Soul of Flame (Imdalind Series #4) Read online

  “You did not mean to attack him, but you had a reason for what you did. You know you did.” Ilyan looked at me, his love and worry projecting through the deep blue of his eyes, but I didn’t see that. I only saw Dramin’s eyes when my magic had hit him, the sadness as he bid the world farewell. I only saw the magic as it flew from my hands, the last of Cail’s mind disintegrating around me.

  I clenched my hands into tight fists, my long nails pushing into the skin of my palms as regret and anger filled me.

  Ilyan must have felt my panic because he clutched me to him, his lips pressing against the mark on my neck as he held me. The aggressive shock wound through me in a surge of energy that took away just enough of my anxiety to give me a chance to control it.

  “You are strong, my love. You can fight it,” Ilyan reminded me, his voice a whisper.

  Emotions and memories ran through my mind as I fought the torment, desperate to regain the strength I knew was still hiding within me. At the same time, I danced with the urge to disappear into the insanity that had opened its arms to me.

  “Teď tiše, moje malá. Upokoj se, buď klidná. S novým úsvitem se svět změní. A když se změní, uvidíš, jaký bychom měli být, ty a já.” Ilyan whispered the words of our song to me, the meaning clear even without the tune behind it. His words broke through just enough to give me a jolt of strength, allowing me to banish the fears from my body.

  The pain and horrors scattered like light in the dark. I raised my head to my brother, my stiff body uncoiling as I moved to step toward him. I could feel the apprehension try to return, but I pushed it away, my need to see him compelling me forward.

  I reached out shakily to touch Dramin’s arms, his skin clammy under my fingers. With my skin against his I could feel what I had done. I had destroyed his magic, just as Thom had said.

  Just as I had feared.

  I hadn’t been able to stop it; the attack had controlled me.

  It was just as I had seen in the cave in Italy as I hovered over the pool of Black Water. When I had seen Dramin’s death.

  My body collapsed onto Dramin’s, my hands clinging to him as my regret and pain swelled and grew until a howl broke from my lips.

  Ilyan was next to me in a second, our song a whisper on his lips as he gave me something to focus on, something to chase away my terrors.

  “I s-saw this,” I sobbed as he held me, his song fading as I spoke. I let my magic flow into Dramin as I clung to him, his body feeling cold and lifeless against the heat from my power. In my first sight, I saw Dramin’s death. I saw the flow of magic, the way the life left his eyes…

  I just didn’t know it was me who would kill him, I said to myself, the words trapped where I wasn’t sure I would ever let them escape.

  “Show me,” Ilyan whispered, his breath hot against my skin.

  I closed my eyes, the vision coming to the front of my mind as I pushed it into Ilyan the same way I spoke to him.

  My vision came like a reel from a movie, flashes of white before the images of the sight came. I saw everything as he did, my body still as I was trapped in Cail’s mind, the yelling as I woke, and then the fire and the screaming. I showed Ilyan the stream of magic that I now knew had come from my hands, the slow fall of Dramin’s body. I showed him the way Dramin was tightly wrapped in white cotton, his face covered in a red handkerchief. My chest tightened as together, we saw the hole in the ground, the frozen dirt covered with snow. I wished I could look away as the next image came, the sight of me standing alone in an ancient cemetery, my face streaked with tears, the imagery fading to black as the sight ended.

  I gasped as the sight left, Ilyan’s footsteps moving away from me as I collapsed against Dramin.

  “He knew? You knew?” Ilyan asked, the betrayal in his voice generating a bitter taste in my mouth. My regret became a pain as Ilyan’s thoughts filled me—all the years he had hidden him from Edmund, and all of it had been for nothing.

  I didn’t know what to do, I moaned in agony, hoping Ilyan would hear me through his own regrets, that he would understand what I was really saying. That he would hear my fears.

  “What is going on, Ilyan?” Sain asked, the stress in his voice flaring my own.

  “Dramin… he was…” Ilyan tripped over his words as he questioned having to tell Sain the truth.

  That his son, my brother, would die.

  My father stood before me, his soul rent in fear of what he would be told. Yet, only minutes before, he had relished the idea of my part in the sight, the sight that would end in my death. Had he ever cried for me? It was a foolish thought and I knew it, one caused by years of abandonment and resentment. I batted it away, my regret at telling him the truth vanishing as the words spewed from my lips like poison.

  “I saw him die,” I said, cringing at the shake in my voice, the memory replaying itself in the blacks of my eyes.

  Sain stiffened at my words, his magic angry and violent in the air before it receded.

  “Did you see it in sight?” my father asked, his voice wavering as he moved toward me. I looked up from where I still clung to Dramin’s body, my hair falling over my face in long, black strands that blocked my vision.

  I could see him standing on the other side of the dark room, his eyes widening toward me in desperation to know more, to feel hope. I couldn’t give him that; I couldn’t lie. I tightened my lips as I pushed the desperate look in his eyes from my mind, and I nodded once in agreement.

  That one gentle head bob sealed Dramin’s death, and Sain’s face fell, his jaw slack as his breathing lengthened. Sain’s silence stretched through the room, throbbing like the knell of death in my ears.

  I couldn’t look at the pain in his eyes anymore. I didn’t want to feel the agony of regret over what I had done to him. I lowered my head, my ear pressing against Dramin’s chest, to the dull throbbing pulse of his heart.

  I listened to the rhythm of his pulse, the heat of my magic moving through him, pulling at me in gentle tugs and jolts as it guided me through him. The pressure built in me as my magic swelled, the feeling similar to last night when I had healed Wyn.

  Then, I had heard her cries and my magic knew what to do, my mind showing me the way as my Drak blood flared within me. Just like it was doing now.

  I raised my head to the three men who stood around me. Thom, standing right in front of me as he wrung his hands in worry. His thick dreads had come loose from his ponytail, his eyes red and swollen. He was haggard and broken. I had felt his desperation before, but now I saw it, and I knew I would do anything to help him.

  I had only ever been told to accept the fate that sights had given me, that there was nothing that could be done to change them. Feeling Dramin’s cold skin, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, I didn’t think I could just walk away from that; I couldn’t let him die.

  “I can save him,” I moaned.

  Thom’s eyes widened as Ilyan’s hand froze on my back, his surprise at my commitment rocking through me.

  “No!” Sain yelled the moment I had spoken. Everyone jumped at my father’s outburst, and I cringed at the intensity of his yell. The venom he had awakened coursed through my veins.

  Thom turned toward him as his eyes seemed to catch fire. “You will let your son die?”

  “I will let the future be as it should be,” Sain said, his words directed toward Thom even though he moved closer to me. His calm nature made his movements slow, and my agitation increased.

  “But I can save him!” I yelled at Sain. His face only spelled regret and pain as he stood in silence. I knew he was suffering—that he wanted his son to live—but he wouldn’t admit it, and he wouldn’t fight for it. He just stood there, silently accepting fate.

  He was walking away from Dramin the same way he had walked away from me.

  Pain and anger flashed through me with more animosity than I had ever felt, it rippled over my body, blacking out my vision in spots of obsidian. Everything in me screamed, everything threatened to expl
ode.

  “Why won’t you save your children? Why don’t you love us? Love me?” I pressed against Ilyan’s arms as he held me in an attempt to calm me. I could hear him whisper against me, but the anger flowed as clearly as the words did, years of pain spilling out of me. The mugs of Black Water that lined the walls began to shake as my power surged.

  “This has nothing to do with love. I love him, as I do you,” he said, his voice a mellow calm that only infuriated me more.

  “Then let me save him!” I shouted, the words clear and concise as I continued to fight against Ilyan’s arms, against the rage.

  “You saw him die, Joclyn,” Sain said, his voice mellow as he stood still, his body calm even as the room seemed to pulsate under my anger. “You cannot defy a sight. There is nothing that can be done.”

  I ground my teeth, my body writhing as I fought my anger and the truth of what he said. I wanted to accept the truth of my sight. I knew I needed to, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  I reached toward Dramin, my fingers long and desperate, as if I was saving him from the slaughter. “I have lost s-so m-much.” I cringed as my stutter began to surge through me, the heat of my emotions unleashing my instability. “M-my m-mother was mur-dered… M-my b-brother-r… I-I j-j-just b-barely f-found-d h-him…” I stopped talking, the stutter so bad I knew it was foolish to go on.

  I glared at Sain, breathing deeply as I tried so desperately to control the stutter. Ilyan’s magic consumed me as he finally broke through to calm me, the warmth so normal to me now that I almost felt bare without it.

  “It doesn’t matter about the sight; sights can change. They cannot be set in stone. They can’t be. I can save him. I will save him,” I pleaded with him as I leaned across my brother with my magic surging angrily at the words I knew to be false.

  I stretched my magic into Dramin, willing it to do what it wanted, to bring my brother back. I had begun to feel the warm tendrils of Dramin’s magic awaken when Sain rushed me, his hands rough against mine as he pushed me away from my brother. The force sent me tumbling into Ilyan, his muscles tense as his magic flared in agitation.

  I looked at the black of his eyes in shock, only to see the color fade back to bright green before the black replaced it again. The color shifted as his magic ignited, his own demons bringing themselves right to the surface, his carefully crafted calm shattering into ice and glass.

  “You know nothing of our kind!” Sain bellowed at me as his eyes continued to flash so that I wasn’t sure what color they were. I cringed away from the sound of his voice, my muscles seizing as he sped on, his words bouncing over each other in their rage. “The blood of a Drak flows through your veins, yet you know nothing! You know nothing of my kind or our rules and laws. You are as foolish as a child and as dumb as a mortal.”

  “How can I know anything when you weren’t there to teach me? You abandoned me!” I screamed at him. The words that had fueled me for the last few minutes tumbled through me as my body threatened to collapse, my cheeks burning as the tears came.

  “I didn't abandon you.” His cold eyes glinted as if walking out of his five-year-old child’s life was nothing more than walking out a door, simple and meaningless. It wasn’t nothing, though—not to me. It never had been. That one action had dictated my entire life until Ilyan had saved me and I had become more. Now, the man whose actions had defined me sat before me, denying what he had done, denying me.

  “You left!” I screamed, my anger rushing out at the lack of responsibility he was taking, the real reason for my anger breaking free.

  “I didn’t leave, Joclyn.” His soft voice was so irritating I could barely stand it. “Jeffery Despain left, and I am not Jeffery Despain.”

  There it was, the reason I would never be able to view this man as my father. The reason I would never understand the decisions he had made and the reverences he felt toward what he was, what we both were.

  Jeffery Despain was my father. And this man was not Jeffery Despain.

  I stared at the stranger in front of me as ice ran through my veins, unable to find the right words to say. I only felt numb. Broken.

  “Is that why you won’t teach me? Because I am not your daughter?”

  Thom’s eyes widened as the words burst out of me, his jaw clenching in anger and pain that I didn’t understand. I pushed away from Ilyan’s hold as I spoke, taking the few steps to face my father from over Dramin’s body.

  “I shouldn’t have to teach you; you are a Drak, Silnỳ. It is in your blood. You should know to follow sights, to respect the visions your magic gives you. But to question them? That is not what a Drak, what my daughter, should do.” His voice was calm even though his magic seemed to be on fire.

  “You are not my father,” I hissed, my anger settling into a low rumble as I faced him, my fists balled at my side. “You left that when you left me.”

  “Step away from my son, Silnỳ. If he is meant to die, then I will see it happen, and anything you do to hinder that is heresy to my kind.”

  “Enough!” Ilyan roared as he pulled me away from Sain and back into the comforting rock of his chest.

  I tried to fight the anger that still pressed against my heart, the pain that filled me as the hope I had clung to for so many years evaporated into the stifling air that surrounded us.

  “She hasn’t been taught, Sain,” Thom said from across the room, his rough voice loud as he pleaded with his friend. “How can she know something that has not been fully explained to her?”

  “That is not my fault.” Sain stood next to Dramin as he spoke, the already broken fragments of my heart lodging themselves painfully through my chest at the sight of Sain’s hand wrapped around his son’s.

  “I know you are in pain; I know you are mourning. But Dramin is not your only child,” Ilyan said, his speech elevated to the level of a command. His magic sparked as his agitation rose and I cringed against it, pressing myself into his chest to listen to the rumble of his voice.

  “I do not know—”

  “You are better than this, Sain.” Ilyan interrupted him, his words echoing through me as they vibrated his chest.

  “As is she, Ilyan.” Sain’s statement faded into the air, the harsh words taking the air out of my lungs.

  The muscles in Ilyan’s back stiffened under my touch, his anger at words I was sure I didn’t fully understand a drowning pool in my heart. I looked up to him in expectation, yet his eyes didn’t move from the hard stare he had trained on Sain.

  “If you will excuse us,” Ilyan began, his voice a deep boom in the tense silence around us.

  He didn’t wait for a response before sweeping us out of the room, his pace quick as he practically carried me down the dimly lit hall. The bracketed torches that were set in the grey wall looked more like blurs as we moved, the light leaving as he closeted us in a small alcove that was hidden amongst the smooth stone.

  My pulse quickened at the dark enclosed space. The tightness of the walls made it feel as though they were going to close around me. It was as though I was trapped, like I was cornered in the pit of Cail’s mind, just waiting for Ryland to find me.

  “I am here, mi lasko,” Ilyan soothed. His arms came around me, his lips soft as he spoke against my forehead.

  Ilyan’s magic ran through me until I felt it inside every inch of my body. I moved my head, careful not to let too much of myself become exposed. Even though I knew this wasn’t a trap, I couldn’t ignore the learned responses that were still ingrained in my mind.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I don’t understand, Ilyan. I can heal him. I need to save him,” I whispered into the dark.

  “You know why you cannot, Joclyn,” he said, his fingers running down my face as he pressed his lips into a tight line. “The Drak believe their sight to be infallible. I know Dramin has told you this, my love. You cannot change a sight.” Ilyan soothed me, his voice low as my heartbeat slowed to match his.

  “I know, but I can’t just l
et him die, Ilyan.”

  “You have to. We cannot let it become one of the zlomený,” he whispered, his lips pressing into a tight line.

  Yes. But, Ilyan, the zlomený are sights which have never come… This has come.

  I knew I was pleading, but I didn’t care. A man was dying only feet from me, and no one would let me save him. I didn’t care about the sight, about my magic showing me what was to come. Right then, I only cared about saving Dramin.

  “Not in its whole, and by healing him, you would be changing the future of a sight thus creating a zlomený.”

  I cringed at his words as well as the truth behind them. He was right; there had been no burial, so the sight was not completed. But I couldn’t imagine him dead like the rest of the Drak; all of his children, his grandchildren, and his mate. My chest seized at the thought of Dramin being placed in the cold ground, only to be covered by dirt and snow.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. If I can change it, why wouldn’t I? Change it, create a better future,” I said aloud, pleading with him to understand me.

  “It is the way of the Drak. Dramin would want it this way as well.”

  I gasped at the words I didn’t want to hear, their utterance sharp and poisonous.

  “You sound like my father.”

  “It has to be this way, my love. Whether or not you or I agree, it is the way of the Drak—of your father—and, as Dramin’s father, you have to respect Sain’s wishes.”

  I wanted so much to say Ilyan was right—that this choice was right—but I couldn’t. I couldn’t accept that Dramin wanted to die. He wouldn’t have fought for life for so long only to give in. I had seen the sadness in his eyes when I had foreseen his death. He had been accepting of it, but he hadn’t wanted it, not really.

  Dramin’s plea for me not to tell anyone suddenly made sense. It wasn’t out of worry for others. He didn’t want anyone to change it; he didn’t want me to change it, and he had known that I would try.

  I wasn’t sure I still wouldn’t.

  If I can’t change the sights… what does that mean for me, Ilyan?

  Ilyan’s thoughts stopped abruptly at my question. The image of him screaming in agony as he held my body surged through me. The sight’s promise of what was coming for me loomed heavy and unwanted. His eyes burrowed into me, so bright I could almost see into him. Into his soul. His movement was slow as his hand came up to cradle my face, the soft skin hot.