Dramin didn’t answer. He simply extended his hand toward me, his face pained as he gave me permission to use the full extent of his recall.
I placed Joclyn on the cold stone floor of the cave to grab Dramin’s hand and place it against my forehead. My eyes closed to blackness for only a moment before the vision filled me. I could see myself, standing over Joclyn, the stone walls of the Rioseco Abbey clear in the background. Her body was still, limp, and yet I was yelling at her, panic evident on my face and in my voice. I watched as Dramin walked into the room, his face calm for only a moment before he too panicked. Before I could see any more, Dramin removed his hand from my head, the vision leaving with it.
There was no sign of her waking up in the sight, only her limp body and my pain and panic. That sight could be in a week or in five years – I had no way of knowing. I re-ran the vision in my mind as I inspected every aspect: different clothes, my usual shorter haircut, the Rioseco Abbey.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Dramin?” I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling hard on the long uncomfortable strands.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me what would happen! That something was wrong, something is…” I stopped, not knowing exactly what was going on. I was unable to put my lack of knowledge about what was happening into words. “We could have stopped this.”
“How?” Dramin’s voice was deep and accusatory. I could already hear the regular rebuttal of his kind on his tongue – the lack of knowledge, the inability to interfere with things to come.
“You could have told me,” I said, knowing my reasoning would be lost on him. “I could have stopped her from going into the T?uha…”
“How was I to know it was T?uha?” Dramin asked his voice raising. Anyone else would have recoiled, but I straightened in front of him, my height and heritage meant to terrify him. He, however, was so used to me he didn’t even move.
“I showed you all that I have seen, Ilyan. There was no way to know…”
“Zastavit,” I said loudly, prickling agitation moved up my body in a ripple. I let it take over for one weighted minute before I released it. Unleashing my temper against Dramin would solve nothing.
“Does she wake?” My voice was a whispered breath.
“Yes.” My head snapped up at Dramin’s answer, hope running through me.
“Then we will wait,” I said, when a small feminine moan behind me pulled all of my focus away from Dramin and back to Joclyn. I spun around, part of me desperate to see her eyes open, her bright smile. But, she was the same. I dropped to my knees, pressing my hands against her arms as my magic flowed into her.
“Ne,” I gasped when I found it. She had a broken bone in her leg. The break was clean and ran right through her tibia, and I was sure she had not had it when we entered the training room.
“What?” Thom had moved up to kneel next to her head, and strangely, the anger in his voice was leaving, concern seeping through in a slow trickle.
“Her leg is broken,” I said, not willing to accept it myself.
“Broken?” Dramin leaned down next to me, his hand moving against her head. I could feel his magic move into her alongside mine, the heavy tendrils of the Drak magic cold against my own. He gasped when he felt it and withdrew his hand, his magic leaving with the loss of contact.
I wrapped the bone in a hard layer of my magic, giving it a strong internal cast to help heal it. I didn’t know how long it would take with her strangely vacant magic unable to do most of the work itself.
“What is he doing to her, Ilyan?” Thom moved away as he spoke, his fear at the power of our father obviously affecting him.
Edmund was torturing her, hurting her, intentionally. He had done the same to me more than a dozen times – every time he had somehow managed to capture me. It was his favorite game, causing pain.
He had tortured and killed mortals in front of me, hoping to break me or drive me mad. The only contact I had ever received from him had been meant to hurt me. Now he was doing the same to Joclyn, the only one my heart called to, the person I would protect with my own life.
Edmund had been hurting her, through Cail, for months in the nightmares, and I had held her as I took away the fears and wiped the anxiety from her mind. I had protected her in a way no one else could until I was able to find a way to make them stop. But now, Edmund had found a way to hurt her, really hurt her, in a place I could not follow.
Or could I?
“I need to get in there.” I stood quickly, ignoring the gasps from the men on either side of me, my focus only on Joclyn’s body.
“What do you mean ‘get in there’?” Thom asked.
“I mean, go into the T?uha and get her out. Wake her up.” I squared my shoulders, still unwilling to look away from her.
“Is that even possible? You can’t find the bridge.” Dramin’s voice was quiet.