Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)
Rebecca Ethington
To My Kids
Who are strong
WYN
One
The abbey was ahead of where we stood in the Spanish forest, the old stone peeking out from over the tops of the trees. It was the last leg of our escape from the dungeons of Prague, from Edmund and the massacre that had occurred there. The last few steps until we reached Ilyan, until we could tell him what had happened.
What Ovailia had done, how she had betrayed us all.
Crumbled brick that I had seen a million times before was illuminated by the bright lightning that cracked above us. The decrepit building looked like the Taj Mahal after what we had escaped from.
Now, we only needed to get to Ilyan before it was too late.
Although, judging by the masses of Edmund’s army that surrounded the ancient space, we might already be.
Figures.
I get my memories and the fire magic back in time to wipe out an army. Part of me wouldn’t have it any other way.
Bring it on.
Even if I wasn’t looking forward to telling Ilyan what had happened to Prague, to his people, I needed to get to the abbey. While necessary, it wasn’t a conversation I was looking forward to having. Neither was the “Oh, by the by, I have all my memories back, and your best friend is dead” conversation.
My heart pulsed painfully at the imagery of Talon’s hand against mine for the last time, of Rosaline, of everything that I had chosen to forget.
“We are almost out of time.”
I tried to restrain the eye roll at Sain’s raspy voice, the overwrought words pulling my focus toward the decrepit man who still looked like he was locked in a dungeon.
“We must move quickly.”
I could only nod at his statement. It was the same one he had made since the lid of Ilyan’s tomb had enclosed us into the tunnel system under Prague that we had used to get this far. He had said the words every night as I tried to sleep, each day as we walked. Each time the phrase rolled off his tongue, his eyes moved over the lines that covered the left side of my body. The deep, jagged edges that were now an even harsher reminder of my past, of what my father had tried to do to me, of what Cail had tried to stop.
The Zanik curse, the worst form of punishment for our kind. It had been embedded within me after my father had discovered my centuries of treachery, for all the work I had done with Ilyan in an attempt to destroy Edmund.
It was to be the ultimate form of torture. If only my brother hadn’t been able to stop it, to bind it into my skin.
Seeing as I had killed my father, I would have assumed the marks to leave—as Cail had promised—but still, they remained, staring at me as dark as the sins that lined my soul.
I let the warning in Sain’s words whisper through the chilled air; however, I refused to look at the marks as he did. I refused to look at those lines and see the same fear, the same warning that his Drak blood seemed to be screaming at him. I refused to acknowledge the warning that had hidden itself underneath the repetitive phrase.
Something is wrong.
Even though he hadn’t told me what, I could feel it in the way the magic pulsed in the Abbey, the way that the weak magic flared and the strong pulsed. It wasn’t a castle full of strength and power that I had been expecting. Something was off. Something is wrong.
I pushed the parallels from my mind as the world rumbled with the baleful sound of thunder. Not willing to accept that Joclyn—that anyone—within those walls was injured, that they were little more than sitting ducks…
For once, I wasn’t sure if the addition of my magic would tip the scales in their favor.
It was a blow to my pride that I wasn’t interested in accepting. Nor would I.
Lightning ripped above us, the thunder following right behind in a blast that echoed the power of the earth, the sound causing all the Trpaslík in the camp before us to jump.
They were the last of Edmund’s men who separated us from the tall bell tower of the Abbey, our destination.
“We are almost out of time,” Sain gasped again.
I only nodded, my breath shaking as I pulled him from the security the trees provided and into the drunken hoards that Edmund controlled. Our heavy footfalls sounded loud and abrasive in the still air, the obnoxious laughter we were surrounded by barely enough to cover the sound of crunching leaves and snapping twigs beneath us. I supposed it was good they couldn’t hear that, anyway.