Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(77)

Ryland’s magic recoiled as the toothpick-sized object was released, his power rebelling against what it was and what it had done to him.

His wasn’t the only one.

Even with the strain of Rosaline’s magic within the precious cargo, it was the malice and the poisoned magic that affected me the most. My ability rebelled against its task, trying to pull away from the heady toxin.

“Mommy?”

Fighting against the heavy hatred that was infecting me, I pulled and carefully twisted the shard from within him, drawing it out from his beating heart and through his body until it began to break through the skin from the inside, a point of pressure that grew outward. His grey-tinged skin tented before it pushed through, a thick ribbon of the brightest blood coming behind.

Blood trailed over his skin, dripping onto the floor in a great pool of red. I didn’t see that, however. I only saw the tip of the blade, the shard of knife covered in the deepest red, jagged and broken as though it was nothing more than sandstone.

I didn’t dare touch it, yet I could not fight the pull to. It was a desperate need that I hadn’t experienced before, as though the blade itself was power, as though it could give that power to me.

I reached forward without thinking, pulling the tiny thing from his body, his blood still warm on the surface as it came free, resting in the palm of my hand in a streak of crimson. Staring at me.

I couldn’t look away from it. I could feel Ryland’s magic work to heal him as my magic began to recoil back into me, the powerful strands shaking inside of me in a fear I didn’t understand.

Yes, I knew I should be afraid of it. Afraid of what it was, what it did. Nevertheless, this fear, this fear was different. It was rooted in possibilities of what was to come. Not that I had any intention of using the thing, but part of me … Part of me couldn’t help wondering what it meant, what would happen if I did.

I shook my head as her laugh sounded around me, the sound echoing in a haunting void that I hadn’t heard before, and I shivered, letting the last of the ill-placed power leave me.

I held a piece of my little girl’s soul in my hand.

That was all.

I felt dirty for thinking of it in any other way, for letting those thoughts infect me as they had.

I sat quite still as I closed my fingers around the precious piece, my fingers soft as I held it close, as I had held her so many times before.

“I’ll set you free, my darling girl,” I whispered, my voice drowned out by the creatures who clawed at the windows, their voices loud in their desperate haste to find entry.

“Everything all right?” Sain’s voice erupted behind me.

I jumped, pulling Ryland’s shirt over the now healed wound, my fist tightening around the shard in panic.

My heart was a thunder inside of me, a slither of secrecy that felt dirty snaking its way over me, a fear I hadn’t expected following behind.

The shard.

I couldn’t let anyone know I had it. They would take it away. They would take my daughter away. They would use her soul against someone else. I couldn’t let that happen.

The tension in my body grew and the fear escalated as I shoved my hand into my pocket, letting the shard stay there in what I hoped would be safety.

“Wyn?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” My voice sounded dead. “Ry woke up, so I put him back out. I figured that’s better for now.”

I tried to bring as much life back to my voice as I could, but I wasn’t sure it was working. Everything around me was moving in slow motion, my magic flaring abruptly as I over-critically inspected my surroundings. Everything from Thom’s sleeping form to the dust mites seeming untrustworthy.

What was happening to me?

I understood a basic need to protect something so precious. However, paranoia had never been my thing.

I shook my head again and pushed the emotion away, glad when it slipped from me, taking some of the tension with it.

“Dramin’s asleep, too.”

At the mention of Dramin, my mind pulled away from the shard of the soul’s blade, right to the conversation before—the shrouded words Sain had uttered the moment I had walked through the door.

“Does that mean you are going to tell me now?” My voice still shook with residual anxiety as Sain’s focus snapped to me. His eyes were sad as I pulled him right back into the conversation I was sure he had hoped I had forgotten.

“Tell you what?”

“Don’t treat me like a fool, Sain. You may be one of the first, but that doesn’t make you any better than the rest of us.”

“That is a debatable opinion.”

“And yet, you are capable of ‘making mistakes’ like the rest of us.” My voice was laced with teenage angst, but I let it flow, grateful when his eyes narrowed disdainfully at me. “Stop playing games, Sain.”

He continued to glare at me, his eyes harder than I had ever seen them. The same fear was back in his eyes, but I didn’t look away. I didn’t dare.

“I have made a terrible mistake,” he began again, his voice shaking with the same horrified fear that ran over his features. “I thought they were gone … but they aren’t. They are going to find me.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but he just stood there, staring, his hands shaking ever so slightly.

“Who is going to find you?” I was scared to ask, scared of the answer, scared of what it might mean for us, and why he wanted us to run.