Scorched Treachery (8 page)

“Remember, i
t’s only a dream, Wynifred…brace yourself.” I barely heard Sain’s words before the mist took me, the white mass moving into me and breaking me up into a million pieces. This time, however, the feeling of carelessness didn’t take me. I was aware.

I was aware as different trees began to form around me and aware of voices in the distance, these ones hard and menacing. I was aware of the change in my body and the hands that wrapped hard around my arms, aware of the fear that gripped my heart.

The voices in the distance raised as someone, a girl, yelled. The large hands that held me wrapped round me, lifting me off the ground. As soon as I started to struggle, one massive palm covered my nose and mouth. I could barely breathe through the pressure, so I stopped struggling, hoping for air while my brain caught up with my situation.

Had I left the dream that Sain had been talking about? This all felt too real. How did I get to this place? I could feel the bruises on my face return, the joints in my body scalding me with pain from my captivity and beatings.

Instinctively, I began to fight against the painful fingers that dug into my skin and the hand over my face. But whoever held me only held tighter, his fingers pressing into me to the point I was sure I was going to bruise. Sain’s warning of this being a dream repeated through my mind. I wanted to believe it, but everything seemed too real to be a dream. It felt too real.

My captor began to move me through the forest, the heavy clomp of his shoes breaking through the undergrowth the main sound as he dragged me along toward the voices.

“Or torture,” Cail’s voice said from somewhere in front of me. I didn’t know what we were heading toward, but I did know that I wanted nothing to do with Cail. My bruised and battered body called out as I fought my captor once more, my fight useless against his strong arms.

“Is that what Edmund told you to do, Cail?” I froze at the voice. Joclyn’s voice was filtering through the trees toward me. What was going on here? Where was I?

“To torture me?” Joclyn said, and my struggle against the man who held me resumed.

I was torn, I wanted to see Joclyn, but not like this. I wanted to fight and save her, but I knew neither of those were an option right now. They spoke of torture, my brother’s favorite game. Nothing good was going to happen here.

I yelled out, to warn her, to help her, but my voice caught behind the man’s large hand, my warning falling limply to the forest floor.

“Ryland told me you knew. He said you
now know that Ilyan loves you. Is that true?” The man who held me stopped his advance, the voices loud enough to alert me to how close we were.

Trees surrounded us;
our bodies gobbled up by a thick forest. I looked through the trunks of the trees that surrounded me, hoping to see something, anything, in front of us but saw nothing.

“Ilyan doesn’t love me, not in that way.” I heard a gasp to my right at Joclyn’s words. I turned toward the sound, sure
that someone else was there, but once again, seeing nothing but trees.

“Oh, so he hasn’t told you,” Cail taunted, the same babying tone he had used with Ryland earlier cutting through his voice. I cringed against it, expecting his verbal attack to switch to me at any moment even though I was still hidden in the woods. “Could it be that I know more than you at this point in time?”

Cail laughed and I jumped at the high pitched sound, my whole body seizing in preparation for an attack.

“Ooo,” Cail’s taunts continued, “I would love to see your face when you figure everything out – what Ryland did, what Ilyan is keeping from you.”

My ears perked at his words. After seeing how Cail had manipulated Ryland, I wasn’t sure I could trust anything he said anymore, but something about the way he phrased that sentence alerted me to a new danger. What
did
Ryland do?

Don’t give into his games, Wyn.
I said to myself. I wasn’t losing my mind yet. I wouldn’t let myself.

“This game just gets more and more exciting,” Cail said excitedly, a loud clap sounding through the trees. Did he just slap her?

“This isn’t a game!” Joclyn’s loud voice broke through the trees, and I heard the same groan off to my right followed by another more familiar one to my left.

Everything stopped after Joclyn’s outburst, the ringing silence in the forest broken only by
the small grunts and groans on either side of me.

“Not a game you say?” Cail’s voice came out of nowhere, his voice cold and calculating. The sensation of ice trickled down my spine. I knew that tone in his voice. I wanted to scream at Joclyn to run, to leave, to escape Cail’s web in whatever way possible, but before I could, my captor pressed me forward.

“Really?” Cail said darkly. “Well, what do you say we turn it into a game?”

I heard movement, but I wasn’t sure where it came from or if it was just the sounds I
made as I fought against the hands of the men who continued to push me forward.

“Bring them out!” Cail yelled, and our pace increased, the men trudging through the forest until they pulled me beyond the tree line and into a large clearing where Cail had Joclyn restrained against him. I looked at her as I fought against the men, my fight all but gone as my weak body began to give out from the strain.

Joclyn caught my eyes, her silver eyes staring into mine for only a moment before moving away to the others around me. My eyes followed hers as I looked toward Ryland and Sain to my right. Their bruises were back, and Sain’s hair had returned to its wild tangles of neglect. Wherever we were before, this was different. I turned away from the two men to look at the groaning form to my left.

Talon.

My heart beat wildly at seeing him there, my urge to fight picking up for just a moment before the fingers around my arms restrained me. A hiss in my ear was the only warning I needed. I slowed my fight. I repeated to myself the words Sain had said only a moment ago. It was only a dream.

But
if I was here, and I was aware…then shouldn’t Talon be aware too?

I struggled, but my plight stopped
when a swift hand exploded against my cheek. I sank down to the ground, my voice a whimper as I cried into the dirt.

“Four,” Cail’s voice brought me back to what was happening, his icy voice stinging through me. I
forced myself off the ground to face Joclyn. I did not want her to see me like this. “We hold in our possession two of your friends, your lover, and even your father.”

Her father? Jeffery? The man who had disappeared, who cued Ilyan in to her existence? I looked to where Joclyn
so intently placed her focus. Her father. Sain was her father. But Sain was a Drak. He was also supposed to be dead. I gaped as I struggled against the hands, my movements weak as my mind tried to wrap itself around this new information. I looked between Joclyn and Sain, my eyes widening at the way their eyes met, and I knew it was true.

Suddenly the blood magic made sense. They had used Sain and Ryland’s blood to infiltrate Joclyn’s mind. It was why this ‘dream’ seemed so real. My soul was here, trapped here with blood magic. Everything was really happening.

“And who do you have? A protector? Someone who hasn’t even told you the truth yet.”

Joclyn tried to pull away from Cail the same way I tried to pull away from whoever held me, but it was no use. We were all held in place as Ca
il played whatever game he had carefully prepared.

“Let them go,” she hissed, her silver eyes narrowing dangerously.

“Why?”  Cail snarled, his lips moving right against the soft skin of her neck, gently, like a lover. He pulled her against him, and she hissed between her teeth. Cail didn’t even seem to notice her reaction, his lips curling dangerously as he whispered something to her. Joclyn cringed away from him before Cail tightened his arm against her again. “We have the upper hand. We. Are. Winning. And you, you don’t even know what’s going on.”

Joclyn snarled as she fought against him. I wanted to cheer her on. She was so different from the friend I had left crying on the floor of the forest. Her demeanor was different, and her confidence strong enough to stand up to Cail. I wanted to yell at her to kill him, to attack, to fight, to change the game. She was strong enough to do so
; I could see it in her eyes. If this actually was her dream, then she had full control over it. But she just stood there, letting Cail taunt her. Why wasn’t she fighting? I refused to believe that she did not know what was going on. I could see the strength in her eyes, the power that she held. She could do anything. I struggled against the man that held me, knowing it was useless, but desperate to try something nonetheless.

“Now, now, don’t go anywhere yet.” Cail’s voice broke through the forest like the hiss of a snake. “We still haven’t gotten to our game! You see, we have four people in front of us, and you can pick one. One, that you will not have to watch die
right now. The others we will kill before you. You will not have to see the last die, but here is the clincher, whoever you choose will have to watch you die before we will release them from this nightmare and let them wake up.”

Kill? Die? This was a dream? Wasn’t it
? They couldn’t kill us. They needed us. Bargaining chips, just as Sain had said. I looked toward Sain in a panic, desperate for answers, but he was focused on Joclyn, his body still as he studied her. “Who do you choose, Joclyn? Who do you want to watch you die?”

I fought harder as Joclyn looked between us, barely registering when her eyes met mine. If I had been on my own, I would have pleaded with her for answers, but my only goal now was to reach Talon. I didn’t care if this was a dream. I didn’t care that the deaths we were enacting were fabricated. I needed to be with Talon. I needed to feel the touch of his skin against mine.

“My father,” Joclyn said, her voice quiet to my ears.  “I choose my dad.”

“It’s okay, Joclyn. I understand,” Sain said, his soft voice almost gobbled up by my frantic attempt to get to Talon’s side. 

“Wonderful!” Cail said, his voice joyful. “She’s made her choice, dispose of the rest.”

I didn’t hear Cail, but if I did, I might have chosen my actions differently. The hands that had restrained me
dropped, and I took my chance. I lunged toward Talon, my body falling hard on the forest floor as I clawed my way toward him, my fingers outstretched. I was inches from reaching his hand, his body still limp and unresponsive, when I saw the glimmering blade descend on his chest.

I didn’t register when Joclyn yelled
out; I only heard the static in my ears as I watched the sword plunge itself into the body of my husband, my own flesh separating as an identical blade severed me in two at the same time. I screamed at the pain, my body writhing as it racked through me, my muscles seizing before they began to relax.

Talon didn’t even flinch at the impact. I continued to scream as I reached for him, my fingers uselessly clawing through dirt before my body gave out, my vision fading to black as the dream ended and my own hideous reality returned

.

Ryland
was screaming again.

All he did was sleep and scream. After we had all been released from the blood magic
, we had been bound alone in our cells. Sain sat still in silence, Talon remained unconscious, and Ryland transferred between periods of waking and sleeping, his waking moments spent screaming in agony about Joclyn, even strangling the bars of the cell as he attempted to kill her. What little he was awake, and not screaming, he always sat, rocking back and forth, as he mumbled promises to himself to both kill and protect Joclyn.

It had only gotten worse after the last time they had forced Sain and Ryland to open up a blood connection
. Ryland had spent two hours muttering that he didn’t love her anymore, the she didn’t love him, before he had finally given in to the torture Timothy had forced him to endure and became silent.

Ryland had been driven mad by torture,
the Vymȁzat, and Cail’s manipulation. If it wasn’t for Sain and his support, I was sure Ryland would be much worse. They had been imprisoned together for over three months. Ryland had only been let out when Edmund needed his magic to track Joclyn, when he needed him as a weapon. And Sain – Sain’s magic was weakened to nothing by years of Edmund withholding the clay mugs. Without the mugs, Sain could not produce Black Water. Without the lifeblood of his magic, he was left weak and useless.

We all were in the dark, both literally and figuratively, confined in small spaces, food never provided, a bathroom a thing of the past. The only luxury we knew anymore was the daily glass of water. One glass of filthy water and I dreamed of it
as if it was wine.

The whole room smelled of vomit, human excrement, and the heavy mildew smell I had noticed on my arrival. The combined odor hung in the air, heavy and physical. It seeped into our tattered clothes, our hair and lingered in our nostrils. I would like to say I never smelled it, that I had become immune, but the smell stuck to me. I had given up begging for water and food. I had given up begging for a bathroom. Each time I opened my mouth my father would appear, the back of his hand at the ready and my query forgotten.

We were in the middle of another of Ryland’s fits, and I could hear Sain whispering through Ryland’s screams as he tried to calm him, to silence him before someone would come.

“Shut him up, Sain,” I hissed, my eyes peering through the darkness in their direction and then back to where I knew the staircase was, my ears perking in the fear of hearing footsteps.

Sain whispered more, and I shifted my weight, the chains of my shackles rattling as I turned my body toward Ryland’s cell.

“Shield him,” I hissed, but Sain said nothing. It was a foolish idea anyway. They had already heard him, and if
they found out Sain still used what little magic he had left, we would all be in trouble.

“Ryland,” I whispered, my voice joining Sain’s, “it’s okay. Joclyn’s okay.”

Ryland only howled more, and my heartbeat froze. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, the pace fast and quick. I shuffled back to my wall, my hands directly above my head, as a blue light floated down the stairs. Cail came rushing into the room, his face hard and angry.

“Shut up, dog!” he yelled, the door to Ryland’s cell swinging open without Cail having even touched it. Cail blinked once
, and Ryland began to scream in agony, the magic attacking him from the inside. I looked away, not wanting to see the physical blows that were sure to come. They always did. We all had our fair share of bruises and broken bones, and with no magic to heal us, we sat, useless and mortal in the dark prison.

I pressed my face into my shoulder as the sound of flesh on flesh echoed around us. Ryland screamed until his cries turned to sobs, his sobs turning to whimpers, and then silence.

Cail laughed, the grind of the metal as the cell door closed echoing around the rock. Then there was nothing. I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. I kept my head rolled into my shoulder, my eyes staring at Talon’s sleeping form, silently begging him to wake up. I wasn’t sure if Talon waking up would take away my terror or add to it. I didn’t know what I would do if they beat him in front of me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut.

I tried to focus on something good as I waited for Cail to leave, the prison silent with expectation. But he didn’t
leave. I could hear his breathing as it picked up before the squeal of the door to my cell sounded, the door opening slowly.

“What did they do to you?”
he said. I almost didn’t recognize his voice.

I couldn’t help it
; I looked up. Cail walked in, and I recoiled. I wanted to plead with him that I had said nothing, that I had remained silent, but I couldn’t let the words filter to my tongue.

My brother looked at me, the hard line of his jaw gone, and his eyes soft. I saw the look of hope in his eyes that I had only seen a handful of times as a child.
I glimpsed the look of the love and dedication that he had shown me as he raised me. He had given me the same look during the battle at the LaRue estate only a few months before. He had looked at me with sadness as he begged me to kill him. His hand had clenched over his heart, his voice howling as he gasped in pain when Edmund sent him a warning for whatever he had been about to do. I was as confused about his reaction then as I was now. My blood flared in curiosity, the sharp edge of fear cutting through my joints.

“Does…
does it hurt?” he asked as he kneeled in front of me.

I couldn’t trust this. Brother or not, Cail only hurt those around him. Always. Every part of me recoiled as he kneeled in front of me, his hand moving up to touch the metal bands around my wrists. I gasped as I moved myself into the wall in an attempt to get as far away from him as possible. My skin ached as I attempted to pull myself closer to the
stone; my eyes wide and focused on the soft face of my brother who knelt right in front me. I felt the metal click as the shackles opened. My hands fell into my lap, my weak and pained shoulders unable to support them.

“I’m sorry, Wynifred. Dad is mean sometimes.” I froze, my eyes wide as my breath caught, tears threatening. This was familiar, this voice
and those words. This was the brother I had known as a child. He reached forward, my breath stalling in expectation of a hit. But nothing came; his soft hand reached out and rested against my cheek.

I stared into his eyes, the pressure against my cheek soft and gentle, and waited for my breathing to regulate. I couldn’t seem to gain control of it. Everything screamed at me to attack him, to run. Deep down, I wondered if that would be what he would want. A reason to attack. But Cail wasn’t like that. He didn’t need a reason. He just liked to cause pain. I couldn’t trust this, I couldn’t. I cringed away, trying to ignore the burn of tears that would never come, letting the sharp knife of pain dig into me as I attempted to wish away this trick that he was playing on me.

I felt my breathing calm and my heart rate slow. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on. Without my own magic to alert me to the change, I had missed the fact that Cail was calming me.

“It’s okay, Wynifred,” he said, his voice only a whispered breath against my skin. “I’ll make all the bad go away.”

I couldn’t breathe. I could not force myself to inhale. I was too shocked, too scared. I felt the pain in my shoulders lessen, the fire in my wrists leave. My brother smiled at me, his face twitching just a bit.

I wanted to reach up to him, to comfort him, but before I could even move, his hand flew to the skin over his heart.
He clenched his fingers around the fabric of his shirt as his face screwed up in pain. He backed away from me, his back hitting the bars that separated me from Talon, his eyes wide as he clutched his shirt, tears beginning to flow down his cheeks.

“Cail?” I asked, unable to help myself and not understanding what was happening.

I heard Sain gasp, in warning or curiosity, I wasn’t sure, but it barely registered. I watched my brother crying in front of me, his hand clenched over his heart.

I moved forward, my body itching to get as close to him as possible.

“Save me.” He hissed the words, and I froze, everything on high alert inside of me.

“Cail?” I had barely moved before the back of Cail’s hand c
onnected with my cheek, the smack sounding loud and clear in the dark room.

“Shut your mouth,” Cail snapped, the hard lines of his face back, his eyes hard.

He looked at me once more before he left my cell, the door closing with a loud snap before he went up the stairs, the light going with him and leaving us in the dark again. I looked toward the staircase, my eyes slowly adjusting to the lack of light.

“What was that?” I whispered into the darkness when I was sure that Cail had gone, not daring to say more and hoping that my voice hadn’t traveled beyond my own five foot square.

I stared into the dark, my mind attempting to swim around the confusion that Cail had introduced, trying to blow it off as a trap, a trick. But I couldn’t, as much as I wanted to. I exhaled shakily, rubbing the tender skin on my wrists, and then it hit me that I was unchained.

I waited, my body still curled in the middle of my cell. The footsteps were long gone, but I still dreaded the darkness, the possibility of someone waiting just beyond the black, out of sight. My breath picked up, and finally I could take it no more. I scooted across the small space toward the cell where Talon lay, my arms stretching through the bars as I reached for him. I clawed through air until I grabbed what I was sure was a shirt. I traced the fabric until I felt his skin, the warmth shooting through me as it always did, but without the magic behind it.
Only my heart responded this time, the beats heavy and excited.

I didn’t dare say anything until Sain gave the all clear
. I had learned that the hard way. Any noise demanded a beating, and I had already risked enough with my whispered question. No one was stupid enough to risk talking without Sain’s help. Ryland only howled because he couldn’t help it, or perhaps because Cail made him; either was a possibility.

W
hy had my brother been so gentle with me? I wanted to find a rational excuse, a reason for what had just passed between us. Even as a form of torture, it made no sense. Why leave my hands free? Why give me what I want? This was absolutely what I wanted. I traced down the skin of Talon’s arm until I found his hand. It was limp, but I intertwined my fingers with him anyway, desperate for the connection.

There was no wild flaring of joined magic when we touched. The
omezující stone had done its job, but I didn’t care. The touch of his skin, the feel of his fingers was enough for me for now.

A dim green light flared from the other side of the prison
, and I turned slowly toward Sain who sat with a tiny orb settled in his hands.

Sain’s magic wasn’t
restricted; Edmund needed the use of his sight, so restricting it was useless. Sain was also weak and mostly powerless, so he couldn’t do much more than give us some light and shield our voices.

I kept my hands intertwined with Talon’s as Sain looked up at me, his eyes barely visible from beneath his mat of hair.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice calm and low so as not to breach the shield.

I nodded once. “Was that a trap?”

“Cail?” Sain asked as he leaned over to check Ryland’s body, Ryland’s chest moving as he struggled to breathe.

“Yeah.”

Sain exhaled, the sound as shaky as Ryland’s labored breathing. “Your brother is complicated, and strangely still with a conscience.”

I exhaled, not really knowing what that meant, but Sain only chuckled.

“You will see what I mean soon enough, Wyn.” Sain moved his hands through the bars of his cell as he reached for Ryland, his own chains rattling loudly as they hit the thick bars of the cell.

“Have you seen something, Sain?” I asked while trying to smile. I sounded strangely like Ryland. In Ryland’s brief moments of lucidity, it was always the only thing he asked, what Sain might have seen.

“I have,” he said simply. “I always see. I see you now sitting right in front of me. I see my daughter, happy. I see Ryland in his rightful place, and I see Cail finding his peace. You will see some of that too.”