Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(35)

It was only Dramin now.

Perhaps it was because he was here, in this abbey, that his name and what I had done to him stuck with me. All the other faces had gone, leaving me with nothing other than the withered, weak, old man who had woken up only hours before. His body, while appearing young, was so weak from whatever was destroying him that he looked to have lost some of his immortality.

I hadn’t even known that was possible, but having seen him, I guessed it was.

I focused on the glass, though I didn’t see it, my mind still buzzing with the thought of the man whose life I alone had destroyed, the man who wouldn’t even look at me. The man who Sain had said would know the answer to my question.

I was going to find out, now.

My steps were loud slaps through the silence as I moved to the door, my need to know driving me on. I had never been one to back down from getting the answers I needed. This time was no different. I needed to know about the dreams, about the T?uha, even if I had to face Dramin.

Even if I had to face what I had done to him.

The hallways were far too dark, and with my heightened senses being dulled by the last few hours of drinking, it was difficult for me to see much of anything. This was what mortals must feel like in an old building. Creaks were louder, shadows longer, and everything was dark. I couldn’t be sure, but I swore there was a hunched man following me.

No wonder horror movies were so popular.

I had never seen the pull, but now that I was in one, I didn’t know if I wanted to keep going or press pause and find a way to escape.

The sound of my steps was hollow in my ears as I turned the last corner to face the old, weathered door and the room I had vacated only hours before.

I stared at it, my ears perked for signs of life, for conversation, for anything that would give me cause to turn around and avoid this conversation altogether. I already knew I couldn’t, though. As much I was dreading it, it wasn’t really an option anymore. If the few of us who were in this abbey were all that was left of Ilyan’s people, then Dramin would be the only one who would have the answers I needed.

My hand was a metal weight as I placed it against the door, the wood rough against my palm, my fingers dragging against it as I pulled it into a fist. All I could hear was the fearful beat of my heart as I hesitated, every muscle twisting and winding in anxious nerves.

The sound of the knock was an explosion of sound. It was a shot of a gun, and I stiffened, my confidence snapping into place as I waited. The tension that ruled my body only grew as his voice called back.

“Enter.”

It was one word, but it was all that I needed. My back straightened as I walked into the darkness of his room, my forehead wrinkling in agitation as I let my eyes adjust.

Towering bookshelves lined the walls, their height seeming taller than they had in the light. Everything appeared elongated and stretched in the darkness, as if the room itself would swallow me whole.

“Hello?” For a brief moment, I wasn’t sure if he was even in there, a thought that made me shiver in agitation.

“Ah,” he sighed, the sound more like a deflating balloon than a person, “I had a feeling it would be you.”

Of course he did. Darn Draks and their infallibility. If I had been accompanied by Captain Mal, he would have had the same reaction. If he knew who that was, of course. Well, and if he was real, but I wasn’t going to get hung up on logistics.

He was real enough.

“You saw me coming, I take it?” He laughed at my question, and my shoulders stiffened, my feet stopping their slow advance as I froze in the middle of the room, my eyes scanning the dark until I found the withered, old shape that I was sure was him, his chest rising and falling calmly.

“No, my father told me of your conversation yesterday. He warned me that you would be visiting.”

“Warned.” I guessed I deserved that, all things considered. “Is it okay that I am here?”

“Of course, but if you wouldn’t mind turning on a light? As much as I enjoy chatting in the dark, I like to see the people I am to be friends with.”

His comment caught me off guard, the light, calm nature of his voice seeming so out of place that my alarms were screaming trap before I could calm them. No matter what I had heard about this man, no one could easily turn things around after what I had done to them.

No one.

Except Talon.

After all, I supposed Talon had done the same. I had killed his sister, yet somehow…

My breath shook on an exhale at the thought, the reminder for what I had come here to do in the first place a dead weight in my gut.

My magic flared on its own as my pulse accelerated, and the few lamps that were littered throughout the room caught as the fire magic washed over them, giving life to the dry and dead wicks for the first time in what I could assume had been decades. Judging by the state of the room, it might have been longer.

Those earthen mugs were everywhere along with books piled and disheveled. I had been so preoccupied with restraining Ryland and memorizing battle plans earlier that I hadn’t really paid much attention.

His room looked like the disheveled library of a mad scientist, something you would see on an old TV show. I didn’t know why, but it made me comfortable, almost like I was walking onto the set of a show I used to love.

“Much better,” he sighed, and my focus snapped to him, my body still stuck in the middle of the floor as if I had been glued there.