He went down with a thud, the abrupt attack pulling him out of his insanity enough that he looked at me with wide eyes, the fear I knew all too well staring back at me. It was a pleading I understood taking over the fun loving boy I had met in the drama room all those months ago.
“I’m not going to kill you, Ryland,” I answered his unasked question through gritted teeth as I placed my hands against his face, letting my magic travel right to his heart and smothering it with the same shield I had used on Cail for centuries, the same shield I had used on him only a few days before.
This time, however, it didn’t seem to be enough. Just as Ilyan’s bind hadn’t been.
Edmund was too close, the madness they had wound in him too deep.
I watched the desperate need to escape his own mind lessen to only a slow boil, but the madness still remained, his voice babbling nonsense, his hand digging into the dirt as his eyes darted around me.
My heart clenched as I watched someone I cared about fight these endless demons. Watched him writhe, knowing there was nothing I could do to help him.
Knowing just being there was not enough.
“Ryland,”—his name was a snap in the air as his eyes darted back to me, the bright blue filled with the same ice Edmund always had—“I know you can still hear him, but you can hear me, too. Can you focus on my voice? On Sain’s?”
My heart beat wildly as I stared at him, my foot pressing against the ground as I scanned the forest for signs of an attack, for any sign that we had been seen or heard. Luckily, we seemed to be in the clear so far, something that was both comforting and disturbing.
Surely someone must have heard that.
My mind watched the forest while I kept focus on Ryland, grateful when his breathing began to regulate, when the manic movements began to slow, and his powerful body began to relax underneath me.
“Good.” I hadn’t realized how tightly my muscles had wound themselves until that moment. The release of fear was almost like a breath of fresh air.
Of course, it couldn’t disappear completely, not with the way the sky was constantly ripping itself apart, the way it shook with the distant battle, the sky flashing in colors of war I was trying very hard not to acknowledge, not to accept that we could be headed into the same fray.
My stomach knotted together. Tension built further as I felt a pulse of power, a jolt of negative energy just on the outskirts of where my magic could reach, someone standing there.
Pacing.
Waiting.
As if they knew where we were, knew how far my magic allowed me to scan the forest. And knew right where to stand in order to go undetected.
“Good,” I repeated the word again like it was on repeat even though I was no longer looking at Ryland. My focus was far away, drifting through the trees I now stared at, as if I would somehow be able to see miles away, see who stood there, waiting for us.
Sain spoke softly to Ryland as I moved away from him, still staring into the trees. My magic stretched toward them as I moved, wrapping around them, around the angry flame of his magic. Not only him, but several dozen others that appeared into being as I approached them, standing beyond my reach.
Waiting.
“What is it?” I barely even acknowledged Thom’s approach. I didn’t look away from the trees.
“It’s an ambush.” The words were lead, but I knew at once they were true.
There was no other reason for them to be standing there. No reason for them not to rush toward the fight that I knew Joclyn and Ilyan were currently raging on the other side of the abbey.
A battle for distraction, a battle to give us time to escape.
Useless.
Edmund had been one step ahead of us.
I exhaled roughly as my magic flared, a small tree a few feet away turning to ash with the impulse.
I didn’t even seem to notice, although Thom jumped a bit. I guessed it had been awhile for both of us since the full strength of my magic had been released.
Now was as good a time as ever, I supposed.
I was ready.
I couldn’t stop the sinister smile from curling over my lips as the same maniacal joy that ruled me took over, heating my blood and loosening my stress in exhilaration. We might not make it to Prague, even if there was anything left. Hell, we might not even make it to the caves. Regardless, I was going to do my best, and I was sure going to have fun trying.
“Let’s go.” The depth of my voice had come back in one crashing blow.
Thom chuckled beside me as he walked back to Dramin wordlessly, leaving me staring at the trees for only a moment more before I turned, striding right to Sain who was still struggling with Ryland.
“Go help your son.” I didn’t give him a chance to rebut. Leaning down to help the blubbering boy to stand, I felt my magic move into him on instinct.
“He’s close,” he moaned as I draped his arm over my shoulder, as if I was going to be able to somehow carry him on my own the rest of the way. “He wants me to kill her.”
“I know, Ry. I know.”
He whimpered beside me as he twitched, his body jerking violently before my magic surged through him, stabilizing whatever Edmund had done and lifting him off the ground enough so I could run without hindrance.