Risha said something at an inhuman speed to Ilyan before glancing to the mark on my neck. Then her eyes widened in wonder before they darted away as quickly as if I had caught her doing something dirty.
It was a simple move, one that shouldn’t have bothered me the way it had. After all, everyone who had been attacked by the Vil?s since the attack started a few hours ago would have a mark nearly identical to mine. I reacted, anyway, my nerves flaring with the knowledge of exactly what this mark meant. My palm covered it for the first time in what felt like years, the skin softer than I remembered it.
For the first time since I had left all that behind, I was aware of it there, open for everyone to see, just like the boy we had rescued whose mark was already blooming on his cheek.
I looked to him on instinct. The child was curled up on a pile of blankets in a little nest that was perfectly placed in the center of the room ‘where there is more light.’ While I understood the reasoning, it still left the child in the middle of the floor, writhing in pain for all to see.
His whimpers echoed in my head as the refugees cared for him, wishing there was something I could do to help him.
My magic pulsed. I almost expected it, for the magic to take over in such a way. It had done it before.
When I had healed Dramin and Wyn, my magic had told me what to do. It had told me where to go and paved the path of what to do. This time, however, even though I felt the pull, I could tell it wasn’t for healing. It was almost as if the child had something that my magic wanted, something that it was going to get no matter what.
The change scared me.
The thunder of my heartbeat in my ears mixed with his cries, echoes of sound that trapped me as I tried to understand the need, the pull…
“Joclyn,” Ilyan’s voice was soft, his accent thick as he pulled me from my focus, my body jumping as everything around me jerked back to life, the room seeming brighter.
“Yes.” My voice was soft as I replied, knowing I needed to say something, even though I could already hear the conversation in Ilyan’s mind. It was as though I was doing nothing more than reading the cliffs notes of what had happened over the last few minutes and what he wanted of me.
Suddenly, all the random corks and buttons that were littered all over the table made sense. Buttons for other refugees, corks for pockets of Edmund’s men that he had hidden all over the city.
“You need to know if there are any more corks?” I asked, knowing the phrasing sounded odd, something that didn’t go unnoticed.
Ilyan laughed, while that wide-eyed stare came back to Risha’s face far too quickly. However, if it was the comment or if I had made it obvious that I was pulling thoughts from Ilyan’s mind was yet to be discerned.
I closed my eyes without prompting, grateful to get Risha’s worshipful expression out of my mind and let my magic stream away from me in a force of power. I tried to keep it restrained, to keep the intensity at bay and not cause a whirl wind like I had in Rioseco, but it didn’t seem to work.
The power came anyway, moving out in a rush as it streamed away from me, a powerful gust that moved through the room, lifting the ribbon and loose pieces of my hair as paper and loose bits of fluff swirled around me.
The room filled with cries of alarm as the whirlwind grew, only to have Risha speak in what I supposed was a request for calm. I knew it was more based in amazement, much the same as the chatter that had erupted around me in an awe-stricken hush.
I heard it all, felt the ripple of embarrassment move up my spine, but like last time, it was all a million miles away. Another world that I was somehow attached to while I moved through this one. One filled with darkness and blood. One filled with fear. They were two very different realities with me trapped between them.
My magic sped through the city, my mind following along with it as I moved through streets, through alleys, streams, sewage systems. It all should have been beautiful. It had been before, when I stood behind that door, but now everything was dark.
Walls were splattered with thick blood, bodies lay haphazard and forgotten in the streets, and through it all, the Vil?s flew, looking for more victims. Except, these ones were different than the ones who had rampaged through the city, biting anyone they came in contact with. They didn’t have the same blood red tint in their eyes. They didn’t gnash and snarl as they flew through the air. Their movements were too organized, their eyes too clear.
I realized with a heavy weight lodging itself in the pit of my stomach that the difference was for a reason. They were still the same creatures—Vil? that had been poisoned, manipulated for Edmunds use—but their purpose was different. The way they had been mutated was different.
They were different.