Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(86)

I am still in control.

No, you aren’t.

Not of me.

Not anymore.

We shall see.

I shook my head as the voice filled me, as if the motion would be enough to clear the insanity. It wasn’t. His voice only grew, the laugh echoing in my ears before it faded to nothing, the sound moving back into the dark recesses of my mind.

I looked away from Dramin, hoping he hadn’t seen my lapse, only to face my brother once again, the thick cords of his hair spreading around his head like some crude crown. It would have been comical if it wasn’t for the situation.

“What happened?” I had meant to ask so much more, but it was all that could find its way out. Thankfully, Dramin seemed to understand me without question.

“Well, that boy there”—he lifted his mug to the boy on the other side of me as if I couldn’t tell who he was speaking of, but I couldn’t look away from my brother—“got bit by the nasty things, as did I.”

“And Thom?”

“Well, that is a mystery.” Dramin sighed dejectedly, his mug falling into his lap with a splash of the amber brown liquid. “No one is quite sure what happened to him.”

I know what happened to him.

The voice was a dark chuckle, a dim sound. However, for the first time since I had woken, for the first time since I had become stronger than the voices, I shivered.

This time, it was in fear.

I pushed it away. I was unwilling to admit the emotion had found me again, that my father could truly know anything of what was going on.

Looking to Dramin in question, I tried to prop myself up to sitting, my body aching with each movement until I finally managed it. The heavy blanket fell away from my torso, letting the cold fall air of the massive space move against my skin.

“Ilyan brought everyone here to figure out our next move.” There he went again, answering questions I hadn’t been able to put voice to.

“And where is he?”

“Speaking to the heads of the houses,” a new voice answered my question.

I jerked, turning toward the new arrival with a furious trepidation that tensed through my muscles, almost as if I needed to be ready to attack.

My magic reacted as the distant voice within me began to laugh, dark and deep, almost in expectation of the fight that was coming.

It never did.

It never would.

When I faced her, I knew at once that would never happen.

Not because she was a woman. No, I had battled enough women. Hell, I had killed enough women in my past to make that argument invalid.

No, as I turned to face this stranger, there was something else there. It was something deep and foreign, something that scared me.

“The head of the houses?” I repeated her phrasing like a question. I knew the answer, though. My brain was far too confused, so I foolishly said the first thing that slipped into it, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by her if her smile was any judge.

“Yes, there will be a council in a few days. He is speaking with the last surviving heads of the family in preparation.”

I could only nod, the old information stagnant to me, after all.

“I’m Risha.”

“Ryland.” My voice was much softer than I had meant it to be.

Maybe I will have you kill her, too.

I fought the jerk at the phrasing, startled by my emotional reaction to the voices. I hoped she didn’t notice.

“Nice to meet you, Ryland.”

I hadn’t thought something so formal could be so beautiful.

We stared at each other, the minutes ticking away until it seemed they had gone by long enough. Then Dramin chuckled, the deep, rich sound pulling me out of whatever reverie I had been stuck in and right to the old man who sat with an ugly mug and the biggest smile I had ever seen plastered to his face.

Kill them all.

“Risha is serving as Ilyan’s second until someone can be chosen to take Talon’s place.” I stared at him, trying to figure out why he would tell me this while still attempting to recover from the embarrassment of having stared at a girl for so long. “I figured I would answer the question that was burning on your brain. That, and she’s single.”

I didn’t think it was possible to choke on something when you were neither eating nor drinking, but I somehow managed it, gasping and coughing loud as I tried to figure out how to breathe again.

Risha only laughed. The sound was rich and joyful, and just like that, I was forgetting how to get saliva down the right side.

What was going on?

As if on cue, the door to the hall opened again, and Joclyn walked in, followed by a thoroughly agitated Wyn.

“I don’t understand why you can’t tell me what you plan on doing to that kid. You never know, I could help you,” Wyn said from behind her, her gravelly voice laced with enough whine that it pulled me right out of the embarrassment I had been plagued with and right into what I should have been certain was hell.

But it wasn’t.

It’s her.

Kill her.

Kill them both.

The voice grew louder, but I ignored it, pushing it from my mind as I stared at them, my mind quick to find its path again.

Yes, it was Joclyn. And, yes, in some ways, I wanted to hurt her. However, in reality, it was just Joclyn. It was just Wyn. It was just two girls. One who used to be my best friend, one whom I used to love. One that, until that moment, every time I would come face-to-face with her, I would see nothing but blood and death.