Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(3)

“Joclyn!” I yelled aloud, letting my magic smother her as Edmund’s men kept coming, flowing through the streets, flooding the space that was growing smaller.

I smiled as my power grew within me like a warm water bottle of determination.

I was out of time.

With one powerful stream of magic, I turned, red and yellow light flying right into the broken foundation of the building that was threatening to collapse and, without warning, sending it to the ground.

Right on top of me.

Joclyn’s magic erupted as mine did, the two joining together in a powerful force that encompassed me in a barrier so strong that, as I stood still, I could watch tons of ancient architecture crumbling around me.

The dust settled as I remained untouched, standing in an upturned fish bowl, witnessing the fall of something that had once been beautiful.

My heart rate increased as Joclyn’s did, as images of her sight flashed before me, a battle eerily similar to the one I had ended replaying right before my very eyes.

“Wake up, m?j nav?dy,” I said, my voice echoing through the shield as I surveyed the damage, making one last sweep for any life that might choose to follow me before taking off into the sky, the shielded globe ascending around me, dust falling away from my movement like the tail of a kite.

“Wake up!” I spoke aloud to my mate as the blood of her sight flowed over her, her heart rate so fast within me I was sure some monster was trying to break free from the inside of my chest as well as hers.

With a graceful step, I landed on the rooftop of the highest point—the tall, lookout building I had told Risha to meet me at. My tension was still high with fear of the possibility that she and the others might not have made it as the shield fell away with the faintest pop, the solitary sound loud in the silence after the battle I had escaped.

There was only the faint red of the world, only the hot breeze that moved through my hair as I stood, heart pounding, on the high rooftop, looking over the city I was raised in, the city I was now trapped in. The city that had quickly become a prison.

Wake up, mi lasko! I tried again, this time sending the call right into her mind, and I was grateful when her heart rate slowed, the heavy influx of her magic regulating.

I could still feel her fear, still feel her panic, but it was mixed with reality now, the uncertainty and anxiety of nightmares leaving. Still, she was silent, and even through the temporary calm, my heart rate picked up.

“Mi lasko?” I breathed, sending the words right into her mind as the fright left. “Are you all right?”

Ilyan, she finally replied, her voice a calm wave.

With one word, my heart relaxed, my soul calmed, and although I had escaped the literal destruction of yet another part of this beautiful city…

It was still home.

She made it that way.





I could hear him crying, the boy’s soft whimpers ringing through the cave in a mournful sound that tensed through me. The distorted sobs were so mangled I wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying. It was just the broken echo of pain and sadness, the feral growl of some beast following behind. The sounds rippled across the space in a pressure that was hard to breathe through, my heart tensing in expectation of what I was walking toward, of what was ahead.

Peering through the black and blue striation of light, I tried to find him, tried to see. But the deep blue of the moon cast confusing shadows over the rocks of the cave.

Everything shook as the child cried again, as though the sound of his cries would bring everything crumbling down. Dust fell like snow, covering me, smothering me, surrounding me until it was all I could see, the vision shifting, buzzing in my ears like television static that pulled me out of the reality I thought I was trapped in.

No, not a reality, only the distorted future that drifted in and out of focus before landing in the deep red glow of my sight, my vision shifting with a jolt to the same derelict, red-tinged streets of Prague that I walked every day, that I surveyed every day, that I fought in just as often.

That I fought in now.

A herd of running feet and heaving breaths surrounded me as the sight became clear. The crash of an attack resounded somewhere before us, and despite a part of me wanting to run the other way, I still continued forward, my prescience guiding me through a tight alley and right into the fray of battle where Ilyan and Risha were surrounded by men, Ilyan holding one by the neck as he fought more than a dozen others.

I fought, grunting, as I joined them. Magic exploded, exactly as it did every time Edmund’s men attacked in the city, whether in premonition or in life. This time, however, it was broken by the same electronic noise that had haunted my sight for months. Everything cutting in and out until it stopped.

No, I stopped.

The battle continued as I stood there with flashes of magic beating through the sound of death. But I could not move. I stood, staring at a tall, muscular figure who was walking through the battle toward me, their body shrouded in a dark cape, face hidden.

Sound drained from the world, leaving only the thunder of my heart, as I stood, surrounded by death, the smell of blood, and heavy smoke.

While I watched in wide-eyed horror, the man before me slowly pulled down the hood, revealing not the man I expected, but Wyn with a wide, nefarious smile, the look so similar to Edmund’s that, before I knew it, I was screaming.

The sound of my terror echoed in my ears, but I didn’t know if it was trapped in sight or ricocheting through reality.