Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(15)

I had been trapped with it.

I had been tortured by it.

And I knew the magic below us wasn’t the same. It felt different. The power was different. The malice and rot within it was different. If only judging by that, it wasn’t Edmund. It couldn’t be.

And yet …

“No one else can stutter,” the words seeped out of him as the realization spread inside me. Ilyan’s muscles tightened beside me, his thoughts going into a speed so fast I couldn’t help flinching at the onslaught. “But it’s not him.”

Looking to Ilyan, my eyes wide as my head swam, I knew I should fight it. I couldn’t risk another disaster like earlier, and if Edmund was here, right below us, I needed to be on guard.

My head spun painfully as I pushed it away, stomach twisting as Ilyan faded in and out of focus.

“Nothing?” he asked, knowing full well what had happened and what I had tried to do.

I loved that my magic was being such a pain in the butt. It was times like this when sight would be useful. I guess it was good I could still fight with the rest of them.

The Drak might be broken, but I sure as heck wasn’t.

“Nothing,” I parroted, looking toward the city as the power jumped again, moving from place to place so fast even I was having trouble tracking it.

I focused on it, focused on the energy, on the hatred and the black undertone that poisoned it, but it wasn’t familiar.

Except, it was. The anger, the poison within its emotional depth, was the same as the Vil?s’, the same as what I had removed from each Chosen we had brought into the cathedral. The same as what I had felt from Edmund’s men before they attacked us.

It might not be him, but it was one of his, which meant one thing …

Someone in Edmund’s new army could stutter. Some newly awakened magic was strong enough to do that which was deemed the most powerful.

I looked at Ilyan, his expression making it clear he had heard my thoughts as they had come to me. His eyes flashed to a dark blue, the shade screaming with a painful fear of agreement.

I knew what needed to come next and wrapped my hand around his, letting his magic fill me as he pulled me into a stutter, pulled me into the dark void between worlds to go after the magic, after the new danger, and into a war.





Everything was going perfectly.

Joclyn’s madness was becoming more active, and thanks to this morning’s little orchestrated episode, more public.

There had been rumors of her insanity brewing for weeks as a result of the speculations I had slowly been spreading. However, she had been hiding what was happening to her too well, hiding the manipulation, the episodes of sight and weakness that I had plagued her with. No one had really been able see the truth of what was being said until this morning when I forced her into a vision that would never be, a sight so perfectly run over with reality she couldn’t tell the difference. And she cracked.

Then everyone saw.

Then everyone knew.

And I was one step closer.

“Sir! Excuse me, Sain! Sir!” a voice erupted from behind me, concerned, deep, feminine.

I tensed before I turned, unsurprised to see the same pretty Sk?ítek I had whispered to in the hall a few minutes before rushing toward me.

Look at her eyes, I had whispered, the low voice agitating poor Joclyn more. That’s how you know her magic is destroying her. You can see the madness there.

Seeing the woman now, I knew she believed me. I knew she had already spread those few simple words around.

They were little seeds of doubt, but like a weed, they would grow.

“Yes?” I asked, the sound of her approach echoing in the mostly empty courtyard. Normally, it was full around that time. I supposed everyone had left to see what the commotion was about.

The thought made me smile.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she mumbled as she stepped closer, her eyes falling to her toes in respect.

I smiled at the gesture, glad I was being treated the way I should.

“I … I need to know. Is what you said before true? About the queen’s magic destroying her mind?”

“I want to say that it isn’t.” I sighed dramatically, placing my hand on her elbow in what I hoped was a fatherly way. “But I have seen this before. It is a common ailment of my kind. When the mind cannot handle the power of sight, it begins to destroy itself—”

She gasped, the horror on her face evident. “Our poor queen.”

I bristled, anger and agitation running through my spine. That was not the reaction I wanted. She should not be showing worry or sympathy for one so pathetic and volatile. Disgust, anger, fear—those should be lining her face, the reality of the weakness of her queen filling her.

Instead, she was worried.

I attempted to bridle the unrelenting anger that moved through me, numbing my better logic as I pulled my hand away quickly, grateful not to have to touch her anymore. The anger kept growing, but I tried to make the emotion in my face mirror the ones she was obviously feeling.

Sadness. Devastation. The emotions were there, even if I didn’t feel them, and she reacted.

“Will she be all right? You are the first of the Drak; your magic is pure. Surely you can see what is coming for her.”

This time, I couldn’t disguise the smile. I didn’t even try. This was what I wanted—this dedication, this awe. To me, not to the ones who had stolen my throne.