Burnt Devotion (27 page)

Risha said something at an inhuman speed to Ilyan before glancing to the mark on my neck. Then her eyes widened in wonder before they darted away as quickly as if I had caught her doing something dirty.

It was a simple move, one that shouldn’t have bothered me the way it had. After all, everyone who had been attacked by the Vilỳs since the attack started a few hours ago would have a mark nearly identical to mine. I reacted, anyway, my nerves flaring with the knowledge of exactly what this mark meant. My palm covered it for the first time in what felt like years, the skin softer than I remembered it.

For the first time since I had left all that behind, I was aware of it there, open for everyone to see, just like the boy we had rescued whose mark was already blooming on his cheek.

I looked to him on instinct. The child was curled up on a pile of blankets in a little nest that was perfectly placed in the center of the room ‘where there is more light.’ While I understood the reasoning, it still left the child in the middle of the floor, writhing in pain for all to see.

His whimpers echoed in my head as the refugees cared for him, wishing there was something I could do to help him.

My magic pulsed. I almost expected it, for the magic to take over in such a way. It had done it before.

When I had healed Dramin and Wyn, my magic had told me what to do. It had told me where to go and paved the path of what to do. This time, however, even though I felt the pull, I could tell it wasn’t for healing. It was almost as if the child had something that my magic wanted, something that it was going to get no matter what.

The change scared me.

The thunder of my heartbeat in my ears mixed with his cries, echoes of sound that trapped me as I tried to understand the need, the pull…

“Joclyn,” Ilyan’s voice was soft, his accent thick as he pulled me from my focus, my body jumping as everything around me jerked back to life, the room seeming brighter.

“Yes.” My voice was soft as I replied, knowing I needed to say something, even though I could already hear the conversation in Ilyan’s mind. It was as though I was doing nothing more than reading the cliffs notes of what had happened over the last few minutes and what he wanted of me.

Suddenly, all the random corks and buttons that were littered all over the table made sense. Buttons for other refugees, corks for pockets of Edmund’s men that he had hidden all over the city.

“You need to know if there are any more corks?” I asked, knowing the phrasing sounded odd, something that didn’t go unnoticed.

Ilyan laughed, while that wide-eyed stare came back to Risha’s face far too quickly. However, if it was the comment or if I had made it obvious that I was pulling thoughts from Ilyan’s mind was yet to be discerned.

I closed my eyes without prompting, grateful to get Risha’s worshipful expression out of my mind and let my magic stream away from me in a force of power. I tried to keep it restrained, to keep the intensity at bay and not cause a whirl wind like I had in Rioseco, but it didn’t seem to work.

The power came anyway, moving out in a rush as it streamed away from me, a powerful gust that moved through the room, lifting the ribbon and loose pieces of my hair as paper and loose bits of fluff swirled around me.

The room filled with cries of alarm as the whirlwind grew, only to have Risha speak in what I supposed was a request for calm. I knew it was more based in amazement, much the same as the chatter that had erupted around me in an awe-stricken hush.

I heard it all, felt the ripple of embarrassment move up my spine, but like last time, it was all a million miles away. Another world that I was somehow attached to while I moved through this one. One filled with darkness and blood. One filled with fear. They were two very different realities with me trapped between them.

My magic sped through the city, my mind following along with it as I moved through streets, through alleys, streams, sewage systems. It all should have been beautiful. It had been before, when I stood behind that door, but now everything was dark.

Walls were splattered with thick blood, bodies lay haphazard and forgotten in the streets, and through it all, the Vilỳs flew, looking for more victims. Except, these ones were different than the ones who had rampaged through the city, biting anyone they came in contact with. They didn’t have the same blood red tint in their eyes. They didn’t gnash and snarl as they flew through the air. Their movements were too organized, their eyes too clear.

I realized with a heavy weight lodging itself in the pit of my stomach that the difference was for a reason. They were still the same creatures—Vilỳ that had been poisoned, manipulated for Edmunds use—but their purpose was different. The way they had been mutated was different.

They were different.

They were patrolling, I realized, my heart tensing with understanding of what Edmund had done. What he had really done.

He had created a police state. More than just using the Vilỳs to create an army, he had created guards to keep everything in line. As perfectly planned as his attack had been, he had done it all knowing he would draw us here, knowing he would trap us inside.

Where are the boundaries of the city?
My voice was panicked as it plunged into Ilyan’s mind, the conversation in quick Czech that he had been having stopping abruptly.

Follow the river in either direction;
his voice was a rumble as he followed alongside me on my path. His magic grew within me as he watched my progress, as his mind moved through the city right alongside mine.
There is a freeway that circles the city…

He saw it as I did, the rubble of what once had been a roadway and was now a ruin. Cement, trees, portions of buildings—they were piled high in a barricade that towered far into the sky, blocking everything on the other side from the destruction that Edmund had wrought through the center of the city. It was more than a barricade. It was a fall, and from the top, a wide shield of glittering red spread over us, dimming the sky beyond and casting the blood red sheen over the city.

Everything was covered in the blood of what Edmund had done, trapped behind walls and a shield that I knew at once I would never be able to penetrate, not on my own.

I felt Ilyan’s anger grow within me, his emotions strong as mine raged right beside them. It was more than dread. It was a panic that took over every part of my body, every part of my mind, and tensed through me in a painful rage that ignited my magic further. I wanted to reach toward Ilyan, to grab his hand and comfort him, to bring him close to me. However, all I saw was the wall, all I heard were the screams of those who had tried to flee the city, only to be blocked by not only the wall, but the army Edmund had placed beside it.

It was more than the camps he had surrounded the abbey with. It was a line of angry Trpaslík. It was the short men and woman of a race who, as Wyn had said so poignantly stated almost a year before, specialized in destruction.

I guess we now knew where the rumble of the first explosion had come from.

Edmund had closed off the city, trapping us all inside.

People had tried. They had run in their panic as everything had started. They had raced from the Vilỳs. Some had even been able to drive their cars away in an attempt to escape. But it had all been pointless.

Bodies were piled before the barricades, the cars crashed and crumpled against each other. It was the same scene of war that I had been shown in history classes for years. Pictures of a past I had never really understood to be real until that very moment.

I had never truly comprehended that one man could cause so much destruction. So much death.

That one man could hate so much he would destroy so many.

I understood now.

I watched the bodies, watched the blood flow, and all the while, the magical army Edmund already had at his disposal rejoiced at the destruction.

At the carnage that they had created.

“How far does it go?” Ilyan asked from beside me, his voice distanced as he spoke.

I felt the pressure of his hand against mine as his magic surged with me, the connection not necessary yet so very welcome. I rejoiced at the warmth of his touch, at the strength of that security, and followed my magic as it sped away around the wall, moving through the endless destruction, the endless line of Edmund’s men, the constantly flowing rivers growing, the color only enhanced by the shield Edmund had surrounded us by. It never ended.

It was a solid mass of men, of wall, of death.

My head spun at the understanding, the finality making me sick.

Ilyan
. The world was a plea for understanding that I knew I would never get. Not with the way I could feel the thunderous pulse of his heart within mine.

He only clung to my hand tightly, his free hand pulling me against him as my magic pulled back into me, my head spinning wildly at the recoil.

My eyes opened to the dark room, to the kind face of the woman who sat across from me. I didn’t see that, though. All I could see was the destruction I had come from, my head spinning with recollection, my body weak from exertion.

“They are lining the wall,” Ilyan’s voice rumbled in English as he held me against him, his voice filled with the same anger I felt rule him.

“The wall?” The heavy accent in Risha’s voice made it to where I could barely understand her. No wonder they had been speaking in Czech.

It was obviously more than a familiarity issue.

“My father has turned the freeway into a barricade. Nothing is getting out of the city.”

“You mean we are trapped here.” Risha slipped into Czech at her alarm, but Ilyan’s mind translated it for me instantly. Not that I needed the help—her tone was enough, the fear behind it almost crippling.

“Ano.”

Yes.

The room shifted into panic at the knowledge, the already battle worn refugees’ hope squashed only moments after it had been fed.

Ilyan lifted his hand, and without a word, the room fell to silence with the command.

Everyone looked at him in expectation, in fear, in reverence, in emotions I didn’t understand and emotions I felt in myself. Ilyan sat beside me in silence, his eyes closed in calm, though I could feel the waves of uncertainty and panic move through him.

I let my magic fill him on instinct, the warm tendrils moving through him and wrapping his fears in a mask that, while it did not calm him completely, made the tension in his body loosen. His eyes opened to look at me with that deep admiration that always took my breath away.

“That doesn’t mean there is no escape,” Ilyan’s somber voice rumbled through the silence. “We came here fully expecting to fight. We fought in Rioseco, and we will fight here. Even if it ends in our death. We are Skȓíteks. We have been born to protect the magic of the world, to protect the wells of Imdalind. That is why we have come. That is why you still live. It is our duty to protect this world and all the power it holds. We may be trapped here, but it is not in vain. It is for the safety and security of all.”

I tensed at his words, at the admission, at the possibility. We had only barely escaped in Rioseco, and the idea that we would flee only to come here and die without reaching our end goal—without killing Edmund—rattled me.

It was the fear of the prophecy that I had been fighting for so long.

I cringed against Ilyan, while everyone else seemed to relax, the heavy fear that had impregnated the room lifting with each word he spoke. Now, I understood why.

It was as Ilyan had said.

They were the Skȓíteks—the warriors and protectors of magic. They had been born for this. They had trained for this. It would be easy to say that I was not one of them, that this was not my fight.

But it was.

Because I was one of them.

I held their magic in me, not only through the Vilỳ’s bite that graced my neck, but through the bond I shared with Ilyan. It was a powerful force so strong that, despite rebelling against the words Ilyan spoke—rebelling against the possible death—I felt my magic react. I felt it rumble in the same desperate understanding.

“What do you suggest we do, my lord?” Risha asked, the fear gone from her voice. She leaned across the table through the dark, her eyes wide as everyone moved closer, waiting for instruction, and with that look in their eyes, they were ready to begin.

“We know where Edmund’s men are, and I think we can ascertain his plan based on how he has acted and what he has done. If we gather who is left of our kind together, we may be able to find a way to infiltrate his ranks and get Joclyn and I close enough to defeat him.”

My magic surged at the power in his words, the rumble of certainty coming stronger with each syllable.

Murmurs of excitement swirled around me as my magic continued to grow, the force drowning out the quick Czech that had sprouted around me.

Risha and Ilyan moved to fortify a plan and find a safe space large enough for all of us on the odd, makeshift map.

I knew I should be paying attention. I should be picking apart the words and understanding what came to everyone else so easily, but I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t think beyond the force of my power and the way my head had begun to spin and turn above and beneath me.