Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(27)

I recognized what he was trying to do. That particular movement was one I had done since I was ten when my father had broken my wrist in a fight and demanded I heal it, breaking it repeatedly until I mastered healing every mutilation of the bone he could think of.

And you whined like a baby the whole time.

I should have broken both your wrists just to teach you a lesson.

How I could have been stuck with such a—

I cut the voices out with a cringe, something that wasn’t easy to do considering the strength of the memory. It was hard to forget the full year of constant bone breakage and pain he had inflicted on me. I guessed it was a good way to teach a task if you were a sadistic monster, which my father was.

What is your guide for sadism, son?

How do you know you aren’t exactly like me?

I’m not.

You are more like me than you think.



In the end, I did master healing. I was also left with a few ticks within my magic, something that was bound to happen when you performed magic with nothing more than splinters of bone and tendons instead of a working hand.

You could always break his wrist. Then he would be able to master it.

Then he could be like you.

And you like me.

“That movement isn’t required, Jaromir.”

“What do you mean it isn’t required?” the little boy asked, the greasy mop of dirty brown hair quivering a bit as he shook his head. “That’s how you do it.”

“Yes.” I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice, but it leaked out, anyway. Jaromir wrinkled his bulbous nose in response. “But that’s because it’s how I was trained.”

Jaromir narrowed his eyes at me in defiance, and I fought the need to roll mine. I wasn’t going to tell him all of what my father was capable of, not yet. Right now, magic was still new and amazing to him, and I didn’t want to be the one to destroy that.

It was like Santa Claus—no one wanted to be the one to ruin the secret.

Then let me.



“So train me that way.” He was insistent, defiant even, and this time, I couldn’t help laughing, the reaction affecting him as deeply as a smack in the face.

Let me ruin the magic.

Let me train him.

“Not going to happen, kid.”

You can’t stop it, son.

You know it is the best way.

“What do you mean ‘it’s not going to happen’? It’s how you were trained, and I want to be trained like you. I want to be as good as you.”

Even he knows what you are capable of, what you were made for.

He sees it, and he wants it for himself.

No.

“You will be as good as me,” I said with a laugh, the forced sound resounding back to me with the same awkward ripple the barrier always gave. “But that doesn’t mean you have to do everything exactly like me.”

Why not, Ryland?



“But I want to,” he said, half-shocked, half annoyed, his little eyes squinting together as he wrinkled his nose.

I once again found myself fighting the need to smile, to laugh.

It was an odd feeling to be looked at by someone that way, like I was Santa Claus instead of the magic.

An unfamiliar knot formed in my gut with the realization I could be that to someone. With scars all over my body and a brain that was addled and frightening, I was baffled anyone could look at me and still want to be like me.

Jaromir still looked at me like that: eager, waiting, his eyes full of so much life it was infectious.

I really didn’t want to deflate that magic from him, deflate the fantasy into a twisted and frightening reality.

But it was more than that.

Jaromir was a child. He was an innocent.

That was what I didn’t want to destroy. That was the reality I didn’t want to taint.

And yet, hadn’t it already been?

He was a child, yes, but he was also a child who had been pulled away from his dead mother’s arms. He had watched his family being destroyed by mysterious, winged bats, only to be cursed with immense pain. He was a child who had chosen to survive, to live, even through all that pain.

He had something to fight for, too.

Just like I did.

Just like we all did.

Maybe, I thought with a cringe, it is a bad thing I am trying to sugarcoat it the way I am.

Yes.

Be more like your father, Ryland.

I couldn’t keep the disgusting truth of what was coming from him forever. Besides, I didn’t have to tell him all of it right now.

“I twist my wrist that way because of how my father trained me,” I said with a sigh, keeping Jaromir’s focus on me, despite wanting to look away. “He broke my wrist every day to teach me how to heal while still teaching me other abilities, so things like the wrist flick are because I couldn’t move my body the right way and had to make do.”

That’s a good boy, Ryland.

Jaromir’s smile faded little by little with each word I spoke. This tiny, little fact about my father and what he was capable of seeped into him and replaced his awe with worry.

I groaned a bit at the shocked look he had now fixed me with, instantly grateful I had elected not to say anything more. I wasn’t sure what it would do to the kid.

“Your father broke your wrist?”

“My father is not a very nice man, Jaromir.”