Soul of Flame (Imdalind Series #4)(14)

“Te? ti?e, moje malá. Upokoj se, bu? klidná. S novym úsvitem se svět změní. A kdy? se změní, uvidí?, jaky bychom měli byt, ty a já.” Ilyan whispered the words of our song to me, the meaning clear even without the tune behind it. His words broke through just enough to give me a jolt of strength, allowing me to banish the fears from my body.

The pain and horrors scattered like light in the dark. I raised my head to my brother, my stiff body uncoiling as I moved to step toward him. I could feel the apprehension try to return, but I pushed it away, my need to see him compelling me forward.

I reached out shakily to touch Dramin’s arms, his skin clammy under my fingers. With my skin against his I could feel what I had done. I had destroyed his magic, just as Thom had said.

Just as I had feared.

I hadn’t been able to stop it; the attack had controlled me.

It was just as I had seen in the cave in Italy as I hovered over the pool of Black Water. When I had seen Dramin’s death.

My body collapsed onto Dramin’s, my hands clinging to him as my regret and pain swelled and grew until a howl broke from my lips.

Ilyan was next to me in a second, our song a whisper on his lips as he gave me something to focus on, something to chase away my terrors.

“I s-saw this,” I sobbed as he held me, his song fading as I spoke. I let my magic flow into Dramin as I clung to him, his body feeling cold and lifeless against the heat from my power. In my first sight, I saw Dramin’s death. I saw the flow of magic, the way the life left his eyes…

I just didn’t know it was me who would kill him, I said to myself, the words trapped where I wasn’t sure I would ever let them escape.

“Show me,” Ilyan whispered, his breath hot against my skin.

I closed my eyes, the vision coming to the front of my mind as I pushed it into Ilyan the same way I spoke to him.

My vision came like a reel from a movie, flashes of white before the images of the sight came. I saw everything as he did, my body still as I was trapped in Cail’s mind, the yelling as I woke, and then the fire and the screaming. I showed Ilyan the stream of magic that I now knew had come from my hands, the slow fall of Dramin’s body. I showed him the way Dramin was tightly wrapped in white cotton, his face covered in a red handkerchief. My chest tightened as together, we saw the hole in the ground, the frozen dirt covered with snow. I wished I could look away as the next image came, the sight of me standing alone in an ancient cemetery, my face streaked with tears, the imagery fading to black as the sight ended.

I gasped as the sight left, Ilyan’s footsteps moving away from me as I collapsed against Dramin.

“He knew? You knew?” Ilyan asked, the betrayal in his voice generating a bitter taste in my mouth. My regret became a pain as Ilyan’s thoughts filled me—all the years he had hidden him from Edmund, and all of it had been for nothing.

I didn’t know what to do, I moaned in agony, hoping Ilyan would hear me through his own regrets, that he would understand what I was really saying. That he would hear my fears.

“What is going on, Ilyan?” Sain asked, the stress in his voice flaring my own.

“Dramin… he was…” Ilyan tripped over his words as he questioned having to tell Sain the truth.

That his son, my brother, would die.

My father stood before me, his soul rent in fear of what he would be told. Yet, only minutes before, he had relished the idea of my part in the sight, the sight that would end in my death. Had he ever cried for me? It was a foolish thought and I knew it, one caused by years of abandonment and resentment. I batted it away, my regret at telling him the truth vanishing as the words spewed from my lips like poison.

“I saw him die,” I said, cringing at the shake in my voice, the memory replaying itself in the blacks of my eyes.

Sain stiffened at my words, his magic angry and violent in the air before it receded.

“Did you see it in sight?” my father asked, his voice wavering as he moved toward me. I looked up from where I still clung to Dramin’s body, my hair falling over my face in long, black strands that blocked my vision.

I could see him standing on the other side of the dark room, his eyes widening toward me in desperation to know more, to feel hope. I couldn’t give him that; I couldn’t lie. I tightened my lips as I pushed the desperate look in his eyes from my mind, and I nodded once in agreement.

That one gentle head bob sealed Dramin’s death, and Sain’s face fell, his jaw slack as his breathing lengthened. Sain’s silence stretched through the room, throbbing like the knell of death in my ears.

I couldn’t look at the pain in his eyes anymore. I didn’t want to feel the agony of regret over what I had done to him. I lowered my head, my ear pressing against Dramin’s chest, to the dull throbbing pulse of his heart.

I listened to the rhythm of his pulse, the heat of my magic moving through him, pulling at me in gentle tugs and jolts as it guided me through him. The pressure built in me as my magic swelled, the feeling similar to last night when I had healed Wyn.

Then, I had heard her cries and my magic knew what to do, my mind showing me the way as my Drak blood flared within me. Just like it was doing now.

I raised my head to the three men who stood around me. Thom, standing right in front of me as he wrung his hands in worry. His thick dreads had come loose from his ponytail, his eyes red and swollen. He was haggard and broken. I had felt his desperation before, but now I saw it, and I knew I would do anything to help him.