Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(78)

But it was just my little girl, my child wrapped in my arms, my child as innocent as Thom and I had tried to keep her until the end.

“Honey,” I tried again, “what’s wrong with Daddy?”

“Grandpa is trying to make you kill him,” she gasped, her eyes refocusing on me. “You have to save him. You have to go.”

I looked from her to Cail in confusion. For once, Cail looked as confused as I was. However, he wasn’t looking at me; he was looking at her, the little girl who clung to me, her hands wrapped around my arms so tightly she was most likely going to leave marks.

“Can you get her out of here?” Cail asked, his seemingly complicated question directed to the tiny child I held. “Will he stop you?”

“He can try,” she said, her face turning up in the same mischievous grin Cail always had. I had forgotten how much she had always adored and idolized him until that moment. “No one can stop me anymore.” She smiled at him, a defiance I had never seen in her sparking behind her eyes. It was a look I had seen a million times before, but not in her or Cail. I had seen it in me. It was something that even my brother did not miss.

“She is your daughter, Wyn.”

“I know.” I didn’t think I could get any more than those two delighted words out.

Rosy looked back at me, the power in her eyes mounting as she pressed her hand to my cheek, her lips soft as she kissed my nose again.

“You won’t be able to come back here. I’ll keep fighting him, but you have to fight now, too. Just remember what’s real.” It seemed like such an adult thing to say, and it caught me off guard.

I looked from her to Cail in some hope of answer, but neither said a word. They looked at me with a combination of fear and support.

“I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you, too, darling.”

“Say hello to Daddy for me.”

And then she was gone.

The calm of the forest was gone. The comfort of her touch was gone. The companionship of my brother was gone. And I was left staring at the same war torn world as before, when I had walked toward Edmund without control. Except, I couldn’t see straight, everything shifting. Everything faded in and out of focus as though they were bathed in a heavy curtain of smoke.

I was surrounded by it, surrounded by this uncomfortable heaviness that made it hard to think. Everything fluctuated before me as though I had drunk far too much Slivovica. It was too much.

It was darkness and confusion and a screaming that never stopped.

I didn’t know where it was coming from or why. For all I knew, it was coming from me, that the haunting, somewhat musical, sounds of terror were mine.

The disorientation of that was terrifying.

I tried to focus, tried to make sense of it as my shifting vision turned to a door I knew all too well, a door that swung open to reveal a man I had hovered over for month, a man I had been forced to watch slowly die.

“You have to save Daddy!” her shout echoed through me as if she was standing right beside me, something I couldn’t completely discount. “Fight him!”

The walls shivered as I took a step forward, my motions uncontrolled, the forceful movements jutting through me as my hand rose toward Thom.

“You have to save Daddy!”

No!



The word was a tiny spark inside my head as the magic grew, the powerful heat of it triggering a knowledge and a control that surprised me. My magic, my soul, they were connected.

I felt the power grow as my consciousness did, raging through me as the black void flashed before me. The spot of black was gone before the room came again, the walls and surroundings vibrating so badly that, for all I knew, the earth had begun to shake, the earth had turned to liquid.

No!



The call was a shout inside my mind, a determination to keep fighting. It was then that I realized the desperate call was not mine, but that of another. One who was very quickly losing control.

Edmund.

No! It came again.

This time, I laughed.

I laughed as the shaking surrounded me, as the world came into focus, as I ran from Thom, everything drifting from black to grey until there was only black.





The burn was more than I could fathom.

I had spent the last thousand years avoiding this never-ending pain, since the night the black water had licked against my chest, creating long, red lashes that never healed. The pain had gotten worse with each burn, with each drop the black water had littered against my body. The palm I had burned getting the water into Joclyn in a moment of life or death, the welt on my arm from trying to save her, each one had branded me. Now they burned with a deeper agony than I had ever felt, an acute pain that was ripping me apart as I willingly followed it, as I let it devour me.

I followed the burn as I held Joclyn against me, her panic moving through me, her heart beating against mine. A burning force spread to every inch of me, tensing my muscles, tightening in my stomach. It grew until all I could feel was the heat that had encompassed my body, the intensity of it not just mine, but hers, as well.

The pain was us.

The magic was us.

It was everywhere.

I couldn’t stop screaming. I couldn’t escape it.

And then it was gone.

Gone in one numbing blast, leaving me with the shadow of the Black Water and the familiar warmth of Joclyn’s magic against my soul.