Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(82)

In a way, we had.

If he had thought he had been in control all this time, he had been very wrong.

He had never been in control. And he never would be again.

With one touch of my skin against his, my magic flooded into him, and his magic reacted even if his heart did not.

I could see the power of that connection ignite in his eyes, the confusion as heart and mind battled in a fight I already knew the outcome of. So did he.

The force of the heart is strong, but magic could be stronger.

I made sure mine was.

And now he was eating out of my hand, just as my father had asked. Even though I was sure he was fighting it, what could he say? Ovailia helped me get the battered boys here, and now she knows where we are.

My father’s plan was working out perfectly.

I smiled, the wide grin spreading over my face with malice as my heart rate accelerated, my next target speeding into view as if she had been summoned here. I guessed, she had in a way.

It was Ilyan’s command for them all to regroup here, after all, a fact that had been made very clear by Sain’s useless blubbering as we walked.

And now she was here, my useless brother floating lifeless by her side as though she had him on strings.

Another of our puppets.

She ran with a heard of the filthy things right behind her. Part of me wished they would reach her, and then I could step in, down the filthy creatures with a word, and steal her heart, her magic, as I had been commanded.

I knew better. I couldn’t yet, not if we wanted Sain’s manipulation to play in our favor. The timing for Wynifred’s end must be perfect. Just as Thom’s had been. Just as Sain’s would be. A perfectly orchestrated dance, ending with my elder brother’s head on a pyre, his ridiculous mate’s right beside him.

The though made me smile.

My targets, happily closeted away in a safe house I not only knew about, but thanks to the magic Ilyan had implanted inside of me, I could easily gain access to.

It was almost too easy.

My brother was a fool.

Wyn reached the door in a rush, throwing Ryland past the threshold a moment before she turned toward the Vil?s, her eyes sparking with a flame I had seen all too many times before.

I smiled as she began to glow, my magic reacting in warning. As much as I would love to stay for the show, I turned and walked down the alley I had closeted myself in, my heels tapping and hair swishing as I felt the heat of her fire grow behind me.

I didn’t even look. I only pulsed my magic to life. The powerful swell expanded inside of me as I walked, the tapping of my shoes changing from the clang of the old cobbles to the thud of the cave as the streets of Prague faded into the caves of Imdalind. One simple stutter to the room that had once been Ilyan’s and now was the central hub of Edmund’s operations. A massive space made for a king, and now, after all this time, the rightful one had taken up residence within it.

At first, I had thought the choice to be pointless. Ilyan’s quarters were nowhere near the center of the cave network nor were they anywhere that was necessarily accessible.

It was only after he had started work on delving into the depths of the cave in his search for the mud that I realized why that room was the best choice for our objective.

It was the perfect outlet to relieve the anger that Ilyan had built in him. What better to calm the nerves than to destroy everything your bastard son possessed?

I walked into the hall that led to his ornate set of rooms, the once polished cave walls lined with divots of a magical attack that had been unleashed only days before, perfect outlines of ash detailing where Sk?íteks had once stood. Thick lines of their blood were splattered against the walls and pooled in dried patches against the floor. Ilyan’s immaculate belongings burst from the many doors, the clothing specifically designed for council and for weddings ripped and soiled with blood and body matter, precious stones ripped unceremoniously from the once elegant fabric.

Everything stunk in the warm scent of death, the putrid aroma wrinkling my nose as I passed it. A small smile twitched at the corner of my lips at the thought of Ilyan’s face if he was to ever see this hall again. To see what we had done and where the remains of the last of his people had ended up.

Part of me wanted to be there when he did see in order to witness the beauty of his agony. To watch his heart break from within his body as we added his precious half-breed to the remains.

My father stood right inside the last set of doors, his guards standing at attention all around him, at the entrance and lining the walls of the massive space. Even if there was a chance at someone getting this far into the maze of Imdalind, they wouldn’t be able to get at him.

The ceilings stretched into massive stone buttresses, natural light filtering in from the mirrored shafts that stretched to the surface in the serpentine tunnels that were only mildly less confusing than the ones we had been trying to infiltrate for the past two months.

What once had been Ilyan’s main living space was now left in shambles more disastrous than the hall that led to it. Furniture lay in splinters, feathers and cotton and glass spread over the floor in a maze of texture, only to have the whole array covered with crimson blood and ebony ink. It was art in a way.

It was beautiful.

The smell was even worse in here if it was possible. However, after walking through the hall, my body wasn’t rebelling against it as much.

My hair flew over my shoulder with a flip of my head, the sound of my shoes growing louder as I approached my father. His focus was on the detailed model of the tunnel system he had been working on since I first had been able to gain him access to the serpentine cave system.