I said nothing, but let her move my head to where she wanted it. When Ilyan had told me Wyn was going to help me get ready, this was not what I had in mind.
I had arrived in my room to a very excited Wyn who was armed with a pair of scissors and a bottle of hair dye. Even though they could alter my appearance magically, it would be easily seen through by Edmund and his men, which meant they had to alter my appearance physically. I had tried to convince Wyn to do something simple, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said that I needed to stand out enough that no one would guess it was me. It didn’t make much sense, but I didn’t want to argue.
I had been sitting dutifully in the chair since Wyn placed me here, my eyes closed as I refused to see what she was doing. I bit my lip until it bled when she cut off all my hair. My head felt instantly lighter. I only felt a bit of it fall around my face and on my neck before she began to coat it with the thick, sticky stuff I was now being tortured with.
I huffed angrily in the hopes of showing my frustration, but regretted it instantly; my throat was now coated with the burn of the fumes.
“Oh, calm down, Jos. I am almost done.”
“You better not have made me look terrible.”
“No one will recognize you. That’s for sure,” she laughed.
“What does that mean?” Now I was worried.
“Nothing. Stop freaking out. You can open your eyes now. You have to wait twenty minutes for it to develop and you’re going to look like a loon sitting still with your eyes closed for that long.”
I opened them, letting my eyes get used to the sharp chemical burn. Wyn stood in the middle of my bathroom with a huge grin on her face as she began to remove her gloves that were covered with cherry-red hair dye. She had told me she was dying my hair red, but for some reason, I had pictured an auburn color like hers.
“Red? Wyn! That’s red!” Wyn grinned at me evilly, flexing her one hand of still gloved fingers at me.
“And black,” she provided happily. “It’s kind of all blended and fun! You’re going to love it!”
“Wyn! My hair was already black! Why did you dye it more black?”
“Really, Jos. Calm down. You’re going to look so good,” she squealed and went back to cleaning up, dancing to the Styx music she had playing on the stereo.
“I don’t feel like I am going to look so good.”
Wyn just sighed at me and cranked up the radio in an effort to tune out my complaints.
“Wyn!” I attempted to yell above the music.
She turned down the radio and looked at me skeptically. “You’re not going to keep complaining, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I was just wondering what you could tell me about Edmund’s other children.”
She stopped dead in her attempts at cleaning up, her arms falling to her sides. “I am not sure I am supposed to tell you about that.”
“It’s okay, Wyn. Ilyan told me.”
“What did he tell you?” Her eyes narrowed dangerously.
“What Edmund makes his children do. He let it slip that Ovailia was one of them.”
She waited before nodding and leaned against the sink to face me.
“Edmund wasn’t always like that, you know. Ilyan’s father and mother were bonded about twelve hundred years before Ilyan was born; Ovailia was born about thirty years later. About two hundred years after that, he began to change. They have legends and songs and beautiful paintings of the love shared by Edmund—the bearer of the first mark—and Filare—the Sk?ítek he shared his life with.”
“What happened? I mean, if he loved her so much, why did he leave her?” The eager light that had filled Wyn’s dark eyes vanished at my question.
“Edmund saw a woman in a town called Farcina. He lusted after her. Timothy…” she spat the word with venom, “my father, convinced Edmund to take her, convinced him that he should be the only one to bear the mark. He left everyone. Broke all magical beings apart. Edmund planted the seeds of distrust and started a civil war that almost killed all of the magic. And while everyone fought among themselves, Edmund massacred the Drak in secret.”
“The Drak?”
“The Drak were a people who were bred from the mud to be the Keepers of the Waters of Foresight. They were the only ones who could look into the black waters and see the past, present and future. There were stories that they saw a Chosen Child who would destroy Edmund, and stop the madness that he had created. I think that’s why he killed them.”
“You mean, like a prophecy?” I tried to keep the disbelief out of my voice.
“I guess you could say that, but they were really anything but. Ilyan was there to witness it. He told Ovailia, not knowing that she was being used as a spy. Because of what Ovailia told Edmund, he ordered the extermination of the Chosen Children.”
“And Ilyan still trusts her?” I was appalled. The bubbling turmoil in my stomach at what I was hearing was making me sick.
“Yes. It’s been several hundred years, so he must have a reason. After all, Edmund did almost destroy Ovailia.”