Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(50)

“And what if there were no sights, Jos?” I interrupted her steadily, not letting her disrupt my flow. “What if we had nothing to guide us and no guarantee of victory? We would still try. We did for centuries before you came along, and we will for centuries after if we need to. So what if you can see the future? If you told me anything, it’s that what you see isn’t set in stone. You’ve changed it before, so let’s change it again. Stop trying to guess what’s going to happen next and just find out for certain. There is more to see in life than the future, Jos. Sometimes, we have to look to the past to see the whole story.”

There it was—the answer that not only she needed, but I needed, as well. It scared the bejesus out of me to even think the sights could be wrong, that I could lose Thom the same way I had lost Talon, the same way I had lost all the others. In the end, even if I did lose them, I would do as I always had. I would keep moving, keep doing what I had always done. More than surviving, more than trying, I would find another way to succeed.

It was what we all needed to do: keep moving, find another path, find the courage to try again.

“You’re the queen, Jos. Ilyan chose you for a reason. The magic mud hole chose you for a reason. The Vil? that bit you chose you for a reason. Who cares what the reason was? Accept it, own it, and be it.”

It was the pep talk of the century. At least, that was what I was going to label it as. And judging by the way Jos was staring at me—with the look of someone who had just been slapped—I was going to have to count that as a win.

I knew I had probably given her way too much to chew on, and without knowing what was in her head … Well, it might have been too much. But I didn’t care. She needed to hear it.

Maybe I needed to, as well.

Knowing me, I probably did.





Mommy?

Her voice cut through the calm that had begun to move through the cathedral. It cut through me where I stood beside my best friend, a vivid reminder of what I had said, of why I needed to keep going. Why I needed to find a way to succeed.

Where are you, Mommy?



With a flinch, my magic rushed to the tips of my fingers in a violent wave. I was barely able to restrain it before it burst out of me, the impulse strong enough I had no doubt it was noticed.

“Wyn? Are you sure you are okay?” I could tell by the tone of her voice it was going to be harder to get out of it this time.

“Yeah, just antsy. Let’s fight. We have become far too serious and adult in the last few minutes. I need to work off some steam.” Stretching my hand toward her, I smiled, knowing she was going to see right through me no matter what I did.

Mommy?



This time, I was able to restrain the flinch, but not the agitation, not the powerful surge of fire and flame that swelled within me. The wave of power washed over my body as Joclyn took my hand, her skin pressing against mine with a gentle touch my body interpreted as an attack.

Fire flooded to the spot, pressing against her hand in an angry shock that rippled through with a visible flood of red and orange.

Her voice rang out in pain and shock as she pulled away, staring at her hand with a look that could easily spell fear. The same reaction had happened in Rioseco all those months ago as we had run from Edmund, and I had set the forest on fire.

Before, I had laughed it off, saying our magic must be enemies or something. That was getting harder and harder to believe. I knew there was something else there, just as she did.

Staring at her, my hand clutched to my chest as hers was to hers, I saw what I had missed before. It wasn’t just a shock. It hadn’t been just my magic reacting to hers.

She had seen something.

Something that scared her.

No.

She was scared of me.

“Wyn?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “What did you take out of Ryland?”

I froze, everything in me tightening and shaking as the alarms inside of me went off.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I knew the shake in my voice was a dead giveaway, but I didn’t care. Right then, it was all I could do to keep me from attacking, from running away.

“Wyn?” she asked again, and for the first time, I could tell how scared she was. “What did you do?”

I could scarcely look at her. All I could think was that she wanted to take away my daughter, and that she wanted to hurt her, too.

I wouldn’t let that happen.

Not this time.

“Wyn?”

I barely heard her. I couldn’t focus past my panic. I couldn’t focus past the break in reality. All I could feel was the fury and terror blending in an angry wall of emotion that was making it hard to think, hard to see straight.

I could think of one thing.

I only knew to do one thing.

Attack.

Power surged through me, speeding right to my best friend as she reached out for me in what I was sure she thought was an act of support, just as her hand wrapped around my wrist and our magic reacted the same as it had before, but this time, it surged and erupted. What was worse, this time, because I had already been ready to fight, it exploded.

It exploded in a wave of blue ice and flame, the eruption like cannon fire, the world around us shaking from the impact. The wall of power burned through the air as it sped over the cathedral, barreling down the tight space on its way to intersect with the barrier Ilyan used to protect the old space.