Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(88)
Our magic moved together, a deep familiarity taking control. He didn’t look away, his eyes focused intently on me, his hands drifting from my back to hover above my arms, the fingers caressing the air above, as if he was afraid to break me, afraid to make contact.
“Different?”
“Your power.” An electric pulse moved in the air that separated us. My skin was alive with energy, magic prickling with an eager need for his touch. “It’s different yet the same.”
“It’s different, but the same?” My voice shook in bewilderment as I tried to understand what he was saying, but I was having difficulty thinking past the magnetic power of his hands. The desperate need for him pulled at me. “You’re … You’re not making any sense.”
“You can’t feel it, can you?”
“Feel what?”
He tensed as I did, his fear seeping into me, his confusion increasing right alongside mine. I tried to connect with his mind in a need to understand what he meant, but his thoughts were as shrouded as mine were.
“Your magic,” Ilyan whispered, “It feels the same … as what we felt before … in the sight.”
“What sight?” I asked, already knowing the answer. I knew in the loud whispers of my magic, the way the Drak moved throughout me and flared in sight.
The same white room flashed before me, but instead of the blood-soaked woman, it was Ilyan. Ilyan was speaking to a dark-haired, little girl I had never seen before: Ilyan screaming, Ilyan with black eyes.
“You saw,” I gasped, my eyes fading as the sight left me. “You were in a sight.”
“Yes. When I tried to pull you out … I saw…” Ilyan froze beside me, his eyes locked with mine, his hands still hovering inches above my arms, the electricity rumbling between us. “What you are.”
“And what am I?” I couldn’t keep the shake out of my voice.
Although his trepidation had left him, although I could still feel his fear, it had lessened somehow. The strong emotions seeped away from him, melding into the deep awe he always held for me. The bright blue of his eyes reflected brightly with it.
“A Drak. A true Drak. I can feel that now.”
I calmed at his confirmation, my soul rumbling with the knowledge that he, too, felt what was so clear to me.
I smiled, the calm in me growing. That was, until he placed his hands against my skin, and our magic connected as it had done so many times before. Except, this time, for the first time since our bonding, our magic truly connected.
The lights of before were nothing compared to what now surrounded us. Lost in a universe of starlight and color, I felt our magic move and dance through the air in a carousel of energy. Together, our magic surged. The magic of the earth, the magic I had absorbed, the magic traveling on the wind around us, all sparkled in a powerful surge that rose up like a wall.
With a mixture of fear and awe, the shadows of sight flashed in muted color before everything around us faded, leaving us standing in the middle of the ash-filled room, the few people who were left clearing out survivors staring at us with wide eyes.
“I guess I don’t have to worry if it’s you or not,” Ilyan mused from beside me, a laugh hidden underneath his deep accent. “I don’t think I could do that with anyone else.” Ilyan looked at me with all the depth of the love I had seen so many times before, his body warm as he held me against him, his hands wrapped tightly around me.
I stood still as I watched him, my heart pulsing in anticipation and need. My fingers dug into his back with desperation for what was to come.
He smiled with that same coy look he always gave me before he kissed me, before his lips connected with mine and swept my heart and soul into him. The touch of his lips, of his love, made it hard to breathe, something I wasn’t really regretting right then.
“Well, that was new,” Ryland interrupted with a snap, his face grim as he walked over to us. The elation seeped from my face as quickly as if I had been slapped. “We’ve got a problem, Ilyan. So, if you wouldn’t mind waiting until later to finish this…” His voice trailed off uncomfortably, his hand dragging through his hair as he looked around, the expression on his face plunging right back into reality.
“How many did we lose?”
My heart plunged right to my toes. The fact that it was the first question asked made reality seem so much more frightening than what it had been a moment ago.
“At least ten. I won’t know definitely until Etma and the other healers are able to tend to them all, but that’s not the problem.” He sighed, his eyes darting to mine for a second before returning to Ilyan, the tension building into a tight knot in my spine.
I pressed my head against Ilyan’s chest, trying to ignore the strain of the anxiety, my magic mounting right alongside it.
“One of the survivors said that Sain was here as well, with a blonde woman they didn’t know…”
“It was Ovailia,” I answered gravely, a flash of sight erupting before me as I spoke, the same image of her running through the streets of Prague overlaying the room.
“Where is she?” Ryland yelled, his anger seeping off him before he turned away from us, ordering one of the Sk?íteks to find her with a bark so loud several people jumped to attention, obviously surprised the order had come from him.
“Ry, she’s gone.” The hollow of my voice reverberated through my head as my eyes faded to black, the sight fluctuating as it pulled me farther in. Blood-covered hands were all I could see before it shifted, pulling out to Edmund’s laughing face.