Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(34)

I had been speaking of my brother, of my father; however, hearing those words roar through my head now, I knew it was so much more than that.

“I know. I wish that would take away the anxiety, the way everything feels like it’s crawling around inside of me.” It was so much more than that, but they were the only words that fit.

“Are you saying I need to find you something to kill?” It was then his arms loosened enough to let me look into the face that was more a part of my memory than any other. Even when I had forgotten him, even when Ilyan had taken that life from me, he still had been with me in my dreams. I guessed, in a way, he had always been there.

“Something like that.”

Thom chuckled at me, his voice low and deep as it rolled over my skin and rumbled through me. I clung to him at the sound, at the movement, which only made him laugh more.

“I think I can arrange that. Give me a few days.”

I knew I should laugh, but I couldn’t make the sound come. I couldn’t dispel the anxiety that had taken up residence in my chest.

He was right. I really did just need to kill something.

It was what I had always done, after all. Why should now be any different?

“Wynifred, you have always had a habit of overthinking things and taking the smallest bit of information then dwelling on it until it sits on your chest, and you can’t breathe.”

I had related it to a saber tooth tiger earlier. I guessed I wasn’t as far from the truth as I had thought.

Sometimes, it scared me how well Thom knew me.

“Stop it.” The kindness in his voice was gone now.

I flinched, pulling away from him and expecting a demon; instead, I only found the gruff man before me smiling, his tiny dimple peeking out behind his wild hair.

“Stop overthinking. Your heart and your mind know what to do. They know who you are. They know what your answer is.” His voice was a whisper, while I wasn’t even sure I was breathing. “Trust it.”

I merely stared at him, at the dimple, at the dreads, at the shallow scars on his chin and…

“Thom,” I began, but he only smiled, his hands pressing me against him again as he stopped what I was about to say with that gruff irritation of his.

“Don’t say I’m wise,” he growled. “I don’t think I could take it.”

I couldn’t help laughing. He just didn’t realize he always had been.





Eight


“For Sdens.”

The room was dark and quiet as I continued the ritual toasting before the battle. Even though Jos and Ilyan had left, even though Thom had fallen asleep hours before, I still continued. Tomorrow’s battle with Edmund loomed closer with each drink.

I could hear the crickets through the partially opened window, the sound vaguely familiar as it rumbled under the buzzing that filled my ears. I knew I should sleep—my body wanted sleep—but I couldn’t, not yet.

I still had too many names to go through before we ran into Edmund’s army tomorrow. Before the possibly deadly attempt to get everyone out of Risoseco and to Prague began. Although, I wasn’t sure how wise that would be, especially considering the Vil? based bloodbath Jos had apparently seen alongside her father a few hours before.

I didn’t want to believe it.

Still, I couldn’t get the dead sound of her voice out of my head, the way her eyes had gone black.

I shuddered as everything spun and rocked and jerked as I sat, struggling to keep my body upright while pouring glass after glass.

All the bottles except for this one were empty. Of course, I wasn’t drinking them anymore. Regardless, I continued the pouring motion, anyway, like one of those weighted birds old men kept on their desks.

Pour. Name. Pour. Name.

Up and down.

Over and over.

I needed a top hat.

My voice cut through the darkness as I listed off every person I had killed, every person I had wronged. As I sealed my fate with the admission of my sins and grievances.

If only the heavily fermented drink was enough to wash them away.

I was sure the people who had first built this abbey would think so. Either that, or they would hang me, my sins too great for any form of redemption.

“For Dramin.” My tongue slurred around the words, and Thom exhaled in such a way that, if I wasn’t sure from the snoring that he was already asleep, I would have thought he had heard me.

But there was only silence.

Me and the crickets.

I sighed, and this time, I downed the drink, the liquid pouring down my chin as it burned my throat, the taste more like acid than liquor. I didn’t care. It didn’t really matter, anyway. I was already far too inebriated for my own good, the bad combination of emotional turmoil and sleep deprivation only heightening the effects.

It was an interesting sensation—losing control.

I had seen the youth of society do it enough as I dragged Talon from concert to concert. I guessed it was my turn.

I faux-poured again, the glasses slamming against each other as my hand shook. Even though nothing came out of the bottle, I still followed the action. I still stared at the now empty glass, my mind feeling blank and hollow as I tried to think of the next name, the next person I had sold bits of my soul to betray. However, nothing was there anymore. The massive list had disappeared with the mention of that one name.