Ilyan closed his eyes for a moment, and I could hear the replay of the last hour in his mind, the conversation he had had with Sain. I didn’t want to hear it. Even though I could tell he was trying to give me the thoughts, I wouldn’t let them in. I wasn’t interested.
“They did the same to him, Jos.” He sighed, his breath exhaling as he lifted his eyes to look at me again. “They turned him into a weapon to hurt you. It’s why he punched you. He still sees you as the enemy they haunted him with. He is trying to fight it, but I am not sure he can.”
I just stared at him, the words sinking into a place deep inside of me that I wanted so desperately to ignore. Ilyan’s eyes were soft, the truth behind them penetrating. I sighed as I leaned my head against the wall, not willing to except it, more willing to let my panic take over.
How do you know that I am meant to be a weapon now?
Ilyan stared and moved closer, his body folding as he leaned toward me.
“It’s what my father does, Joclyn.” His fingers twitched in desperation to hold me again. “It is what he has always done. You know this.”
I did. I had seen it even before he had done it to me. I had seen it in Thom, and I had heard the stories of my father. I had no reason to doubt any of them.
“You need to let go of that anger, Joclyn,” Ilyan continued when I said nothing, his hand finally moving to rest against the blanket that covered me. “You can’t let the pain control you.”
I can’t, Ilyan. If I let go of it, then there is nothing left. I have nothing behind that. It’s all I am anymore.
“That’s not true,” Ilyan said, his hand moving to rub my body in comfort through the blanket.
It’s all I feel. I sighed, pulling the blanket around me tighter. I felt the jagged edge within me as it threatened to turn into panic. I pushed it away as I buried my face into the wall, refusing to look at him. I knew the look he would have if I did.
“You have to look beyond it, my love,” he whispered, his voice soft as his hand moved from the blanket to the skin of my face. I fought the temptation to lean into the touch, to bask in it.
There is nothing behind it. I said, the voice in my head breaking in my sadness.
Ilyan sighed, and his hand moved over my skin before he dropped it, before he leaned away from me. The movement scared me, and I looked toward him. But when I did, his eyes were looking right at me, the bright blue shocking as they raged with a heady emotion that took my breath away.
“My father hung me from a tree shortly after it became obvious that I was the one challenging him. He caught me, whipped me, and burned my skin with irons. I thought I would go mad. But I didn’t.”
He didn’t move as he spoke, his eyes never leaving mine. I had always excluded Ilyan from the pain Edmund had caused his children. I didn’t know why, but Ilyan seemed untouchable. Now he was telling me that he had been hurt. He had thought he would go crazy. But he didn’t
How?
He smiled at my question, and for the first time since I met him, I could tell he was nervous. I could feel the anxiety in his mind; hear the thump of his heart.
His heart called to me, and I leaned toward him, the heavy blanket moving away as I reached for his hands and wrapped my hands around his.
“Ilyan?” I asked aloud, loving the way his name felt on my tongue.
“I thought of you, of the vision. I basked in the way you felt in my arms, the smell of your hair. I thought of every vision I had seen in the sight and I knew I was bigger than the pain. I looked beyond it, and I found love.”
Love.
The look in his eyes, the way his magic felt within me, none of it was wild, none of it was scary. Everything about Ilyan was calm. He was love.
He was light.
I had felt it before, before Wyn’s screams had broken open the fa?ade I had plastered together. Ilyan was love.
He wasn’t love simply because I knew he loved me. Because I did know that. Without question, he had proved that to me again and again. No, he was love because I loved him.
I loved him.
“What is beyond your anger, Joclyn? What is your pain hiding?”
I didn’t look away from him as he asked his questions. I didn’t dare take my eyes off him. I stared at Ilyan as my body leaned toward him, as my hands moved from his. My fingers moved on their own, trailing up his shirt and over the skin of his neck.
I held my breath as I touched his face, the soft skin I had never touched before. I ran the pads of my fingers over his eyebrows, his defined cheek bones, and through the hairline of his short cut.
My heart pulsed wildly inside of me as I let my fingers trail over the scruff from a beard I had never seen, prickly and sharp, before dragging to his lips. I froze.
I froze at the sound of my pulse in my ears. I froze at the calm that had overtaken me. I froze at the desire that circled through Ilyan’s mind and the willpower he was exerting to keep it there.
I watched his breathing. I felt the heat of his breath against my fingers, the pulse of his magic hot under his skin.
What was behind the anger?