Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(113)

Like someone had turned on a switch, Sain straightened, the weakness in his face leaving, though his eyes continued to dart around in fear.

“You should be dead, Wynifred! I saw you die,” he snapped, his voice harsh and loud before he vanished into a stutter, leaving us staring at an empty street, at the hoard of corpses surrounding Ilyan and Ryland.

“Ilyan!” I screamed the moment Sain was gone, the moment the barrier had left, my mind registering what he was facing and the danger we had all been left in.

Without a word, Wyn and I ran, ready to join the impossible battle, ready to get them out of what they had been surrounded by and make our escape.

However, before we could make it more than a few steps, the bodies around them collapsed like dominoes to the ground with thuds, the lights that had engulfed the street extinguished right along with them, leaving us standing in a dark so pitch I could see nothing but black.

Standing in the dark, I listened, my magic stretching from me as I searched for who was here, for Sain.

With a spark of magic, I let my power flare, an orb of golden light floating above my hand, everyone around me following to do the same. Blue, orange, and grey, they blazed, leaving us standing in an arena of strangely mutated light, bodies still littered around us.

“Where is Sain?” Ilyan rumbled as I ran into his arms, my magic connecting with his as his did with mine, both of us feverishly searching for injuries. Luckily, there was nothing other than a deep cut along his cheek. Although his body was covered with dirt and blood, I could tell none of it was his. “Where did he go?” His voice was broken by the desperate gasps of air he was still attempting to take.

“Stuttered,” Wyn announced, her voice far too light considering the situation we were in. “Didn’t seem too happy to see me. Although, I can’t figure out why you three took off without me.”

“You are still on probation.” Ilyan’s voice was positively acidic now, his hands dropping from me as he took a step toward the woman in question.

Her eyebrows were already attempting to disappear into her hairline. “What am I, twelve? And besides, since when has that stopped me?” she asked, her tone rising as her own temper did.

“It should have stopped you this time,” Ilyan snapped, the level of his anger making even me feel like I needed to find a way to bow out. Judging by the look on Ryland’s face, I wasn’t the only one.

“What? And let you lot go off and get killed without me? No, thank you,” she fumed, her arms crossing over her chest in such a way that I didn’t see her as anything other than a punk, seventeen-year-old kid. “I have done worse and gotten away with less—”

“I still decide your punishments!”

“You are not my father!”

Their yelling swelled in volume as Ryland and I stepped away, tiptoeing through the thankfully still motionless bodies as we tried to move as far away from them as possible.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Ryland’s voice was tense, the stress clearly still gripping him tightly, not that I blamed him.

“You mean Wyn and Ilyan fighting?” I tried to ask the question as lightly as possible, knowing it wasn’t what he was talking about. I didn’t necessarily want to talk about it, either, and I hadn’t even had to fight the dumb things.

“No,” he said with a laugh, the sound still strangled by tension. “The whole zombie apocalypse thing Sain cooked up. I mean, how … how…?” He didn’t seem to be able to get out much more than that, not that I blamed him. His eyes had gone right to where mine had—to the graveyard Sain had not only created, but resurrected.

I took a step toward it, my heart beating painfully as the same question strummed through me. My magic pulled at me in what I hoped would be answers.

“Keep the magic alive, and you can use it. You can mold it into whatever you want…” Step by step, I moved, the whispers of their dying magic flying up to me as I noticed what I was positive Sain had not wanted us to see. “These aren’t Sk?íteks.”

“I’m sorry?” Ryland asked, obviously not following.

“These are Chosen Children. They weren’t Edmund’s best men; they were just men with weaker magic that he could use…” My words froze in my throat as I stepped up to the pile, the gaunt eyes of dozens staring at me, their mouths agape in death, the sounds of cries echoing from somewhere deep inside of them.

“Do you hear that?” My voice was strangled in fear, praying I was hallucinating. The eyes of the lifeless man before me stared, his mouth open in such a way that, for a moment, I was sure the sound was coming from him.

“Hear what?”

The sobs increased, the word “help” now intermingled in the panic, the single word a sobbing plea that cut through me. I could tell this was different. This was not some corpse come to kill us, not with the way it cried, not with the way it sobbed for help.

“That.” Looking to Ryland in alarm, I pushed my magic into Ilyan, part of me knowing I needed to take control, while another part not emotionally capable to make such decisions.

Ilyan, I said, and the sound of fighting behind us stopped. We need you.

He was with us in a second, his heart beating loudly within me.

“Be careful,” Ilyan finally said, his voice shaking as he took a step toward the mound, his motions and words making everyone’s fears clear.