“Dramin!” I yelled his name, knowing he wouldn’t know what this was, or how to keep it. But he would have water, and perhaps the water could strengthen the connection again. The water had brought the clarity; I needed the water to keep the clarity strong. “Dramin! Bring the water!”
Dramin ran into the room before I could even finish talking, his face calm for a moment before he saw me kneeling over Joclyn and the tears on my face. I could only imagine how I must have looked, how desperate I must have seemed, because I felt it inside me. I could feel the pain, the anguish, the desperation. I looked at him with all of my weaknesses on my face, no fa?ade, just me. He looked at me for one minute before the realization hit him and his own panic took over his face.
“What in land’s name is going on here?”
“Ovailia has returned. It was just as Joclyn said… Ryland’s here.” I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice, tried to regain my composure, but it didn’t seem to be working. It didn’t want to take. “He’s awake.”
“What do you mean he is awake?” I could hear the confusion on his voice, and it made sense. Joclyn was sleeping, so Ryland should be too.
“Joclyn!” I yelled, “Ovailia brought him. He is fine. But the bond, Edmund broke it weeks ago.”
My voice bounced around the room before I looked back at Dramin, hoping that he would understand me by the desperation in my eyes. He only stared at me, his heart breaking. I didn’t want to think about what that look could mean, what that pain was for.
This could not be allowed to happen. It was not the end. I had seen my path, and my path was her. I had seen the end, seen my love for her and hers for me. I had seen everything. It was her. She was my everything. I would wait a thousand more years to experience those sights, but they would come to pass. They could not just be another of the zlomeny. I wouldn’t allow it.
“But, she is still sleeping… She’s been sleeping for two weeks…” My eyes looked away from Dramin; I couldn’t stand to try to explain something that I didn’t understand. “How can she be…”
Dramin came to stand next to me, his hand moving to lay against Joclyn’s face. His touch was soft against her cheek as he filled her with his magic. My eyes moved to glare into him as I felt his magic surge, the power of it right up against mine. I had never felt Dramin’s magic so strongly. It wasn’t the same deep magic of the Drak I was used to feeling; this was bright and strong. It almost felt powerful.
Dramin looked at me in wonder, the gleam in his eyes making it clear that he had found my new connection to Joclyn. He had known what the Black Water would do inside my veins after all. I turned my hand toward him, showing him the angry welt that covered my palm. My face cringed as I let the pain show through my eyes, my chest still locking the rest of my pain inside.
Dramin’s eyes went wide as they stared at my hand in silence. With one nod, he pushed more of his magic into her, the flow wide and strong. The burn on my hand had obviously opened up something inside me. It was more than the connection with Joclyn; I could feel the hidden strength of a Drak now. Our magic was able to work together for one minute before the connection changed.
Suddenly, I felt it inside of me, even though I knew it was inside of her. The repressive force of the heavy black mark that had hidden the thin strand of fine gold ribbon that her mind had followed to enter the T?uha.
I found it.
I found her.
“It’s a Vym?zat.”
“What?” Dramin’s hand pulled away from Joclyn’s face, the mug in his other hand mug dropping to the floor in surprise. “How did you miss that? You tried everything…”
“I didn’t miss it. It was hidden,” I said as I pushed my magic into her, feeling it move through her as it would in me. My awareness of her body swelled within me. I felt everything. I felt the thick ridge of the curse inside the hollow cavity of her mind. The curse had spread like spider webs over her skull, so thin and fine, it was no wonder I had missed it. Whatever Edmund had done to her, he had hidden it well. But not well enough.
I kept pushing my magic into her, my body beginning to feel weak and heavy as my power smothered her. I pushed as I worked to reverse the Vym?zat, to remove it from inside her.
“Ilyan, you can’t possibly be saying what I think you are saying…” Dramin’s voice just washed over me, my mind focused on the mountain of work before me.
I pushed into her, laying my magic over the curse repressively as I attacked it. I surged my magic violently through it until the thick strands of my father’s curse began to break loose, the bands loosening away from her spinal column. It was there, with the sensation of her within me, that I felt her mind coming back.
Joclyn’s mind, her soul, was clicking back into place as the Vym?zat loosened its grip on her. Her mind moved back into her, like a child playing with dominos – one piece falling after another as they moved into place. I could feel the heavy threads of her thoughts, the increased panic of her breathing, the elevated rate of her heart, and her hand against my shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Four