“Then what is it?” I asked, my stomach tightly wound in fear.
“I am not sure. It is lore. If it is true, I can tell you that it is so much more than a Z?lství …” He said nothing more as he held me against him, our eyes closing in harmony as our magic met, moving together. I could hear Ilyan’s thoughts trickle down to me, his mind tripping around thoughts and words and languages until it was a jumbled mess that got lost in the air between us.
“Ilyan?” my father asked, his voice soft as he interrupted us. “May I see your hand?”
Ilyan eyed him skeptically before he moved away from me. His steps were slow as he removed the heavy bandages he kept around the burn, allowing my father to see. I stood still against the table as Thom also came forward to see the dark red marks that Ilyan had given himself.
Ugly divots of black and blood red covered Ilyan’s entire palm, the burn stretched along the backs of his fingers and up his wrist. The angry, red skin was still glossy as it worked to heal itself, the burn not more than a day or two old. I had seen it last night, and even then I had been aware that it would never heal, not in the way the marks on his chest had. He would wear these painful scars forever.
“That would be why I despise that poison,” Thom said, his voice crinkling in disgust. He looked like he wanted to move away, but he held still, almost as if he couldn’t help himself from looking at the burns. It was the same look he had given me when Dramin had first given me the water, like it had offended him.
The problem was that his look was offending me. Ilyan’s hand looked terrible, but without that sacrifice and without the water, I wouldn’t be here.
“That poison saved me,” I said, the anger rippling through me. Thom lifted his eyes to meet mine, though he only rolled them and looked away, mumbling something about Dramin that I couldn’t hear. Ilyan’s back stiffened at his comment, but he said nothing, his muscles rippling under the dark cotton t-shirt he wore.
“This is very deep. I don’t think I have even seen one this deep before,” Sain whispered, his fingers prodding the sore skin, which caused Ilyan to jerk in pain. I jumped as Ilyan did, my fist reaching up to wind its way around the fabric of his shirt.
“Are all your burns tied to Joclyn in some way?” Sain glanced at Ilyan, his bushy eyebrows disappearing into his unkempt hair.
“Yes,” Ilyan replied through his teeth, his pain pulsing stronger the longer Sain touched the burns.
I didn’t like the way his muscles twitched as he restrained his agony. When I stepped up to him, wrapping my arms around his chest, his muscles tensed under me, the shadow of his pain flowing through me from the ?tít. I buried my face into Ilyan’s chest as my magic worked to calm him, the scent of his shirt full of his magic.
“You are not privileged enough to touch the Black Water so frequently,” Sain said, his eyes not lifting from Ilyan’s hand.
Even I didn’t miss the slight disgust in Sain’s voice over Ilyan’s supposed disgrace of what Sain viewed as holy. To me, Black Water was still just food.
“I do not think this is a matter of privilege, Sain,” Ilyan said as he took his hand back from my father. “And not all hold your views of the Water. You would do well to remember that.”
Ilyan’s fingers were tense and stiff before he placed the burned skin of his hand against my arm, his magic surging alongside mine at the contact. His body calmed as my touch took away the pain that had fired through his blood, my skin almost acting like Novocain to him.
“You are not a Drak, Ilyan,” Sain countered, his voice full of scolding.
Ilyan tensed against me at Sain’s foolish comment. Even Thom backed up, shaking his head at Sain’s pride.
Ilyan was King, though I wasn’t sure if that title applied to my father. My father was one of the first of all magic. For all I knew, Ilyan should bow to him, but judging by the reactions of those around me, I guessed not.
“The water reacts differently to you than it does to my kind,” Sain plowed on, oblivious to Ilyan’s wrath that was about to release. “The water is part of me, fused with me body and soul, as it is with Joclyn.”