Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(79)

There was nothing else. No screams. No panic from my brother. I couldn’t even physically feel Joclyn where I held her against me.

Heart thundering in my chest, I opened my eyes, expecting to see the calm silver of hers, expecting this nightmare she had been trapped in for the last few hours to be gone, for everything to be okay.

However, she wasn’t there. Nothing was there, nothing except a different nightmare, one I hadn’t expected and couldn’t understand.

I wasn’t even sure where I was.

I was surrounded by white, my consciousness thrust into a void, a rip in time where nothing existed except me.

Everything intensified in unrequited panic as I spun on the spot, desperate to find her, to find anything that would clue me in to what had happened. Nothing was there.

Simply air and space.

“Joclyn!” I yelled, dread growing as I searched for my mate. My magic stretched away from me in a frantic need to find her, my hands grasping through the white space before me as though her sleeping body would be hidden beyond what I could see.

Nothing.

“Joclyn!”

No answer.

Thinking from beginning to end over everything that had happened, my mind ran on overdrive as my heart thundered in my ears, the sound slowing down as it faded to a low buzzing that echoed around me like a hive of bees.

“Joclyn?” I said again as her magic filled me, the slow burn so familiar my agitation calmed with the knowledge she was there. She was close.

“Joclyn?” I called again, trying to follow the pull of her magic, trying to find her. Still, nothing. Nothing to follow, just the familiar heat of her, the usual pull coming from somewhere deep inside of me. The immense wall of her power was so strong I couldn’t even feel my own anymore.

She was all there was.

“Joclyn,” I gasped as I collapsed to the ground, the demands of her magic so intense I was certain I would be strangled by it.

“Hello.” A child’s voice blossomed out of the white nothing like a gentle lullaby, jolting me out of my alarm as the weight of Joclyn’s magic restrained me.

“Joclyn?” I asked hesitantly even though I knew it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her voice, yet I knew it was familiar.

“Hello.” The warmth of Joclyn’s magic pulled at me as the child spoke, an unfamiliar heat moving alongside it, moving through it like a shadow.

“Hello?” I looked up, hoping to see the child or some other creature standing before me. But there was nothing.

“Hello.”

With a start, I realized the voice was seeping through me from the unfamiliar magic I had felt a moment before, a magic so close to Joclyn’s I couldn’t tell the difference. The two powers spiraled throughout me as if they were somehow connected.

“Who is there?” I asked, my focus more on the magic as it enveloped me, paying attention to the way it moved, searching for clues as to who was talking or even what was happening.

“I’m here,” the little girl said with a laugh, the sound similar to Christmas bells.

“And where is here?” I was tense, the fear and uncertainty coming back, despite the fact I could still feel Joclyn’s magic calming me.

The lack of control and understanding I was experiencing made the emotions worse. I had been in situations of life or death before. I had been moments away from death. But even in those traumatizing moments, I still had control over my life. I could choose to live, choose to die, choose to fight, choose to give in.

Here, I had none of those options.

I could only focus on trying to figure out what had happened, on where I was.

My gut was telling me that, by following the water into Joclyn’s power, this was a sight, but I had seen her sights before, and they were not like this. I had connected with her mind before, and it was not like this.

“You know where you are,” the voice came again with a laugh, the childlike game winding up my spine in agitation. “You were just thinking about it.”

I cringed at the intonation, and Joclyn’s magic flared within me at what was said, her own fear increasing alongside mine.

“You can hear…?” It wasn’t possible. Only Joclyn could tap into my mind, and then it was because of the way our souls had fused. This voice, however, was not hers. “Joclyn?” I spun on the spot, searching from end to end of the void to find who was speaking and understand what was going on.

“Joclyn!” I knew she had to be there because I could feel her magic. I could feel it swell as I said her name, the warmth of it seeping into my bones, wrapping around me in snakes of a comforting weight.

I gasped at the intimate touch, my eyes closing as my heart rate pulsed in excitement, each throb promising me she was right there, so close I could feel her skin against mine.

Opening my eyes, I expected the lights that were so common for us to appear among the void of white, but there was nothing. Just a powerful sensation that she was right there, standing beside me, my magic pulling me toward her.

“I am not Joclyn, but I know her very well.”

“How do you know her?” I asked, the simple phrase not making any sense. “Where is she? May I see her?” I kept my voice low as I continued to look into the nothing, my heart rate accelerating even as I tried to keep myself calm, to speak to this mysterious thing as I would a child. Regardless, something deep inside whispered to me that whatever I was facing was not the child they were masquerading as.