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

Did everyone make it through alive? We need to get them back before another wave comes, by way of the large department store to the old warehouse near the wall and back.



The quick Czech as he spoke to Risha was like bees in my ears, so I tuned them out, looking at the high, stained glass windows that covered either side of the hallway. The images of ancient piety were framed by the span of buttresses that crisscrossed over the ceiling in a beautiful basket weave. The way the stone seemed to move, the light shimmering over everything like liquid gold, was magic. Magic the way I always imagined it as a child.

Taking another drink, I turned into a small alcove where there were two doors on either side of me, both heavy oak set with large metal nuts and grating, making it look like the entrance to a dungeon. If I didn’t know better, I would say that was where I was, and I was sure certain people would agree with me.

And by certain people, I meant Wyn.

Of course, she might not feel that way if she ever left the room.

The door creaked with a harassing groan as I opened it to a dark room. Dust motes danced through the ribbon of light that trailed behind me, the cluttered, derelict room seeming alive, although the depressing space sucked against me oppressively.

I had come to this room daily for the past few months, not only to check on the girl in question and her sleeping beauty, but my brother, as well.

Even though we hadn’t been able to tell exactly what the Vil? bite had done to Dramin’s body, he wasn’t the image of perfect health anymore, either. He looked like an old man, something that, given his age, would be accepted, except he hadn’t looked old months before.

I was worried about him, a worry that had done nothing more than increase as he had decided to open up about my heritage in ways that Sain had deemed illegal before. You didn’t do stuff like that. You didn’t break unbreakable rules and talk about your history unless you were reaching the end. That was how it was for my grandmother, anyway.

Dramin lay, feigning sleep, on the other side of the room. His small, twin bed was pushed into the corner, surrounded by bookcases and dusty, leather-bound books with large, earthen mugs of Black Water tucked between them like a child who was trying to hide candy bars. It looked much like his room at the Abbey had, much as I imagined his little alcove in the cave had. Full of food for mind and body, all of it intermingled in an ordered mess.

Like a mad scientist, one who wasn’t doing a very good job of pretending to sleep judging by the wink he gave me before he rolled over to give us privacy, not that you could get any in a room the size of a closet.

I would feel bad, but he wasn’t who I had come in there for, anyway.

It was for Wyn.

She lay over the foot of Thom’s bed, her arms wrapped around him as though she was afraid he would slip away sometime in the night.

My heart clenched from seeing her there, the parallels to how I was when Ilyan had been rendered unconscious too much for me. It was the same heartbreak, the same fear, the same heart-wrenching plea for life. It was the same love that held her there.

Even if she didn’t see it yet, I did.

It was part of why I came there as often as I did, checking in on her, on him, part of me desperately wishing I would walk in and find them sitting and laughing as I was sure they had done so many centuries before.

Nothing.

I knew the chances of that happening were becoming less and less every day, and so did everyone else, even if no one wanted to admit it yet.

The ever increasing boils, the inability to wake, the way his body was collapsing in on itself, it was all part of the p?etí?ení dávka—the magical overdose. And, according to Ilyan, it was something with no known cure, cause, or trigger.

Despite all of my ability, everything I had tried had bounced around inside of him like a ping-pong ball.

Besides the boils, besides the disheveled woman who had flung herself over him, Thom looked the same. He had the same dreads, the same smug smile plastered to his face as though he had told one of his little jokes and closed his eyes to enjoy it.

You would think he was sleeping; except, his side of the room looked nothing like him. While Dramin’s was a glimpse into the soul of the ancient man, Thom’s mirrored what had been slowly infecting us all for the last few months.

Tables were littered with a wild assortment of flora and fauna, poultices, and salves that sent a violent aroma into the air. Even a few battered mortal pill bottles lay among them all, a saline bag someone had tried to figure out how to use thrown into the corner. It was a hospital room of the worst sort, one formed in desperation and panic.

Anything to keep him alive.

My heart pulsed painfully at the thought, something I ignored as I pulled the doors shut behind me, locking myself into the room with a loud click that echoed with a rumble.

Wyn’s head jerked away from Thom’s bedside at the sound, her movements quick as I felt her magic flare in the air. The rough blankets had left heavy lines against one side of her face, and her hair was plastered into some kind of a half Mohawk.

“Talon,” she mumbled, her voice calling out in longing as I pulled her from some dream about her former mate.

Her eyes were wide as she searched the darkness before her, the dark, wide orbs swallowing the world until they adjusted from sleep and saw me standing there in the darkness.

“That good, huh?” she said with a laugh, her hands automatically moving to flatten whatever mêlée had occurred on her head.