The voice was a growl of accomplishment that I couldn’t even find it inside of me to rebut.
After all this time, it was right.
Why hadn’t he told me before? We had been imprisoned together. He had helped me pull away from the beast I had been infected with. Why had he said nothing then?
Part of me knew it shouldn’t matter. Within the larger field of what we had been dealing with, this small piece of information was as inconsequential as bread, and yet … it felt like a betrayal. He had known what they were doing to me, and he had never once said the same had been done to him.
I could feel my blood boil as the betrayal grew into something more. I clenched my jaw together as if that alone was enough to keep it from exploding out of me.
“Why … why… didn’t you tell me … you knew?” I growled, my voice rumbling no matter how hard I tried to control it.
Sain didn’t flinch at my outburst. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge me while the heat of my magic grew while my chest started heaving in panicked breaths. I hadn’t even realized I was heaving, that my hands had resumed their constant pulling, my scalp filling with the painful pricks of pressure at the action.
He lied. He lied!
“He can’t have,” I answered the voice aloud, even though I hadn’t meant to. The desperate need to fight to keep Sain as the savior he had been to me was strong.
He lied.
“No … please no.”
“Ryland.” I heard Sain’s plea, but I didn’t look up at him. It was taking all my willpower to keep the voice at bay, to keep hold of what little sanity I had left.
“Ryland.” The pressure of his hand against mine increased, the comforting weight enough to break through the weight. Albeit, barely.
“It wasn’t my choice not to tell you. My sight did not show me of what was to come until now.”
“Do you always follow what your sight says?” My question was more in irritation than honesty. I already knew the answer. I had asked him the same thing more than once, and the answer had irritated me more every time. Something Sain very well knew, which is why he only laughed at me, the sound deep and abrasive.
More lies.
No, not lies. He’s telling me the truth.
Lies.
Don’t waste your time with him.
Kill him, too.
I flinched at the voice, barely able to maintain control of my mind, despite the constant onslaught.
“My father … he controls…” The broken words were all I could hope to get out through the schizophrenic conversation that was rattling inside of me.
It was the same as always—broken words, broken mind.
Luckily, Sain caught my meaning as perfectly as he always had.
Through the broken pieces of my reality, I had watched my father control Sain’s sight again and again, even before we knew what Joclyn really was. Although, he still “saw,” much of what he was given was now controlled by my father.
“I control my sight more than you know.”
I hadn’t expected that response. I heard the voice scream inside of me before it silenced to a hum while I tried to understand what he was saying, understand the nuances behind it.
“What do you mean?”
“I am the first of my kind, the first to control my power. All the power of the Drak flows through me. I see what all others see and control the flow of that magic. It is the same with your father. He is the first of the chosen children, his first mate the immediate descendant of the first of the Sk?íteks. All the magic of the Chosen flows through him. It is why he is so powerful.”
I could only stare at him as he spoke, the depth of what he told me sounding more like a prayer than a secret. Part of me was sure it was both. The knowledge felt powerful and scary.
“You mean, all the magic is connected, like some sort of waterfall?” It was the only analogy I could think of through the broken pieces of my mind. A waterfall, a steady flow from the top to the bottom, a ribbon that flows through everyone.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t I know this?”
“I’m not sure even Ilyan knows. And, if he does, he is using it to his advantage. Ilyan is powerful for a reason, you know.”
To protect Jos. The thought was simple enough, a fact I had been told time and time again, but it was one that had always hurt.
I growled as the voice came again, as the anger and madness that came with even thinking about her took over, the pain and anguish of lost love and hatred squashing me.
Protect?
More like steal.
He took her.
I know.
I couldn’t deny it.
Now she hates you.
She deserves to die.
He deserves to die.
I want to…
Stop playing around.
Kill them.
Kill them all.
I tried to fight it. I pressed myself into the wall. I hit myself against it, frantically seeking anything to focus on, to sift through. Regardless, it kept coming while my voice mumbled the same word over my lips as if on repeat, as though I was possessed. Of course, I guess, I was in a way.