Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)

He was alive.

And yet … something was off about them. The calmness of them, the way they seemed to be sleeping, the way he was sleeping, yet nothing was wrong.

My magic continued to push through him, smothering him like a warm blanket as I looked beyond the simple, looked for the injury, for what was wrong, for a way to heal him.

Only to find nothing.

No cuts.

No bites.

No scary internal bleeding.

Just nothing.

It was as simple as him being asleep, but I knew he wasn’t.

“Thom?” The question came much louder than I had intended it to, my residual panic flooding through me as my magic pulsed in an intentionally painful wave. It was not enough to cause damage, just enough to wake. Much the way I had done to him centuries before.

I never liked getting up with the baby.

He didn’t so much as stir with the pinch, his body remaining where it was, hunched against the wall, the old peeling paper falling around his head like a crown.

“Thom?” My fingers wrapped around his arms like vices, my magic continuing to move into him as I shook, pulling him away from the wall only to have his head flop back against the aged printed flowers with a snap.

No response, not from his heart rate, not from his magic, not from him.

I couldn’t look away as my mind and body slowly turning to lead. The momentary panic grew before it was swallowed by my anger, my determination rising in me so quickly that, even though I knew I was dangerous, I didn’t care.

“What happened?” I didn’t even try to keep the growl out of my voice as I turned to Sain, my magic sparking dangerously as I fought the need to catch something on fire.

It would be like me to do something like that. Anger always equaled burn victim.

“Sain?” My voice was sharp as I stared at the aged man with my hand still firmly wrapped around Thom’s as though I was afraid he would fall through the floorboards and be lost to another dimension.

It could happen.

Sain only looked at me with wide eyes from where he cowered before me, his hands continually moving one over the other as if he was trying to rub the skin away. The movement was agitated, fearful, and I felt my skin prickle at seeing it.

His intense stare dug into me as I waited for an answer I already knew wouldn’t come. Not with the way he was acting, the movements so much like before, when we were trapped underground, and they had threatened to take away his mug.

Stupid Drak. If Joclyn ever started acting this way, I would have to take matters into my own hands.

The way he was acting had worried me before, but now I knew why.

Sain was not one to show emotion, but seeing him like that, seeing the fear in his eyes and the panic in his body, I knew.

He was afraid.

I wasn’t sure I had ever seen him afraid before. Even when Edmund had been only yards behind us, he had done little more than walk calmly forward, doling out subtle instructions.

Now, however, the emotions came off him in waves, infecting me like a virus. My magic reacted on instinct as he leaned closer to me, his eyes growing wider as the foul smell of his breath drifted through the stagnant air.

The room felt heavy and hollow as I waited for him to speak, the walls closing in until I was positive it was only us. Even the screams that echoed through the old wooden walls were a woeful memory.

Nothing could be worse than that.

Could it?

“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he repeated the words again, and the fear only grew. The meaning I had missed was a branding iron against my soul, and I flinched.

What had he done?

What had he done to make him so scared? To cause both Thom and Dramin to be so injured?

This couldn’t be his doing? There wasn’t any way.

“What!” the word exploded out of me as I moved over to Sain, the sound of my knees scraping against the dust-covered floor loud in the silence.

Sain flinched as if he had been punched, and I froze. The movement was so similar to Ryland, to Joclyn, that it made me wonder what I was seeing. As quickly as the movement had come, however, it was gone. Even though the fear continued to hold him, he still looked like Sain.

My heart raced as I stared at him, waiting for an answer that never came. With each second of silence, my panic grew, my anxiety tensing through me in a vice-like pain, pleading for answers.

“What did you do?” I asked the question again as he continued to wilt before me. The way he moved made it clear he wasn’t going to tell me anything, no matter how hard I asked.

Stupid Drak!

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