Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(45)

Change the path, confuse your pursuers.

It was easy enough, yet something about it was digging into my gut.

I looked toward the trees, toward where I had felt the magic before, and fought the urge to scan again.

Ryland screamed beside me, the nonsense flying out of his mouth fast enough that I couldn’t mask it if I tried.

“Let me kill her!” he roared. “I need to kill her.”

I plunged my magic into him as quickly as I could, knowing it wouldn’t be enough, and then began running again. His weight lifted off the ground as my magic filled him, his body hovering beside me as I picked up my pace and moved after Thom and the others, realizing they hadn’t gotten too far ahead of us.

The trees began to get closer together, the forest darker as the endlessly tall shafts closed us in. The trees stretched toward the snaps of lightning that came so fast the forest was nothing other than light and dark, a strobe of light that made it hard to see where I was going. Even with my heightened sight, even with Ilyan’s lines stretching before us, everything felt heavy. It was as though I had walked into a fun house maze only to get lost for hours.

My stomach twisted, the tense ball only calming when Thom came into view. Their pace was even slower than before as the two men carried Dramin, who now appeared to be unconscious.

“Is he okay?” I asked as I caught up with them, my voice broken and heaving from exertion.

“Keep moving.” Thom barely got the words out while he kept pushing his body forward as I overtook them.

My eyes scanned the forest, desperately looking through the trees for any sign of danger, only to stop in place at an explosion that rippled under the ground beneath me in waves of power and screams of fear.

The entire forest was bathed in blood as the force of the blast ran over us, the brilliant red light of magic and death cutting through the sky in a pillar that blocked any light that might have been, leaving us staring into the red lit world of danger and fear.

My heart tensed at the power, at the fear of what Ilyan and Joclyn faced, of what had happened and what might now be heading right for us.

Ryland screamed as the roar of the explosion grew around us, the sound of the blast too much for him. Then he broke out of my grip in one swift movement, darting into the forest as he screamed about death, blood, murder, and an insatiable need to kill.

I looked from Ryland to the pillar of light to Thom, the rumble of the earth, of thunder and death rattling in my ears as our eyes met. The silent understanding was all that was needed before I bolted into the forest after Ryland, Sain following close behind as the red light faded to the strobe of lightning that screamed from the earth in pain.

Flash after flash ruptured around me as I moved through the trees, my magic pressing through the soil as I searched for the mad prince, searched for danger, searched for anything that would let me find him and get us back on our path and to the trail quickly.

There was nothing. Not even a whisper of where Ryland could have gone to. No sound of his insanity, no whimpers, no warmth of his magic. Only the crunch of leaves under my feet, only the flash of light as the sky continued to open up in fear and anger.

“Ryland?” It was foolish to call out, but I didn’t see another option. I couldn’t feel him, despite knowing he had to be close.

“Ryland.” I tried again, quieter this time, only to jump when the snap of a branch answered back, the sound harrowing in the roar of thunder right above us, loud and oppressive.

I turned toward the sound, staring into the dark as the sky flashed white, the forest illuminating in flashes of electricity. The boy stood only feet from me.

Staring at me.

“Ryland.” The name should have been calm. I should have been overjoyed to see him, but the look on his face and the way his eyes stared at me—dark and omnipresent the way they had so many times before in the dungeons of Imdalind—struck fear in me in a way I hadn’t felt before. Not only because I knew a monster stood before me, but because no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t feel that monster’s magic.

I couldn’t sense him.

“Ryland?” My voice shook as the sky cracked again, the light revealing nothing but trees, an empty forest that wound through me and tensed in my spine with daggers of flame.

I merely stared, waiting for the light to come again when a flash of power moved through me, the forest illuminating in deep green as Sain caught up to me, his face stoically bored exactly as it had been every time we had pursued.

I was beginning to wonder if he found joy in watching others panic and simply had a very good poker face.

“Thanks.” It was hard not to feel like a fool. I didn’t know why I hadn’t illuminated the forest before. The fear of seeing him there, his eyes so dark they could have been coal, froze me more than I realized.

The forest looked much safer with Sain’s familiar glow illuminating it, yet my heart was still tense and uncomfortable within me, my muscles still overwrought with confusion and worry.

I had seen him.

Hadn’t I?

I continued to scan the forest around us as we began to move together, each crunch of undergrowth sounding loud against our strained breathing. He had to be here somewhere.

“Ryland?” Even Sain’s voice was shaking in fear, and the question that neither of us wanted to voice was clear in that one word.

What happened if we didn’t find him?