Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(82)

My heart ached as the blood flowed, my father’s laugh matching the voice of the Drak in perfect harmony.

“He seeks to kill the magic for his own personal gain. We see him as he fights, as he sheds the blood of us, as he sheds the blood of others. We see him as he stops the reign of magic, as he stops the time of ours.”



The voices of the Drak faded away as the sight shifted. My father walked into the same hall of sight I had seen moments before, his face sallow and grey as his hands writhed, eyes wide with fear.

I watched him kneel before Sain, the old Drak grinning as he placed his hand on my father’s head, the depth of his voice shocking.

“You must kill them all, Edmund. All of the Chosen. The sight is clear.”

“There must be another way!” my father sobbed, his whole body convulsing as he fell to the ground, the sight shifting as he fell.

Timothy ran across my sight, his squat frame tearing into a large forest clearing that was filled with an army. Thousands stood at the ready, bathed in ribbons of sun. It would have been beautiful if not for the reason they were there.

Edmund smiled as Timothy approached him, his face strained as he ordered the army out, as the sight shifted to the screams of hundreds of children, hundreds of Chosen massacred before my eyes. Vil?s were captured, their wings ripped from their bodies before they were thrown into nothing more than a burlap sack.

I tried to scream, tried to run from the changes in the sight, but I couldn’t move. I was forced to watch as the scene kept me trapped in a reality I wasn’t ready to face.

“You, I’ll save for last,” Timothy hissed as he grabbed the blue Vil? I had seen born from the mud, his face defiant as he threw him into an oversized birdcage, locking the door with one flick of his magic.

“Is this now?” The echo of my own voice rippled throughout the sight, the sound distorted as it traveled from the past, reverberating throughout the sight as it shifted again.

“The time is now, My Lord,” the Drak responded, their voice hollow as it shifted violently across the painful image I was faced with. “You alone will be brave enough to fight him. Where others will lose their lives, you will prevail.”

Everything in me twisted uncomfortably as the sight faded to black, the dim light of a dungeon I had seen many times before coming into focus. Crude shapes of what I could assume were people drifted in and out of focus, and over it all, the deep, heavy words of a Drak flowed freely, the voice dead and monotone.

“The child is the key. If she lives, then the first of the Chosen is defeated. If she dies, then he prevails. Through her line comes the Siln? as seen before. Take her to the tallest spire and take flight. The time is now.”

If I could focus beyond the sight, focus beyond what was before me, I was in no doubt I would be crying. I could feel the heavy emotion wrack me, but I could not escape it.

One after another, the sights came, images flashing from the beginning to the end of time as everything sped up.

Edmund, ordering the death of thousands. Edmund, wooing woman after woman as he took their magic, leaving orphans behind. Myself as I fought him, trying desperately to defeat him, to stop the rein of death he had unfurled on our kind.

The mumbling voice of the Drak echoed during the sights, the tempo of the sound increasing as it mutated into the distorted words I had heard before.

“In a time far ahead, near the end of the world, in a time when everything is changing and everything is new…”

The images I saw shifted to things that were now so commonplace the wonderment I had felt the first time flittered away, leaving me confused as I watched cars, airplanes, and toasters.

“There will come a child.”

In an instant, the image shifted. This time, I recognized it as what I had seen before, the image of the same woman being handed an infant, a beautiful baby girl who, even in sight, pulled at my heart.

“A child, an infant, a child whom we see. We see her when she’s born. We see her when she’s grown. We see her now, and we see her then.”

The sight intersected with what I had seen before, the images the same as I watched Joclyn’s childhood, as I watched her grow. I watched her find joy. I watched her find her smile. I smiled, too. The heartache I had always felt before was now a distant memory, because even though I knew what I was about to see, I also knew what came after. I knew what she was to me now.

I knew that my wait was over.

“She is of the Chosen. Marked by the sign of the creature of fire, she has smoke in her eyes. A Chosen Child just for you.”

These images were all familiar to me now: this love, this connection, this powerful magic we shared. I could feel it wrap itself around me. It all enveloped me as I saw our first kiss, saw the flashes of magic I now understood and had already experienced.

“For in this child is power, power beyond belief. She is the most powerful. She will be the Siln?, the one who protects us all.”

Images twisted as I watched, subtle changes infecting the sights. I had noticed them, but none so apparent as when I saw Joclyn and I leaning up against a wall in the ruins of Rioseco, a battle unfolding around us. Flames surrounded us as we stood in each other’s arms, blood seeping from a wound in her stomach and the long, golden ribbon trailing from the braids in our hair.

The délka vedení královsk.

“This is truth,” the child’s voice came right on cue, the tone deep and terrifying as the reality of what I was watching hit me hard in the gut.