“Well, Edmund captured them and siphoned off their poison for years and kept it, so that when his next child was born, he could create a child with such a large amount of magic that no one could defeat him.”
“Ryland?” It was obvious who he was talking about, my stomach turned in worry or excitement at just saying his name.
“Yes, Ryland. He injected him with the poison when he was two. He didn’t awake from the injection for eighteen months… it’s a miracle he survived.”
“How do you know this?” I asked, trying to ignore the bile churning its way up my throat.
“It doesn’t matter how he knows, little girl.” Ovailia’s voice was ice against my back.
“But you said I was unconscious for—”
“And yours remains the longest natural awakening. Ryland’s mark was forced, and therefore, an unnatural anomaly,” Ilyan cut me off.
“Where were you in this dream?” Ilyan changed the subject as he came to sit next to me on the bed. I shifted away from him a bit, feeling uncomfortable with how close he was.
“I don’t know. It was all white. Ryland said it was some sort of shared consciousness.”
Ilyan smiled almost knowingly at my words, while Ovailia and Wyn gasped in unison.
“A T?uha?” Ovailia exclaimed. “How is that possible?”
“What is that?” I asked “A T?uha?”
“It is exactly what Ryland told you it was,” Ilyan commented quietly. “A T?uha is a place where your minds can go and be together, no matter how far apart you are in distance. It is normally only reserved for those who have gone through the Z?lství, which is why it is so surprising that you shared one with Ryland.”
“Z?lství?”
“He means bonded,” Wyn translated the word from Czech for me. “You would refer to it as a marriage.”
My jaw dropped.
“Marriage?”
“I had a feeling your connection with Ryland was stronger than any of us thought after you raised the highway into a mound when we escaped.” Ilyan’s eyes dug into mine sharply.
“I did that?” I asked.
“Yes, but not on your own,” Ilyan continued. “Ryland helped, too.”
A pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a herd of elephants. I could only stare at him, my jaw dropped in awe.
“You don’t mean… the necklace?” Wyn asked, her voice almost a squeak of nerves.
Ilyan nodded in response to her question, his focus still on me.
“What necklace.” Ovailia scowled. “What have you been keeping from me, Ilyan?”
Ilyan finally released me from his gaze to stare down Ovailia with hard eyes.
“I keep from you whatever I deem, Ovailia.”
Ovailia wilted under his sharp gaze.
“You will have to excuse my sister,” Ilyan’s voice was impregnated with something akin to diplomatic anger. “She forgets her manners from time to time.”
“Or on a daily basis,” Wyn grumbled under her breath.
Ilyan chuckled at her comment while Ovailia only growled.
I probably should have been more shocked, given how fuzzy my mind was when Ilyan told me that Wyn was not his sister. Looking between Ilyan and Ovailia right then, I felt supremely stupid for ever believing that Wyn and Ilyan were siblings in the first place. Wyn was so short and darkly colored; she looked out of place between Ilyan and Ovailia with their tall, fair beauty. So much was alike between them; their high cheek bones, the shade of their eyes, and the golden color of their long hair. Ovailia’s features were refined, her high cheek bones and cat-like eyes giving her the look of aristocratic beauty. Still, somehow, her attitude ruined it and turned some of her striking elegance into rubbish.
“Since you have chosen to keep things from me, do you wish to enlighten me now?” Ovailia waved one of her hands impatiently to the side, her long fingers extending like a dancers.
“Show her your necklace, Joclyn.”
“What does any of this have to do with my necklace?” I asked, clutching the ruby tightly through Ryland’s sweater.
“You are going to have to tell her, My Lord,” Wyn spoke, her weight shifting on the bed to face me.
He stood and began to pace, only moving a few steps in either direction as he ran his hands through his hair in agitation.
“Ilyan?” I asked after I could take no more of his uptight movements. He stopped at my voice and came to lean against the bed, his face only millimeters away from my own. I flinched back out of habit.
“The necklace is more than just a gift; Ryland has infused it with his own magic as a way to keep an eye on you, to protect you. Every time you have ever felt it grow warm, it signals to him that you are in danger.”
I nodded, remembering his sudden appearance at the Rugby field, and his apparent knowledge of my fight with Cynthia.
“But I am afraid it inadvertently became more than that. You see, the entire time you two have known each other, Ryland has been infusing you with his magic—to calm you, to heal you, to protect you, to comfort you.”