t the anger I would have assumed. Not the heartache, either. Something was there that I didn’t understand, though. Something that was fueled with an emotion I knew all too well, the same one that had fueled so many of the murders I had committed.
Greed.
Although why I saw it in him right at that moment, I wasn’t sure.
“Before you ask, he is here, and while currently unconscious, he will be waking soon. You should ask him then.”
I nodded once, understanding finally dawning on me. He still had them, too. These dreams, these Tȍuhas, whatever they were. They plagued him as they did me.
I was sure they plagued Dramin, as well.
Even if the son of the man before me didn’t have the answers, at least he would have a clue.
I only needed to ask him.
I only needed to face another of my past sins.
And I would.
I could tell by the look in Joclyn’s eyes as we stood in the dimly lit room she shared with Ilyan. I could tell by the confusion that stared back at me as we stood face to face as though we were preparing to duel. She didn’t recognize me.
She didn’t see me, not in the way she knew. Even though I was standing right in front of her.
I pushed my hands into the pockets of Thom’s leather jacket, my eyes unwavering from the confusion in her wide, grey eyes, the silent plea for understanding going relatively unnoticed.
I had come to this room the moment I had felt the swell of Edmund’s magic as I scanned the forest. I had come to report to the king, to Ilyan, in the same way I had for centuries when I had worked as his spy. It had never crossed my mind that Joclyn would be the one to open the door, that she would be sleeping next to him and would see the other side of me, the side that neither of us had known existed when we had first met.
She still didn’t.
I had tried to tell her so many times before. A few days ago, as we lay in the feathers that lined the floor of this room, I had been so close to telling her. However, her heartbreak had been too much. The demons Edmund had infected her with had made it so I didn’t trust how she would react. I didn’t want to put another burden on her plate; therefore, the words hadn’t come. They had stayed trapped in the feathers, and now it almost felt too late.
Joclyn stood in the middle of Ilyan’s room with the overly baggy pajama pants I was sure were Ilyan’s hanging on her hips, the dim light making her features seem darker. We looked at each other while Ilyan shuffled around that massive map of his as he processed the new information I had come to give him and Joclyn had confirmed. The magic in the forest had changed. Edmund might well be there. It was huge and frightening, but right then, that was the last thing on my mind. On Joclyn’s mind.
Right now, the question of who I was seemed like a much bigger demon.
I hadn’t seen anyone look at me like that for a while. I hadn’t seen that look of fear mixed with a disgust I could never understand. But now, seeing that same look coming back to me from someone I cared about, I got it.
I finally understood.
It was more than fear, more than confusion. It was the look you gave someone you did not like, someone who had hurt you. Before, it was a look that I treasured, because it meant I was striking fear in those I was about to kill, in those who were my subordinates.
It meant I was doing my job.
I never saw that look in Thom, because Thom liked who I was. And after, with Talon, I was a different person. I was happy, and for whatever reason, that joy spread. That was who Joclyn knew, that was who her best friend was. Unlike any time before, she saw what I truly was. She saw the real me. She saw the woman who struck fear and disgust. She saw the blood on my hands and the murder behind my eyes. She saw what people had seen for centuries, and she didn’t like it.
My best friend didn’t like it.
She didn’t like me.
I had hurt her.
I had hurt her by not telling her, by trying to protect her and giving her space to defeat whatever Edmund had done to her. What I had thought was support had only been betrayal.
Deceit.
I cringed at the look, fighting the snap and irritation that wanted to come forth. I knew it wouldn’t help, not right now.
I was still fighting between two people and trying to make them blend together.
I was beginning to think I never could.
Two lives, two people, stuck in one body, and while they both felt like me, they were strikingly different. No matter how much egg I added to the batter, they wouldn’t bind.
That would be, of course, if I could cook.
Perhaps that was why I was having so much trouble—my batter wasn’t right. Too much water or oil or whatever you used to make bread.
One side oil, one side water.
I could only see betrayal in her eyes, and it made me realize I needed to tell her.
“I need you to wake everyone, Wynifred,” Ilyan continued, pulling my mind from the explanation I had been about to give and right back to the emergency we faced. “Tell them to strengthen their portion of the shield, and inform them that we will be meeting in the dining hall at ten.”
“Ten? Why so late? If he is coming, we don't have time—”
He stopped me with one look, the expression so familiar it wiped the question from my mind.
He had let me break quite a few of his rules over the last hundred years; fueled by his guilt for what had happened, I was sure. Now that I was back and all my memories returned, though, I wasn’t going to get away with that anymore.
Fine by me. I liked this dynamic a bit more, anyway. He was quite fun to prod at.
“I need
everyone
there, Wynifred,” he scolded in that same tone, “and I will need to prepare Joclyn to meet Ryland face-to-face. Please tell Sain to do the same.”
I heard the command behind the words, the instruction he couldn’t give in front of Joclyn, because of what it really meant and what we were really facing. Edmund’s perfectly paced game suddenly made sense. It was more than sending Ryland to kill Joclyn; it was putting a weapon right in the middle of us.
No
, I corrected myself, my eyes darting to the broken girl in front of me.
Two weapons.
Joclyn was one, too, even if she didn’t realize it. They had broken her the same way. I was a fool not to have seen that from the way they used him in Imdalind. I was a fool not to understand.
We all were.
Two men stand, one will fall. Blood will drip. The game is played, and those with the most pawns will take the stage. Take your man and play the game, but be careful where your trust is laid.
Sain had said those words to Edmund, the sight that had been forced from him meaning so much more now from this side of the prison cell. The game was so much more than anyone other than Edmund understood.
Now we knew, and Ryland was here, perfectly placed to play the game Edmund had commanded him.
I swallowed once and curtseyed, the movement feeling awkward without the massive dresses I was used to. “Yes, my lord.”
With one last look at Joclyn and those wide confused eyes, I couldn’t help it, I smiled. I smiled the way I was used to. I smiled the way she had always seen. Then, while the tension in her shoulders lessened, the confusion inside of her only grew.
My heart tensed painfully at the reminder of what I had added to her already full plate.
I would have to tell her.
But now was not the time.
I left the room without another look. The snap of the closing door echoed through the long, stone hallway in a ripple that made me jump, as though the door closing was a snap of a gun and a call to arms.