Burnt Devotion (2 page)

My eyesight flitted in and out as the courtyard of the Rioseco Abbey flickered through the dark, streaks of what I was sure was blonde hair adding to the visual cacophony.

Words plowed through the static like a steamroller as I was thrown about, my screams coming loud as the pain swelled and sucked me into the void again. The brief moment of understanding brought back a hope that I desperately wanted to feel, even if I knew it was hopeless. I tried to fight against the pain, to fight against the curse, to force my magic to battle, to force myself not to give up yet. I didn’t want to, though I couldn’t make anything come.

“I didn’t make that decision for you, Ovailia.” I knew that voice. I knew the depth of that accent. I knew the sound. It was so familiar. Familiar enough that it pulled me out of the disconnected world.

The sound of thunder rumbled through my bones as air moved through my hair. Then strong arms wrapped around me as if I had done nothing more than fly into them.

“Goodbye, Ovailia,” the voice came again, the memory pulling at the name I had used so often it almost became more real than his actual name. The name of a king who had saved me so many times I could barely count.

“Ian.” I wasn’t sure if I had spoken aloud, if I had been able to control my mind enough to work over the screams.

The static came back and steamrolled Ilyan’s voice, and whatever words had been meant as comfort were lost in the room that the pain had trapped me in.

I was sure we were moving, I was sure he was talking, but I couldn’t register that. I couldn’t be sure. I could only hope that Sain would be able to tell him of Prague, that he had told him of whatever he had seen. If I was lucky, they were taking me to Joclyn. I could say goodbye before it was too late.

I almost wished it would hurry up.

“Wynifred.”
Thom?

I had hoped Ilyan had been taking me to Joclyn, that Sain knew how to heal me, but this? Hearing his voice? I wasn’t sure if I was already dead, if he was really there, or if it was a cruel delusion of the torture I was trapped in.

“Wynifred,” the voice came again, breaking through the static like a battering ram, the sound so clear and embedded in my memory that, even if my mind had still been bound, I was sure the sound of his voice would have broken the cage wide open.

I could still feel the pain. I could still feel the heat and the way my body tried to rip itself in two. Strangely, though, I didn’t care.

For the first time since the heat had taken me, I could focus beyond it. I could feel the heat of his hand against mine. I could feel his fingers as they ran against my face, my tears as he caught them.

I still could not see him, but I didn’t care. If this was what I heard, what I felt, before I died … There was nothing I wanted more.

“Thom?” I was sure I had spoken this time, even though my voice was broken and airy.

“I’m here.” His hand tightened around mine at the shattered emotion of his words. The memory of how he had looked when he cried still so clear inside of me. The way his eyes pinched together, his hand instinctively moving through his short, brown hair, much the way that his brother did.

Everything was so clear, the memory so fresh, that for a moment, the pain didn’t seem to matter. For the briefest of moments, a joy I didn’t think I could feel again took over. The emotion was so backward from the agony that still ripped through me that I was sure the curse had already done its job.

That I had already passed from this life.

“Am I dead?” The question came without prompting, the seemingly childish query more honest than I had meant it.

There was only
dead
and
not dead yet
now. I couldn’t ask if I was going to be okay. I didn’t have that luxury anymore.

“Not yet, sweetie, but I’ll stay here until the end,” he said with an exhale, his voice shaking even though I could tell he was trying to be strong. I could tell in the way he held my hand, the way his hand pressed against my cheek, even through the shake of his nerves, of his heartbreak.

It made me ache. It made my muscles twist and writhe. It made my heart beat reawaken with a painful pulse of regret and longing.

In the last moments of life, I felt more alive than I think I ever had. I focused on that, focused on the heat, focused on the hand that held mine. And, for the shortest breath of time, the pain didn’t seem to matter, the fire didn’t seem so destructive, and the blackness that surrounded me fell away.

It faded to a dimly lit room that I recognized at once and a man who, even though he had changed—even though his hair was in long dreads and his skin more worn, his eyes slightly dimmed—it was still the man who had taught me so much about life and love.

It was still Thom.

I looked at him, the pressure of his hands tight against mine, as I saw him for the first time in centuries. As I saw him for the last time.

I didn’t dare say anything. I didn’t have anything to say. He had heard it all before, felt it all, lived it all. Accordingly, I held his hand, staring into him as the world around him began to shift, as the black of the curse threatened to take me back into the disconnected world that it had trapped me in.

I waited for it to come, watching the grey seep into the world, only to have a courtyard materialize before me, the world waving and blending together as my mind took me to a place that I hadn’t seen in what felt like years—the beautiful, perfect world that Talon and I had created inside our Tȍuha.

Even though I was sure I hadn’t moved, even though I could still feel Thom’s hand around mine, I could see the sanctuary that our bond had created. I could see every brick, the bench we had spent so much time on, the shadowed body of a man leaning against the wall.

My soul jerked at the apparition, the discolored, shadowed form seeming out of place. I knew at once who it was, even though I knew he shouldn’t be there. That I wasn’t there.

“Talon?” I said his name, my voice soft with longing as I stared at the shadowed shape. I was sure he had turned toward me before the entire scene vanished into smoke, falling to the ground around me like smoke and ash and leaving me staring at Thom’s tear-streaked face, his eyes deep with understanding.

My heart pulsed at seeing him there, torn between two worlds, two realities. I was saddened Talon was gone, my heart throbbing for the return of the Tȍuha. Yet, I clung to Thom, to the past, and to the last moments I would have with him.

“He will be there, waiting for you,” Thom whispered as he leaned close to me, the brilliant blue of his eyes devouring me. “He’s going to be right there ... and ... and you know who is going to be with him?”

The pulse in my chest became a stab of memories, of reminders of the life we shared, of the life I had so willingly chosen to forget.

Never before had I regretted my decision to forget, not because I had turned my back on a life that had been so good, but because I had turned my back on Thom, a man who, for the first time, I realized, was still mourning the loss of our daughter as I was. He was still filled with pain and agony. We had both chosen to run away, although in different ways.

“Rosaline?” The word dug into me, my back arching with fire and gut-wrenching agony that I had thought I had escaped.

You can’t escape something that is wound so deeply in your soul, however. I knew that now. I knew that in the way Thom’s voice pulled me from the pain of the curse and the way Rosaline’s memory bound us together.

“Yeah, sweetie, she is going to be right there with Talon. She’s been waiting for you, waiting ... for her mommy.”

Everything ached at his promise, the pain from the curse seeming to come back full force as he turned away in his own pain. I gasped at the fire, my body writhing as I continually tried to fight the pain. I struggled against the scream that tried to rip itself out of me, the blackness that wanted to take me away again.

In a way, it would almost be more preferable, but I didn’t want to lose this, lose these last moments. If only I had a choice.

I stared at Thom as my vision began to waiver, the same courtyard from before materializing around me, the same shadowed figure tucked off into a corner. Except, this time, he wasn’t quite as shadowed, he wasn’t quite as far away.

He stood, his body distorted as though I was looking at him through a fog, like I was only seeing him through a veil of life and death. That was exactly what it was, I realized. He was dead, and I was not. Not yet. He was standing there, ready to take me into his arms, ready to hold me in death as he had in life.

“She will be there,” Thom’s voice came to me as if he was still sitting right there, but I didn’t see him anymore.

I couldn’t seem to look away from the figure before me. Part of me desperately hoped he would step through the fog to take me, while part of me dreaded the moment when he would.

“Do you remember that big smile she had after she lost her first tooth? How she would always push her tongue through the little gap?”

I knew Thom wanted me to answer, but I wasn’t sure I could. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I couldn’t look away from Talon, my heart a thunder in my chest as I waited for him to do something. His shadowed form seemed more and more ominous with each moment that passed.

“She’s not responding…” Thom’s voice was broken, but until right then, I hadn’t cared. I had only cared about the man before me, about what he was there to do, even if it scared me.

“You have to choose.” The voice cut through the fog, deep and heavy. It resounded through my head in such a way that I knew it had come from inside me. While the deep, haunted rumble of the sound was unfamiliar, it was still comforting, its message clear.

Talon stood before me, shrouded by death. I could choose to be with him. I could choose to die.

I jerked at the realization, at how quickly it came, my confusion rumbling at what it meant.

How could I choose? You couldn’t choose to live through this, through this curse. I was going to die. There wasn’t a choice, only a reality.

“Just keep trying,” Sain’s voice cut through the distanced thoughts, attempting to bring me back into reality. I remained staring at Talon’s shadowed form, the distorted body shifting as it moved forward, as a hand reached toward me through the fog that clouded him.

He extended his hand toward me, his fingers moving through the cloud and becoming more than a shadowed distortion. They became real. They were skin and callouses and a scar I recognized at once.

They became Talon.

I looked up to him, expecting to see his smile, but he was still cast in static. His body was out of focus, as if I couldn’t see him quite right, as if my eyes weren’t powerful enough to see.

“Do you remember when we took her to the beach?” I could barely hear Thom now, even though his voice was deep and loud in my ears. It was almost like it couldn’t move through the fog I was now surrounded by.

“You have to choose,” the deep voice came again, rumbling through me. While clear in meaning, it was still confusing to me. I wanted to tell it I didn’t have a choice, that someone had already made it for me. I couldn’t seem to find the words, though.

It didn’t matter, anyway.

Talon was before me, his hand extended toward me, beckoning me home.

I began to reach toward him, my body feeling light and warm as I moved, the pain of the curse almost gone now. I wanted to rejoice that it was gone, that I had left it behind. Left life behind. However, I couldn’t. Despite the warmth being a soothing balm to the pain, there was something off about it, something foreign.

Something was wrong.

Something was pulling me back.

No, not something—someone.

“N-n-need m-more.” I recognized the voice at once, even through the broken stutter and the fear that trembled underneath it.

It was Joclyn.

It was her magic that I felt move through me.

It was her power that was trying to heal me, to save me,

I looked up to Talon, to his body that was so clear I could reach out and touch him. I wanted to.

I also knew that I couldn’t, not yet.

Sain had seen this. He had seen every bit of this. His need to get me to Joclyn had been so sure, right from the start. It wasn’t merely to say goodbye, either. They still needed me.

What was more, I still needed them.

I still needed to live.

“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t get any more out than that.

He smiled, wide and clear, as if he knew what he had done, as if he had been planning it for years and was proud of it. Seeing that look, seeing the playfulness in his eyes, a look that was so distinctly him I couldn’t have a hope of recreating it within my subconscious, I knew it was him. I knew it was real.

All of it.

“Be happy, Wyn,” he whispered, his voice soft in my ear as Rosaline’s laugh echoed around us, the sound bringing joy and hope to me unlike any time before.

Light and warmth seeped into me then, moving through me in a wave of calm that took the heaviness of the dream away.

I stayed still as the warmth left my skin, a chill moving over me. The smell of damp air and sandalwood permeated everything around me.