Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)

“In case you haven’t notice, my lord, the city is under attack by about a million of Edmund’s flying rats. Dramin was bit, Ryland’s a mess, and Thom…” My voice lost its snot as it caught on the emotion in my throat. I stopped, staring at him with wide eyes as everything I had said clicked into place.

“Dramin was bit?” Jos’s voice was a shriek through the dark as her eyes grew bigger if that was possible. I worried for a minute that they would pop out of her head, but she only looked at me, waiting for an answer that I couldn’t give, before she ran into the adjoining room. For anyone else, it was a reaction that might border on insanity, but for her, I was sure her magic had told her exactly where her brother lay.

I expected Sain to follow; instead, he remained across from me, staring at me with that same look in his eyes, the fear and warning playing deep into my soul.

I barely noticed Ilyan rush to his brothers’ side, moving from one to the other as he checked them and tried to heal them while I could only look at Sain. The unspoken message screamed at me from where I stood.

He kept looking from me to Ilyan as though Ilyan was the enemy, as though he was afraid of him.

I have made a terrible mistake.

I still didn’t even know what he had done, but watching him here, I was beginning to piece it together, and I wasn’t too happy with where it was going. Sain looked at Ilyan like Ilyan was who he was afraid of, like Ilyan was who was coming for him.

“Sain? Wynifred?” Ilyan pulled me out of the vice-like stare Sain had trapped me under, the alarm in his voice ripping any doubt I had away. That tone, that fear, was very unlike him. It sent shivers through me.

My magic tugged uncomfortably as I walked toward him, watching his shoulders tense as he pressed his hands against Thom’s. The pulse of magic was so strong I could feel the shadows weave through the room like a radiant heat.

“Ilyan?” My voice shook as I looked down at them, the shake in Ilyan’s hands only pulling me more toward a fear that had been wiped from my mind.

I had been so focused on Sain’s mysterious panic that I had almost forgotten. He had seemed okay when I had checked him, but now, watching Ilyan, I wasn’t so sure.

“What happened?” He didn’t even look at us when he said it. His focus was only on Thom.

My fear increased as my stomach twisted uncomfortably, and my hands began to shake as my voice did. “I saw them right before the Vil?s attacked—”

“He was hit by a stray attack from somewhere behind us,” Sain interrupted, his voice stronger than it had been for the past few minutes, the gravelly depth catching me off-guard. “I don’t know what it was or where it came from. It looked unfamiliar to me. But he’s been like this ever since.”

I stared at Sain, my mind reeling as I tried to piece together whatever game he was playing at. Nothing really fell into place, though. Everything was too tense—Sain was acting like a loon, my daughter’s voice was talking to me, Thom was injured so badly no one could tell what was going on…

I was going to develop a hump from the tension that was pressing against my spine.

“Is he all right, Ilyan?” I didn’t want to ask the question, but I did, anyway, ice trailing over me as my hands writhed together.

“I’m not sure.” It was an honest answer. I could hear it in his voice. The panic was leaving, yet the fear of the unknown still remained. It snaked through him like acid, pricking against me.

“His magic is fine. He is fine…”

“But you just can’t wake him,” I finished his thought for him as he stood, the sloppy braid that trailed down his back only a foot away from me.

Ilyan nodded, and my stomach dropped. In some ways, I knew I should at least be happy he was okay, but then, why wouldn’t he wake up? I had hoped Ilyan would have been able to ascertain something besides what I had, yet it was the same.

“That doesn’t explain the scabs, though,” I grumbled, my mind still trying desperately to put the puzzle together.

“What scabs?” Ilyan asked in Czech, his voice rumbling with a fear I easily recognized.

“Perhaps scabs is the wrong word.” I said nothing more as I moved to the other side of Thom, his hands soft against mine as I turned them over.

The palms were covered with the same open wounds, each one a perfect circle. The red, angry marks were raw, the flesh looking like it had been burned away, as though someone had dropped acid onto the tender skin and melted it.

Ilyan’s face hardened as he looked at them, his jaw tensing into a tight line. “P?etí?ení dávka.”

My heart seized. I had heard of this. Although, I had never seen it, and now, seeing it on Thom… The world must have stopped spinning on its axis. I was positive of it.

“But how?” I asked even though I knew there was only one way to get p?etí?ení dávka.

An overstimulation of magic.

Rebecca Ethington's books