Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(3)

Somewhere, deep inside, something screamed that was giving in, that was letting the curse destroy me. That I was better then this. I also knew I didn’t have much of a choice, though.

Not anymore.

Focusing on the static, I let it seep into me and devour me. My screams cutting in and out like a bad signal, the only sound I could hear.

Until something else joined them.

The sound of voices.

Other voices.

Familiar voices.

They cut through the static in languages I didn’t comprehend, even though I knew I should. I knew the knowledge of them was inside of me. I just couldn’t access it.

“I thought you didn’t like to wake the dead?” I jerked at the sneer, my body twisting as someone shook me. The sudden realization of a world outside the static-filled room felt strange and foreign.

However, alongside the pain, I could feel the hand of someone wrapped around my arm, throwing me around like I was made of nothing more than fabric and a little bit of stuffing.

My eyesight flitted in and out as the courtyard of the Rioseco Abbey flickered through the dark, streaks of what I was sure was blonde hair adding to the visual cacophony.

Words plowed through the static like a steamroller as I was thrown about, my screams coming loud as the pain swelled and sucked me into the void again. The brief moment of understanding brought back a hope that I desperately wanted to feel, even if I knew it was hopeless. I tried to fight against the pain, to fight against the curse, to force my magic to battle, to force myself not to give up yet. I didn’t want to, though I couldn’t make anything come.

“I didn’t make that decision for you, Ovailia.” I knew that voice. I knew the depth of that accent. I knew the sound. It was so familiar. Familiar enough that it pulled me out of the disconnected world.

The sound of thunder rumbled through my bones as air moved through my hair. Then strong arms wrapped around me as if I had done nothing more than fly into them.

“Goodbye, Ovailia,” the voice came again, the memory pulling at the name I had used so often it almost became more real than his actual name. The name of a king who had saved me so many times I could barely count.

“Ian.” I wasn’t sure if I had spoken aloud, if I had been able to control my mind enough to work over the screams.

The static came back and steamrolled Ilyan’s voice, and whatever words had been meant as comfort were lost in the room that the pain had trapped me in.

I was sure we were moving, I was sure he was talking, but I couldn’t register that. I couldn’t be sure. I could only hope that Sain would be able to tell him of Prague, that he had told him of whatever he had seen. If I was lucky, they were taking me to Joclyn. I could say goodbye before it was too late.

I almost wished it would hurry up.

“Wynifred.” Thom?

I had hoped Ilyan had been taking me to Joclyn, that Sain knew how to heal me, but this? Hearing his voice? I wasn’t sure if I was already dead, if he was really there, or if it was a cruel delusion of the torture I was trapped in.

“Wynifred,” the voice came again, breaking through the static like a battering ram, the sound so clear and embedded in my memory that, even if my mind had still been bound, I was sure the sound of his voice would have broken the cage wide open.

I could still feel the pain. I could still feel the heat and the way my body tried to rip itself in two. Strangely, though, I didn’t care.

For the first time since the heat had taken me, I could focus beyond it. I could feel the heat of his hand against mine. I could feel his fingers as they ran against my face, my tears as he caught them.

I still could not see him, but I didn’t care. If this was what I heard, what I felt, before I died … There was nothing I wanted more.

“Thom?” I was sure I had spoken this time, even though my voice was broken and airy.

“I’m here.” His hand tightened around mine at the shattered emotion of his words. The memory of how he had looked when he cried still so clear inside of me. The way his eyes pinched together, his hand instinctively moving through his short, brown hair, much the way that his brother did.

Everything was so clear, the memory so fresh, that for a moment, the pain didn’t seem to matter. For the briefest of moments, a joy I didn’t think I could feel again took over. The emotion was so backward from the agony that still ripped through me that I was sure the curse had already done its job.

That I had already passed from this life.

“Am I dead?” The question came without prompting, the seemingly childish query more honest than I had meant it.

There was only dead and not dead yet now. I couldn’t ask if I was going to be okay. I didn’t have that luxury anymore.

“Not yet, sweetie, but I’ll stay here until the end,” he said with an exhale, his voice shaking even though I could tell he was trying to be strong. I could tell in the way he held my hand, the way his hand pressed against my cheek, even through the shake of his nerves, of his heartbreak.

It made me ache. It made my muscles twist and writhe. It made my heart beat reawaken with a painful pulse of regret and longing.

In the last moments of life, I felt more alive than I think I ever had. I focused on that, focused on the heat, focused on the hand that held mine. And, for the shortest breath of time, the pain didn’t seem to matter, the fire didn’t seem so destructive, and the blackness that surrounded me fell away.