Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(28)

He doesn’t seem to think so.

Look at him, Ryland.

“Every day for a year?” He continued speaking as though I hadn’t said anything, like he hadn’t heard the little asterisk mark that I was attaching to that or, worse, like he didn’t care.

“That is not a good thing, kid,” I reiterated as I turned back to him, my heart dropping to see the awe seeping back into Jaromir’s eyes. Please don’t let it be for what I think it is.

It is, Ryland.

It is exactly what you think it is.

“My father is … well… He’s not very nice.”

“I know that.”

I froze.

“How do you know?” We had been very careful to shield him from knowing my connection with Edmund, something that had been nearly impossible, all things considered. “You don’t know my father.”

Jaromir smiled, his lips spreading wide to reveal rows of perfectly straight and white teeth. “Yes I do,” he said through the grin. “It’s Edmund.”

I felt like I had been punched in the gut. My mouth opened automatically, my brain struggling to catch up, to find something to tell him, some way to respond.

“I figured it out,” he said, the smug look growing as he rubbed his fingers over the mark on his cheek, as though, if he pressed hard enough, he could make it disappear. “It wasn’t that hard. I knew Ilyan was his son, and you and Ilyan are obviously brothers, what with your weird eyes and the crazy things you both do and everything…” He smiled broadly at that, his hand dragging over his hair before he pinched the bridge of his nose, his smile increasing in mockery.

He laughed.

I didn’t.

“Were you trying to keep it from me?”

“Well … yeah…” I dragged my hand through my hair in embarrassed frustration again before stopping halfway through and dropping it to my side. Of all the things to give us away …



Jaromir’s smile stretched to inordinate proportions.

“There are some things you probably shouldn’t know yet,” I finished in a desperate hope he would let it drop.

I was a fool to think there was even a chance at that.

“That’s dumb,” he spat, the quick change in demeanor taking me by surprise.

The awe had gone; the pity had gone. He was just a lanky boy who stood before me in angry defiance.

I didn’t miss those mood swings.

You were always more powerful with them, just like him.



Whoever said only girls got those during puberty had never tried to control the magical rage of a boy trying to figure himself out.

Just standing here, I could feel the heat of his magic begin to grow, my own magic reacting in warning.

“How so?” I was careful to keep the hesitancy out of my voice.

“You’re training everyone for war, right?” He already knew the answer to this, but I nodded my head in acceptance, anyway. “Which means you are training me for war, too, so why hide things? Why lie and say things are different than they are?”

So that it’s easier for me to defeat you.



“So we can protect you.”

“That’s dumb,” he repeated, a smug, little smile springing over his face, his nose turning up at me as if he smelled something disgusting.

In any other circumstance, I would have laughed at the look, but I couldn’t. Not right then when the tense ball in my gut made it impossible.

“Why is that dumb, Jaromir?”

His smile grew. “Because isn’t that what you are training me to do? To protect myself?”

To die for me, you mean.



No, Father.

“Well … yes…” The words broke out awkwardly, my heart thundering as even I began to question who I was responding to.

“So why keep stuff like that from me? You are already training me to protect myself, but I can’t protect myself if you aren’t going to tell me everything. Just saying it’s for protection when I can’t protect myself without it … It doesn’t make any sense.”

He had spoken in circles the way he always did when he was agitated, the way I used to when I was his age. Despite the circles, however, I knew he had a point, one I was foolish for missing.

I stared at him, the obviously blank look on my face causing him to smile even more.

I know how to wipe that grin off his face.

He was smug. He had won. He knew he had gotten me. I didn’t know why, but that made me uncomfortable—being upped by a kid.

I had been rattling over everything for days. Risha and I had gotten in far too many conversations about what to tell him when he had figured it out all on his own, understanding the ins and outs of it enough to make what I thought had been sound, simple logic seem fickle.

I groaned a bit and turned away, my hand moving toward my curls, ready to drag its way through. I pulled it away quickly, not really wanting to be compared to Ilyan by an eight-year-old again.

It’s pathetic that you have picked up so much from your brother.

You are better than him.

You were supposed to destroy him.

No.

Kill him, Ryland.

Stop waiting.

Do this.

For me.

“Don’t worry; you don’t have to say it. My dad didn’t like it much when I was right, either.” The words came out so easily, the certainty of truth behind them, spoken with a grin and a flip of his hand.