Dawn of Ash (9 page)

It still affected me the same way, though, perhaps because I had been with her. Perhaps it was because we were both hiding a deep strain of malevolence no one else understood.

A perfect match, which made the fact that my magic was trying to pull into hers more irritating.

She moved toward me slowly, her gaze never leaving mine as her ridiculous heels crunched into the dead undergrowth in loud snaps. Her eyes were dark orbs of plum blue as she leaned closer, running her finger over my lips, and my heart tensed in confusion and irritation at the gentle touch.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show up.” Her finger didn’t leave my face, her magic continuing to wind around me like some poisonous snake that I could tell neither wanted me nor wanted to let me go.

“Hello, Ovi.” I kept my voice low and fearful, back to the cowering role she knew. The façade was fueled by the bitter cold, the chill of the air a biting pressure against my lungs.

I inhaled, savoring the sting of the icy wind as it moved over my skin, tugging at the cloak, at my hair, and taking any hope of warmth away from me.

“Why did you stop?” she snarled, the calm of my greeting unheard as she moved ever closer, her hand wrapping around my neck in a violent warning.

I shook underneath the touch, but not for the reason she would assume.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I cowered, letting my voice warble as I fought against the strong waves of pride that rippled through me at her accusation.

She turned away at my denial, her hair swinging over the pristine white of her fur coat like a flurry of snow. White against silver. It was beautiful.

I would give her that; her beauty was still hard to resist.

Something foreign swirled through me as I stood, lost in thought, while two of her guards appeared from the air around us, flanking me so close that, for a moment, I was truly afraid they were going to take me to Edmund. I didn’t need that, not yet.

I wasn’t ready for that yet. I still needed Ryland’s blade. I still needed Thom.

“You stopped moving. You almost severed the magic—”

“I was being followed.”

Her eyes narrowed for the briefest of moments before they widened in shock.

“Ilyan.” It wasn’t a question, though it probably should have been. He wasn’t the only one who could stutter anymore, but she didn’t seem to care, even though I knew that she, too, possessed the ability. “And the girl?”

I nodded, Ovailia’s shock leaching back into disgust as a loud hiss slipped past her lips.

She turned away from me in anger, her hair fanning around her like a blizzard.

“How did they find you? You told us that your sight is clean.” Her voice traveled on the bitter wind, moving through me.

I shivered, letting the weak movement move through me like a wave. “You know how he found me. That girl can track magic better than most Vilỳs,” I snapped, regretting the outburst the moment Ovailia turned back to me, her eyes dark in warning.

The guards increased their holds at her look, hands digging into my arms as they held me in place. I grimaced at the pain, at the pressure.

None of them cared.

“Did he see you?”

“Not that I could tell.”

Ovailia studied me for a moment, obviously skeptical, before she narrowed her eyes. Her hand drifted to the side as she dismissed the guards, the burly Trpaslíks fading back into nothing as they pulled their shields around them.

“So you are still good for something, I take it.” Her voice was a poisonous reptile, the look in her eyes ready to attack.

Before I could get a chance to answer, the look changed, her eyes drifting in and out of focus until they were a million miles away, the anger falling from her face to be replaced by a deep understanding that scared me.

I knew that look. I knew that movement. It had happened to me enough over my life and even more in the last few days. She had received her instructions from Edmund.

I couldn’t help the odd mix of eagerness and fear that took over my body. The idea of playing the game was hauntingly desirable.

“What does he want of me?”

Ovailia smiled at the depth of my knowledge, her hand lifting as she brushed the back of it against the bare skin of my jawbone, her fingers running through my beard in a touch so soft I couldn’t help the shiver that jerked through me.

Our magic connected, the skin contact giving the power free range to move between us, to try to connect. It was something that, by the look in her eyes, she enjoyed.

“What do
you
want of me?” I couldn’t help the question. I couldn’t help the low grumble of my voice, the twisting of my stomach making a powerful play.

She smiled more, her eyes dancing as her magic continued to penetrate, and the chill of the wintry breeze became a distant memory as the warmth of her hand heated my insides like a hot water bottle.

“I want the same thing my father wants.” The honey of her voice melted into me, despite knowing what was coming. “Information.”

My magic attempted to curl back into me in disappointment, but I kept it there, inside of her, a strong force as magic and souls danced in a tango that could never be completed.

“Haven’t I given you enough?”

“There is always more.”

This time, it was my turn to smile.

She was right. There
was
always more, so much more than even she could ever understand.

I had been playing this game for centuries before she was even conceived. Her birth and our bonding had played perfectly into my web as everything else had.

She leaned into me, her breath hot on my lips as the depth of her blue eyes attempted to swallow me whole, and my gut twisted at the whispers of the connection I was still fighting.

“Give me more.” Her request was a whisper, a flutter of heat over my lips, a twist of pleasure against my heart. I was sure anyone else would have caved.

I knew that was what she wanted.

I wasn’t as weak-willed as she assumed me to be. She didn’t know me well enough to recognize the difference.

She knew what I let her see, and what I let her see now was the reaction she had expected of the person she thought she knew: the buckle, the giving in, the whimpering plaything she could mold. But it wasn’t who I was, not really.

“Anything.” The word was more a moan than an agreement as it leaked from me.

She smiled, and thankfully, I was able to keep mine restrained this time.

“We need to know more of Joclyn’s magic, specifically her sight: how it works, how it connects to Ilyan, or even if it does.” The honey slipped from her voice as Edmund’s instructions rattled through the air.

The warmth that had settled in my stomach disappeared into vapor as the air became lead.

Of course it had to be Joclyn’s power.

It was no secret Joclyn was insanely powerful, and I knew from the beginning that Edmund would want her power for himself. I had hoped he would see more use for her dead—as I had intended—but that was obviously not the case.

But this information, this tiny bit of knowledge, was mine. I needed it. The way their magic worked, the way their souls had connected was a key piece to how I was going to destroy Ilyan’s regality. It didn’t take much to know that, if Edmund knew how their magic connected, he would use it in the same way I intended. I couldn’t let that happen.

My lips pressed into a tight line as my mind immediately moved around the demand, around the information I had, trying hastily to find the smallest bit of information I could give him.

“Do we have a problem?”

The harshness of Ovailia’s voice pulled me right out of contemplation and back to the beautiful woman before me, the graceful dance of her hair in the wind the only movement amongst the frozen and dead world.

I didn’t have a choice. I had to give them something. I would just have to figure out what I could sacrifice that didn’t give them too much of an upper hand in this delicate game.

“Sain.”

My magic reacted to the sound of my name on her lips, to the touch of her fingers against my cheek as she brought me back under her spell.

“Please don’t forget. I hold the cards. I always have. I can control your magic.”

No, you can’t.

“I can control your sight.” But you couldn’t see what I truly saw.

“I hold the key to Thom’s life in my hands.”

Thom.

The word, the reality that was clenched behind it, was a knife twisting into my spine, the bones straightening as I righted to my full height, the fearful, broken man I always played gone for a moment.

“Yes, I thought as much,” she soothed, her smile spreading.

Whether it had been done on purpose or not, Ovailia had played her cards right with that one. She needed a way to control me, and thus, she chose the person everyone perceived as my best friend. I guessed, in a way, it was true; except, I didn’t believe in friends.

I believed in using the right people in the right way, and she had taken out one of my most valuable assets right when I needed him the most.

I had told Wyn I had made a mistake moments after it had happened. Only, she had no idea how truly damaging that mistake had been. For all she knew, I had left the oven on.

In reality, I had let the man I had been grooming for centuries to play as bait be incapacitated beyond all hope. All my work with Rosaline was rendered useless in that one moment.

I had needed him. I still did. I hadn’t found a suitable replacement yet.

I had tried to use Ryland, but while he still remained loyal to me, he had risen above his father’s control before I had expected him to. That raw power and anger he’d had before was gone. Try as I might, I wasn’t able to mold him in the way I needed.

Wyn was too headstrong, and no one else was emotionally broken enough for me to manipulate in time. Therefore, I had to keep playing into Ovailia in the hopes she would give Thom back to me, awaken the dead so he in turn could kill her.

I ground my teeth together at her threat, my heart racing angrily in a display of emotion she did not miss.

“Strange you care more for the life of one whose blood is as distant from yours as can be, while you would willingly feed your own progeny to the wolves.”

“She was not bred for life. She is nothing more than a pawn.” The words came without thinking, my head spinning with power, with the deep Drak magic and imagery of that first sight. The truth I had concealed flashed before my eyes in a recall so powerful that, for a fleeting moment, I wasn’t certain if I was the one who had summoned it.

When Ilyan had come to me that day, all those centuries before, he had been a weak boy searching for a mate. I had looked into the water to see what he sought. While I had seen it, while I had seen his future with Joclyn, a future with this powerful urchin with unrestrained magic I instantly recognized as Drak, it was not the future I had shown him.

I had shown him joy. I had shown him light. I had shown him possibility.

But I had also shown him death that had not existed.

I had also turned the precious girl who was meant to be the liberator of our people into a martyr.

Even though I had seen her sent from the mud to restart the realm of magic, I had not seen her as queen.

I could not let such power be free in the world. I couldn’t. Therefore, I changed it.

I changed it and created a war that would end in her death. I set brother against brother and father against son. I took the image I had seen of Joclyn beside the well, of her magic restarting all of the magic. I took the other, of her alongside her father-in-law in peace. I took the battle that ended in life. I took it all away and showed him death and destruction, instead. I showed him her dead body as he held her, as he screamed. I took his future away.

I took any possibility Joclyn had to use the Drak magic that she was not worthy of holding. I took it all away and gave them something different… because I could.

After all, they had taken my future away, and I would stop at nothing to get it back.

Besides, it was easy. Before the false words had even left the mouths of the Draks who had surrounded me, it was done, and it would be that way because I had “seen” it.

Oh, how suggestive everyone was.

I could say I “saw” a three-legged medusa come forth from the mud, and they would all sit around and wait for it to happen.

It was ridiculous.

“She is disposable.” I finished the thought with a snap, watching Ovailia’s eyes widen as her shock wound through her spine, the look gone before I had even fully registered it.

“To more than us, it would seem,” she whispered.

I smiled, and so did she.

For the first time, I had let her see a sliver of who I really was, and although the glimpse into my reality didn’t scare her, it was definitely a surprise to see it so well received. To see that, despite everything she had seen of me and all the falsehoods, she liked it. She liked me.

Just as, in that moment, I liked her.

For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to kiss her.

What an odd feeling.