Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(78)

“He—” Sain’s words fell from the air as the door below us opened, the yells of the Vil?s rang clear as the heavy footsteps echoed up the stairwell, large and heavy.

“He’s found me. He’s going to kill us all.” Sain’s voice growled through the dark as the door opened, my magic reacting before I had a chance to stop it.





Nineteen


A ribbon of flame streamed from my hand like someone had embedded a flame thrower inside of me, the powerful attack intercepting the door and turning it to dust.

I expected the attack to move beyond the wood panel, into whoever had entered the dingy space, but it flattened in mid-air as though it had hit a glass pane, the ribbons of heat and flame fanning out into spirals of harmless smoke. The rings dissipated into nothing, revealing the scowling, blonde-haired man behind it.

Well, darn it all.

I should have known better than to react, than to destroy one of our only lines of defenses from whoever came through the door. With how Sain was talking—words of death and destruction and someone coming to “get” us—I was a little too high-strung.

The sounds of the Vil? massacre weren’t helping too much, either.

“Wynifred!” Ilyan’s voice was a snap of scolding as he walked into the room with Joclyn right on his heels, her expression torn somewhere between humor and shock.

Part of me wished she would laugh, if only to break the tension. If I laughed, it would be my head, but she could get away with it.

“Sorry, Ilyan.”

He glowered at me as he walked into the room, his eyes scanning over everything quickly as his face continued to darken.

I could only guess how this looked to him—Sain and I facing each other as if we were about to attack, Thom and Ryland unconscious on the floor, and a still fresh pool of blood glittering in the corner.

“What happened?” His accent was thick, and while part of me wanted to recoil in expectation of his temper, the other side only stood up taller, facing him as my eyebrow arched uncomfortably.

“In case you haven’t notice, my lord, the city is under attack by about a million of Edmund’s flying rats. Dramin was bit, Ryland’s a mess, and Thom…” My voice lost its snot as it caught on the emotion in my throat. I stopped, staring at him with wide eyes as everything I had said clicked into place.

“Dramin was bit?” Jos’s voice was a shriek through the dark as her eyes grew bigger if that was possible. I worried for a minute that they would pop out of her head, but she only looked at me, waiting for an answer that I couldn’t give, before she ran into the adjoining room. For anyone else, it was a reaction that might border on insanity, but for her, I was sure her magic had told her exactly where her brother lay.

I expected Sain to follow; instead, he remained across from me, staring at me with that same look in his eyes, the fear and warning playing deep into my soul.

I barely noticed Ilyan rush to his brothers’ side, moving from one to the other as he checked them and tried to heal them while I could only look at Sain. The unspoken message screamed at me from where I stood.

He kept looking from me to Ilyan as though Ilyan was the enemy, as though he was afraid of him.

I have made a terrible mistake.

I still didn’t even know what he had done, but watching him here, I was beginning to piece it together, and I wasn’t too happy with where it was going. Sain looked at Ilyan like Ilyan was who he was afraid of, like Ilyan was who was coming for him.

“Sain? Wynifred?” Ilyan pulled me out of the vice-like stare Sain had trapped me under, the alarm in his voice ripping any doubt I had away. That tone, that fear, was very unlike him. It sent shivers through me.

My magic tugged uncomfortably as I walked toward him, watching his shoulders tense as he pressed his hands against Thom’s. The pulse of magic was so strong I could feel the shadows weave through the room like a radiant heat.

“Ilyan?” My voice shook as I looked down at them, the shake in Ilyan’s hands only pulling me more toward a fear that had been wiped from my mind.

I had been so focused on Sain’s mysterious panic that I had almost forgotten. He had seemed okay when I had checked him, but now, watching Ilyan, I wasn’t so sure.

“What happened?” He didn’t even look at us when he said it. His focus was only on Thom.

My fear increased as my stomach twisted uncomfortably, and my hands began to shake as my voice did. “I saw them right before the Vil?s attacked—”

“He was hit by a stray attack from somewhere behind us,” Sain interrupted, his voice stronger than it had been for the past few minutes, the gravelly depth catching me off-guard. “I don’t know what it was or where it came from. It looked unfamiliar to me. But he’s been like this ever since.”

I stared at Sain, my mind reeling as I tried to piece together whatever game he was playing at. Nothing really fell into place, though. Everything was too tense—Sain was acting like a loon, my daughter’s voice was talking to me, Thom was injured so badly no one could tell what was going on…

I was going to develop a hump from the tension that was pressing against my spine.

“Is he all right, Ilyan?” I didn’t want to ask the question, but I did, anyway, ice trailing over me as my hands writhed together.

“I’m not sure.” It was an honest answer. I could hear it in his voice. The panic was leaving, yet the fear of the unknown still remained. It snaked through him like acid, pricking against me.