Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(87)

Kill them now!

The voice grew louder, but I barely even heard it. It didn’t matter anymore. In this one frightening moment, I knew for sure that everything had changed.

I stared at them in bewilderment as they walked in, Joclyn stopping right in her tracks at seeing me staring at her, something that hadn’t been a reality for as long as I had been forced to lie here.

“You’re awake.” I could hear the fear and anger behind her voice.

I expected her own trepidations to ignite mine. Hell, everyone around us obviously expected the same things judging by the way Risha moved closer, her body squared in a guard stance. Wyn was looking between the two of us as if she was trying to decipher who to stop.

Kill them now!

The voice could barely make it through the static.

I wanted to tell him it was useless.

I felt nothing, and I could tell by the look in Joclyn’s eyes that she felt nothing, too.

For whatever reason, by whatever divine wonderment, we had defeated it.

You will never defeat me.

I said it before, Father, I already have.

“Yep, I’m awake.”

She could only nod in understanding, a move so like her I couldn’t help smiling. She returned it so quickly that, for a brief moment, it seemed like everything was going to be all right, that I would get my best friend back.

“I’m here to heal him.” She nodded her head toward the boy.

Part of me should have been grateful for the change, but I was more grateful for the change in us and what we had regained.

She smiled slightly once more before she moved away from me, toward the mysterious boy who lay not too far away.

Wyn laughed and jabbered on about who knew what at such a low decibel that, even if I tried, I wasn’t sure I could make it out.

I looked away from Joclyn, my focus pulling right to the tall, strawberry blond who stood at the foot of my bed with an elegant smile pulling over her face.

“I am glad you are feeling better,” she whispered, her voice laced with all the knowledge in the world, something that, for the first time, I was happy I didn’t have to explain. She already knew.

But, more than anything, I was happy that it was true.

“So am I.”





Twenty-Two


The beds that lined the makeshift hospital had been pushed aside. Thom and Dramin were moved to a private room near Ilyan’s and tucked away to where they could be cared for better. Where he could keep an eye on them, I assumed.

Besides, this space was the only one big enough to hold everyone, to fit the large diamond-shaped platform that was required for council.

I stared at the platform as if it had somehow offended me, the sheets of burned, black wood something I had learned about from my father, from a ceremony I had seen enacted many times before. Or a twisted version of it, anyway. As my father had completed it, time and time again, declaring himself as king.

I am the king.

I had a feeling, however, that this time I was going to see the real ceremony performed by a council as it was originally devised and created all those years before even Ilyan was born.

I stood still where I had been placed near the platform, the small boy Joclyn had healed yesterday standing beside me with a combination of both fear and excitement on his face. He writhed his hands before him as he fidgeted, his subtle movements so small that, for a child, they should have been seen as common place. However, for a council, for this moment, as he was surrounded by the calm and powerful magical beings of the world, he stuck out like a sore thumb.

Not only because of his subtle movements. Not only because he was new magic.

But because he was a child.

A child.

A child with a mark on his cheek, the raised brand looking as though his grandmother had kissed him and left lipstick there. It was a unique gift. But, just like Joclyn who had hid her mark from me for her whole life, he didn’t see it as such.

I could tell by the way he kept rubbing his hand over it, covering it as though he was ashamed.

He stood beside me in the place reserved for chosen children. The line that I was sure at one point had been littered with those who bore the mark. Yet, now, there were only three.

Me with a hole in my back where my father had cut the precious mark out, the boy, and on the other side of him, a girl who I still desperately wanted to be my friend. Who now stood straight and tall in a yellow dress so old she looked like she had been pulled out of painting. A girl who, only months ago, would have cowered in nerves. Now, she only stood straight and tall with a confidence I hadn’t seen from her before.

She really had been born for this.

I never could have guessed, from the girl I knew all that time ago, that she had this in her. That she could find this.

I could tell by looking at her, so could everyone else.

They kept glancing toward her with a revered awe that she only seemed to absorb further. The hope and joy on their faces grew with each moment we stood in the silent space, the eager anticipation devouring the haggard, gaunt fear that had riddled them.

I was certain I looked the same.

I could feel the same emptiness linger through me as I stood amongst them, the awe from the Siln? blending with the uncertainty of the child that stood beside us.

It was good and bad, both sides of the battle they had fought for centuries, standing side by side. A fact that was probably made more obvious given my uncanny likeness to my father.