Burnt Devotion Read online

  His footsteps grew louder as they approached, the heavy taps of Ilyan’s shoes frantic against the stone as they walked through the cross hallway right in front of me. Ilyan held her tightly against him as she fought and wailed, beating on his back with fists clenched so tightly they were pure white.

  I took the last few steps as quick as I could, my body dragging along the stone as I leaned against the corner, pressing my face to the smooth, rounded stone. I watched their retreat, watched Joclyn as she screamed, as she wailed, as her blood red eyes looked past me to the battle she had faced and the boy she wanted so desperately to rip limb from limb.

  I looked at those eyes, the streaks of color speaking of agony and madness, and my heart dropped. The same lunacy I had seen in Ryland so many times before now stared at me, unseeing. It was the same panic and broken spirit trapped somewhere deep inside a mangled soul.

  I had seen firsthand the torment Ryland had been placed under, and I had heard of what they were trying to do to Jos. However, I hadn’t really put it together.

  I hadn’t really acknowledged that they might have hurt her the same.

  “What have they done to you?” I whispered more to myself than to her. For once in my life, I wished I had killed Edmund all those years ago when I had had the chance, that I had seen his actions for what they were when I was only a child.

  That I had stopped this before everyone I loved had been hurt by him.

  I watched her until they turned the last corner toward Ilyan’s wing, her screams nothing more than echoes in my mind. The abbey was filled with silence except for the tense rumbles that came from somewhere behind me, from the men who carried the immovable figure I recognized at once as Ryland, his lips still tinged blue.

  Blood dripped over his skin, his mouth lolling in the same way it had when Cail had beaten him, when Edmund had used him. His heart and soul were as battered as they had been his entire life, a loveless existence that he had been forced to endure.

  It was him that I followed.

  RYLAND

  Three

  She tried to kill you.

  Just like I said she would.

  She almost did. The filthy Drak almost did.

  I know…

  She almost killed you.

  She’s nothing but a useless Drak. Disgusting.

  She doesn’t love you anymore.

  No … no … It has to be a lie… It has to be…

  You know it’s not.

  You heard her.

  She doesn’t need you.

  She tried to kill you.

  She tried to kill me. I told her to kill me, and she tried.

  She doesn’t love you anymore.

  I know.

  You know what you need to do.

  Stop wasting time.

  The voice swirled inside my head in a carousel of sound that was only made more abrasive by the semi-conscious state I was in.

  While whatever Joclyn had done in her attempt to end my life had given me a slight grip on reality, on sanity, I could already feel it slipping away. Precious sanity was retreating back into wherever Edmund had taken it to. The voice inside of me grew louder as the burn of my throat and my lungs turned into an ache from the air that was finally finding its way back into me after the last few minutes of denial.

  The minutes that Joclyn had tried to kill me.

  I wished she had. I wished she had worked faster. I wished she had sucked the life out of me before they’d had a chance to stop her, before they had restarted my heart and plunged me back into the hell I had been trapped in for months. I didn’t want to deal with the torture that was inside as well as out, the pain that was only made worse as she stripped away the last thing that I had held on to—the last memory I knew was mine.

  That Joclyn loved me.

  And I loved her.

  You don’t know love.

  Now, I couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.

  Who I was. What I was.

  I had lost the only thing I had.

  Now there was nothing.

  You are nothing.

  Nothing but the voice.

  Killed you. She tried to kill you.

  Except for that. I could be sure of that.

  The words filled my mind, words I would normally fight and rebut as I tried to keep hold on who I was, but not anymore. Not this time. I had expected the familiar surge of ownership, of need and raw desire to rise up in me at the mention of her name in my mind.

  But there was nothing there.

  Nothing but anger, hatred, and a reckless need to find her, to hurt her, to kill her. My memory of what had happened dug into me like a cruel nightmare.

  Kill her now.

  Kill her.

  The words screamed inside of me as she screamed without, everything blending with the unfamiliar voices that chattered around me.

  Everything mashed together, and above it all, there were hands on me, hands carrying me, hands comforting me. At least, that was what I thought it was. I couldn’t be sure anymore.

  The idea of comfort was too foreign.

  Don’t let them touch you.

  You need to get back to her.

  I know. He took her.

  You need to find her.

  Find her.

  Find him.

  Kill her.

  Kill.

  Kill them both.

  Kill…

  I tried to fight on instinct, although whether it was from the hands or in a mad attempt to escape the voice, I wasn’t sure. Either way, no matter how hard I screamed and writhed, my body didn’t respond. I was only trapped inside my own mind.

  It was the worst possible place to be.

  Edmund’s voice drowned out my sanity. Despite knowing deep down what was going on, despite what little grip on reality I had thanks to the distance of my father from me, I still couldn’t pull past the screams. I still couldn’t drown out the ridicule my father had implanted inside of me.

  Find her.

  I was still a prisoner.

  “Her, too?”

  Why didn’t you kill her?

  “Yes, I suppose keeping them away from each other is going to be harder than we thought.” The voices broke through the screaming that filled my mind. Sain’s familiar cadence almost felt like home to me, something I had never felt before in my life. It was something familiar, something comforting, anyway. If only it was enough to stop the madness that had taken hold.

  To stop his voice from filling my mind.

  You had the perfect opportunity to kill her!

  “I don’t like this.” A new voice followed Sain’s. I tried to focus on it, to let it drown out the madness and allow the fragile pieces of sanity I had left to take hold. It wasn’t enough.

  Kill her!

  “You think I do? We’re surrounded by an army with two children inside who are trying to kill each other and two adults debilitated…”

  Go back and kill her!

  “Edmund has thought through his plan far too well.”

  Now! Kill her now!

  “You sure you didn’t have anything to do with this, Sain?”

  Kill!

  “Even if I did, do you think I would have been able to stop it? You rescued me from that place all those years ago, you even helped in controlling me. You know I have no say in the matter.”

  Kill.

  “I know. It’s just…”

  Kill!

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Kill!” the word burst out of me before I had even reached a fully conscious state. Every command I had sent to my body over the last few minutes broke through the barrier at once, and I flailed.

  The men called out in alarm as I slipped from their hold and fell onto the hard stone of the floor like a hundred ton weight. A ripple of pain shook through me, and I screamed in agony, the sound more in frustration than pain, as tiny droplets of blood sprayed over the stone below, making the taste of blood in my mouth grow.

  Kill her. Kill
her.

  She tried to kill you.

  Find her.

  Find her!

  I’ll find her.

  Kill.

  “Kill her!” the words ripped out of my chest as I moved to crawl away, to find her in any way I could. My movements were stiff and fragmented while I tried to fight through the pain in my joints.

  I hadn’t moved more than a few feet before their hands were on me again, and my eyes snapped open to the grey stone that lined all of the hallways of this retched place. It was tinted red from my own blood that still flowed through the gash in my head, drenching my hair and drying in rivers down my face. I looked at the red, at the window, at their hands, at a table that stood old and forgotten a few feet from us.

  Window. Hands. Table. Window.

  Kill.

  Yes.

  “Let me kill her!” I tried to fight the men again, but their grip only increased, the pressure of their hands strong as they pulled me across the floor. The table skidded away from us on its own as my back was pressed into a cold wall.

  Lights flickered around us in green and grey as their magic detonated, the room full of dark, haunted shadows, though streaked with the bright white flashes of lightning that plagued this part of Spain for whatever reason.

  While, to anyone else, the lights and colors would have been frightening, to me, they were the only familiar thing I knew. They were the identical green hue of the dungeon I had been kept in for so long, the dim glow of my imprisonment, the glow that only came when things were safe.

  Like now.

  I stared at the light as my eyes dodged through the room. The shadowed space was so familiar that it panged inside of me. The knowledge of missing something with so much pain attached to it was surreal. I supposed it made sense, however, since it was the only thing I had known for months, the only thing I knew for sure was real.

  What are you waiting for?

  You saw her.

  The dirty Drak.

  No, she’s not.

  The words seeped through my mind, my own surprise growing that I had fought back, that something inside of me still wanted to defeat my father’s torture. I still wanted control over who I was.

  She doesn’t love you anymore.

  She said so herself.

  “No … Nonononono … No … no…” Words seeped from me the same as they always had. The hands that held me in place loosened slightly as I clawed at my hair, pulling at the blood soaked curls in an attempt to escape the madness. Pain ran over my scalp with each tug, the pressure giving me something else to focus on.

  My focus darted from the stone floor to Sain as he came around to face me. His familiar face stared at me with the same kindness, understanding, and sympathy I had always known from him.

  Except, there were no bars between us, only the dull, green glow of his magic.

  I stared at him from behind my scarred and filthy arms, from behind the blood that dripped from my hair. I gazed at the only familiar thing, wishing it was enough to drown out the demons my father had infected me with.

  Kill him, too.

  Kill Sain?

  Kill them all.

  No.

  “Ryland, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Sain’s voice was calm, low, insightful. It was like he was going to begin the State of the Union at any time.

  I almost expected it.

  I only wished the calm was enough to chase the demons away. It had been … once.

  Don’t wait.

  You saw her eyes.

  Black, dead eyes.

  You need to find her.

  My heart rate sped up at his voice, my father’s rumbling scorn only growing from where it was trapped inside of me. Panic and desperation leaked into me with each syllable, my body twitching and convulsing as I tried to cover my ears, knowing it would be pointless. I knew I could never get away from it.

  My focus moved from the aged face of the man to the pale, dreaded man I recognized at once as Thom, the brother I neither knew existed nor had seen until a few days ago. From Thom to the table to the wall to the window to the empty fireplace.

  Thom. Table. Wall…

  Do it now.

  “I need … Kill…” I tried to keep the words from me, but they seeped out, anyway. They oozed from me like the poison that infiltrated me.

  “No, Ryland,” I heard him say, but it did no good.

  Kill.

  “Kill.” I slammed my back into the wall.

  Kill.

  “Kill.” I slammed my head into the stone.

  Kill.

  “Kill.”

  “No, Ryland,” Sain soothed again, the way he always had.

  His voice was only enough to pull me out of the words, if not the movement. I still rocked myself into the stone, the heavy thumps of pressure feeling comforting somehow.

  “You don’t want that.”

  Table. Window. Fireplace. Thom.

  Go!

  “If I can’t have her,” I growled as I rocked, “then no one can.”

  “You don’t mean that, Ryland.”

  “Need … Now.”

  Now.

  “Now.”

  Now.

  “Now. Kill.”

  Kill.

  “Ryland,” Sain whispered.

  My focus darted right back over to him, my body jerking at the thunderous roar that broke from the sky before my focus began darting around once before going back to him. Although I tried to keep my focus on him, it was hard. It was hard to control my body, hard to control my mind.

  “They are nowhere near here. The blade is nowhere near here. You are safe.”

  You are never safe.

  But, he said…

  Never.

  Not from me.

  “You are safe,” Sain repeated as if he could hear the battle raging within me.

  Safe.

  The foreign word that my heart clung to like a lifeline pulled me out of the frantic motions and right back to the man who hovered before me, his dark green eyes plunging into me like an anchor, one I clung to with all my might. It was another thing I knew, something else my father couldn’t quite take away.

  I stared at him, my eyes focusing for the first time as I rejoiced in what I knew at once to be freedom, to be safety. The panicked breathing slowed as he looked at me, his hand pressing against my bicep in a firm reminder of the reality we were in.

  We merely stared at each other as my breathing mellowed, the same way we had done so many times before, every day when he had pulled me from the insanity Cail had placed me in. Usually, it didn’t seem to hold. Usually, it was a fine line that I always fell from easily. While I knew this time was no different, it felt sturdier somehow, as though I was balancing on a wooden plank instead of only a high wire.

  Sain realized it, too.

  “You are safe, Ryland.”

  My hand shook as I placed it against his arm, my fingers leaving streaks of blood on his elbow as I pulled him toward me.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I want to kill her.” We both jerked at my statement, at the calm mellow of the words, at the simple statement that cut through the air with blood and fire as the voice in my head began to laugh.

  I hadn’t meant to say that.

  Other words had been forming in my mind, yet those were the ones that had come out.

  Sain’s face blanched as the pressure of his hand against me increased. I could feel his pulse through my skin, feel it accelerate as mine did, as my body tensed and tightened at what was coming. I pressed myself against the wall in fear, almost wishing there was a place I could escape to, that there was any place on the earth that was safe for me.

  However, I knew better.

  Joyful laughter was already filling my head, and the sounds grew the more I tried to push them away, to focus on what I knew to be real, to stay astride that narrow plank that splintered underneath me.

  “I want to kill her.” The words felt sane as they seeped from me. My voice wasn’t
pulled into the depth of my madness, yet I knew they had been wrought in the same subconscious place. I knew they were real.

  And it scared me.

  That’s my boy.

  I flinched at the familiarity of his voice, at the feigned love that oozed through it. My heart sped up at the acceptance I had always wanted, despite knowing what that meant.

  Kill.

  “Kill,” I hissed.

  Sain’s lips pressed into a tight white line. He knew what was coming as much as I did.

  “I want to kill her.”

  “Ryland,” Sain pleaded through the flickering light of his magic, but I knew at once his plea was useless.

  “Kill!” It was a roar the echoed round us, the light fading to black for a moment as my magic smothered it. “I want to kill her.”

  “No, you don’t.” I jumped at the new voice as much as the snake that lived inside me did, the slimy creature retreating into my belly like a heavy lead weight.

  My body tensed as I pushed myself into the wall again, and a bright orange light joined Sain’s green one, leaving us sitting in a puke-filled room as Wyn slowly walked toward us.

  A pained smile on her face as she leaned against the table then the wall and, finally, Thom. I had almost forgotten he was there, as quiet as he was.

  My magic flared with a violent spark, as if it was reacting to an enemy, one who had awakened the dragon of my madness I had been trying so hard to restrain.

  “I need to,” I hissed through gritted teeth, wishing there was a way I could restrain it, wishing I wanted to.

  Then go.

  I need to go.

  “No, Ryland, you don’t,” Wyn’s face was wrinkled in a pained grimace as Thom helped her to sit, gently leaning her against him when he sat beside her.

  I looked at her as I shook, as my back hit against the wall, as we sat in the darkened, stone room the way we always had.

  “I do.” The words were a moan.

  “No,” Wyn said, a smile turning up the corners of her mouth, though pain still haunted her eyes.

  For one frightening moment, I wondered what my father had done to her, how she had gotten here. For one moment, I opened my mouth to ask, but the same word ran through my mind on repeat, and I didn’t want it to escape. Therefore, I slammed my back into the wall with a little more force, part of me hoping the impact would be enough to shake my father out of my mind.