Soul of Flame (Imdalind Series #4)(15)

I had only ever been told to accept the fate that sights had given me, that there was nothing that could be done to change them. Feeling Dramin’s cold skin, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, I didn’t think I could just walk away from that; I couldn’t let him die.

“I can save him,” I moaned.

Thom’s eyes widened as Ilyan’s hand froze on my back, his surprise at my commitment rocking through me.

“No!” Sain yelled the moment I had spoken. Everyone jumped at my father’s outburst, and I cringed at the intensity of his yell. The venom he had awakened coursed through my veins.

Thom turned toward him as his eyes seemed to catch fire. “You will let your son die?”

“I will let the future be as it should be,” Sain said, his words directed toward Thom even though he moved closer to me. His calm nature made his movements slow, and my agitation increased.

“But I can save him!” I yelled at Sain. His face only spelled regret and pain as he stood in silence. I knew he was suffering—that he wanted his son to live—but he wouldn’t admit it, and he wouldn’t fight for it. He just stood there, silently accepting fate.

He was walking away from Dramin the same way he had walked away from me.

Pain and anger flashed through me with more animosity than I had ever felt, it rippled over my body, blacking out my vision in spots of obsidian. Everything in me screamed, everything threatened to explode.

“Why won’t you save your children? Why don’t you love us? Love me?” I pressed against Ilyan’s arms as he held me in an attempt to calm me. I could hear him whisper against me, but the anger flowed as clearly as the words did, years of pain spilling out of me. The mugs of Black Water that lined the walls began to shake as my power surged.

“This has nothing to do with love. I love him, as I do you,” he said, his voice a mellow calm that only infuriated me more.

“Then let me save him!” I shouted, the words clear and concise as I continued to fight against Ilyan’s arms, against the rage.

“You saw him die, Joclyn,” Sain said, his voice mellow as he stood still, his body calm even as the room seemed to pulsate under my anger. “You cannot defy a sight. There is nothing that can be done.”

I ground my teeth, my body writhing as I fought my anger and the truth of what he said. I wanted to accept the truth of my sight. I knew I needed to, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I reached toward Dramin, my fingers long and desperate, as if I was saving him from the slaughter. “I have lost s-so m-much.” I cringed as my stutter began to surge through me, the heat of my emotions unleashing my instability. “M-my m-mother was mur-dered… M-my b-brother-r… I-I j-j-just b-barely f-found-d h-him…” I stopped talking, the stutter so bad I knew it was foolish to go on.

I glared at Sain, breathing deeply as I tried so desperately to control the stutter. Ilyan’s magic consumed me as he finally broke through to calm me, the warmth so normal to me now that I almost felt bare without it.

“It doesn’t matter about the sight; sights can change. They cannot be set in stone. They can’t be. I can save him. I will save him,” I pleaded with him as I leaned across my brother with my magic surging angrily at the words I knew to be false.

I stretched my magic into Dramin, willing it to do what it wanted, to bring my brother back. I had begun to feel the warm tendrils of Dramin’s magic awaken when Sain rushed me, his hands rough against mine as he pushed me away from my brother. The force sent me tumbling into Ilyan, his muscles tense as his magic flared in agitation.

I looked at the black of his eyes in shock, only to see the color fade back to bright green before the black replaced it again. The color shifted as his magic ignited, his own demons bringing themselves right to the surface, his carefully crafted calm shattering into ice and glass.

“You know nothing of our kind!” Sain bellowed at me as his eyes continued to flash so that I wasn’t sure what color they were. I cringed away from the sound of his voice, my muscles seizing as he sped on, his words bouncing over each other in their rage. “The blood of a Drak flows through your veins, yet you know nothing! You know nothing of my kind or our rules and laws. You are as foolish as a child and as dumb as a mortal.”

“How can I know anything when you weren’t there to teach me? You abandoned me!” I screamed at him. The words that had fueled me for the last few minutes tumbled through me as my body threatened to collapse, my cheeks burning as the tears came.

“I didn't abandon you.” His cold eyes glinted as if walking out of his five-year-old child’s life was nothing more than walking out a door, simple and meaningless. It wasn’t nothing, though—not to me. It never had been. That one action had dictated my entire life until Ilyan had saved me and I had become more. Now, the man whose actions had defined me sat before me, denying what he had done, denying me.

“You left!” I screamed, my anger rushing out at the lack of responsibility he was taking, the real reason for my anger breaking free.

“I didn’t leave, Joclyn.” His soft voice was so irritating I could barely stand it. “Jeffery Despain left, and I am not Jeffery Despain.”

There it was, the reason I would never be able to view this man as my father. The reason I would never understand the decisions he had made and the reverences he felt toward what he was, what we both were.