Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(14)

His body tensed against mine, his arms pressing me into him in perfect form, as the deep buzzing of his thoughts moved against me.

“So they are getting worse?”

I didn’t want to justify his question with an answer. Besides, seeing the wall fall and my subsequent breakdown was the least of our problems right then.

And he knew it.

What about the girl? I didn’t want to say it out loud. I could still see her face in my mind. I could still see the white and red of her skin. I could still see her eyes, so dark and sad they took my breath away.



“Show me again.” His voice was much harder than I had expected it to be, the heavy tension ripping through me, and I fought the need to step away.

I probably would have if his arms hadn’t formed a cage around me.

Exhaling heavily, I placed his hand against my mark, gasping as the strength of his magic rippled through me, my knees shaking with the weight of his love.

I wanted to bask in the emotion, but I couldn’t, because I knew what was coming. I knew what I was about to see.

And I knew there was no way around it.

Moments after his hand made contact with my mark, the recall flared, bright and warm inside of me like a flame. The same scene played before us: the cloaked figure running, my vision following.

Turning a corner to face Edmund and the child.

The girl had barely started to turn when Ilyan’s hand pulled away from me, the recall severing along with the connection. His movements were rough as he took a step away, his magic leaving as the contact did. His eyes were darker than I had seen them.

I had thought the sight of the girl was frightening, but somehow, Ilyan’s reaction to her was even more so.

“Ilyan?”

“Have you seen her before?”

I flinched at the fear in his voice, my feet pulling me forward before placing my hand against his back in a need to comfort him, despite the fear I held.

“No.” I regretted asking what came next. “Do you know her?”

“It’s Rosaline.”

The weight of his emotions smothered me as my brain moved into overdrive. I had heard that name before. Where had I heard that name before? I didn’t have to think on it much before the memory came to me, aided by Ilyan and a million painful moments.

Wyn’s daughter.

No, Wyn and Thom’s daughter.

“What? Isn’t she … dead?” I couldn’t compute it. It didn’t fit. Nothing about it fit. It wasn’t past, not with the city the way it was. And Rosaline was already gone, so it couldn’t be now, and it couldn’t be future.

I looked up at Ilyan, the alarm in his eyes making it clear he was following my train of thought perfectly.

“Is she alive?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

My sight couldn’t be that broken, could it? What was happening?

“No. There is no way she could be, but something is going on,” Ilyan answered, his steps wide as he pulled me back into his arms, his heart thundering against me, within me, as I leaned into him. “Did the sight feel like the others? Did it feel real?”

“Yes,” I whispered against him. “It had that pull … like it’s trying to tell me something. And there was none of that static…” I froze as Ilyan stiffened underneath me, a violent pull of warning and magic moving through both of us.

My head turned away from him, toward the city where the magic began to grow, the close proximity a warning that neither of us recognized.

Slithering away from his embrace, I dropped to my knees, my eyes scanning the red-tinted rooftops and the shadowed labyrinth of streets before us. My magic pulled in a fervent search for the source of the danger, spreading away from me like lightning as it sped right to the source.

As quickly as the spike of warning had come, it left, only to be replaced by an identical one, many more miles away and to the left.

My head snapped toward it, my eyes narrowed as I looked through the world, my magic and mind seeing as one.

With my heart pulsing in foreboding, my magic sped through the air toward the perceived danger, only to jump again a mile in the opposite direction.

The same magic moved and shifted around the city as if it was playing nothing more than a game of hopscotch.

No, as if it was stuttering.

Stuttering. Seamless movement from one place to another.

It was something Ilyan could do, something I had almost mastered.

Besides us, there was only one other person we knew of who could move so swiftly.

Edmund.

Fear gripped me at the realization. It pulled through my muscles in a twisted ache. However, I remained still, crouched against the ancient rooftop, my eyes lifted to the red sky, trying to keep my breathing level and my Drak magic at bay.

“It can’t be…”

“Edmund.”

My body uncoiled at the malice in Ilyan’s voice, the conclusion the same as mine, one I was sure he had heard inside of me.

A hot wind wound around us, tangling our ribbons as I moved to stand beside my mate, my figure as stiff and still as his while we stood, feeling the magic pulse again, feeling it move and shift.

“Is it the same?” Ilyan whispered, his voice rumbling inside my head as it did out. “The magic, is it the same as his?”

The question was simple and one I should have asked myself from the moment I had figured out what was happening. After all, I knew Edmund’s magic as well as Ilyan did.