“We don’t have time for that,” Wyn said, the sass that had lined her voice before vanishing into a deep desperation, “I think Edmund has arrived.”
Before, I could tell she wasn’t being honest with me, and now I knew why. The simple admission was like a slap to the face. The air left my chest as the fear that I had been ignoring engulfed me in a painful pressure that fought its way out. Ilyan became rigid beneath me, the tension in his arms growing as he reacted to the news of his father’s possible arrival.
Ilyan’s sudden tension over Edmund shocked me. I had watched Ilyan mock his father as well as fight him in Santa Fe, yet the feeling that moved from him to me now was anything but eagerness to continue that fight.
It wasn’t because he was scared of fighting him, however. It was because he was scared of losing me.
I didn’t need the flash of Ilyan’s memory to see that heartbreaking moment of the sight, my limp body in Ilyan’s arms. I pushed it away as he did, his muscles tightening.
“How do you know?” Ilyan’s voice was a tight line, his eyes narrowing toward her. Even though I had felt his fear, I saw no sign of it, only the powerful determination he always had.
“The magic has changed, My Lord; the strength of it has grown. Although, I can't pinpoint why.”
Ilyan pressed me against him once, his lips moving against my hair—unseen by Wyn—before he stood, the strength of our connection slipping as our skin lost contact.
“Where?” His voice rumbled as he pulled a shirt out of the bureau next to the bed, the muscles in his back rippling as he pulled it on, the tension in his body growing.
“To the east, mostly, but it's spreading,” Wyn said, her voice confident until Ilyan turned around to face her, her usual apprehension around him returning.
“How fast?” Ilyan took a step forward as he spoke, his tall frame towering over Wyn's small one, and she recoiled, stepping back a bit.
“Fast.”
Ilyan left Wyn cowering in the middle of the room as he moved toward the large map that still sat on the table near the window. He glanced at it briefly before looking up to me, his eyes seeming to glow as his thoughts flowed through the weak connection between us. I cringed as they hurtled into my mind, the distorted worries and fears mixing together until they came through.
You want me to find Cail? Cail is dead. Isn’t he? I almost screamed the words into his mind, my agitation almost blinding me.
That thought had sent my emotions tumbling into the deep abyss, my fingers clenched into the bed. My body began to shake as I stared at him, trying to focus on him, but it didn’t help. The walls that surrounded Ilyan had already begun to bleed red, and my breathing picked up as it clouded my vision.
“Yes, he is passed,” Ilyan said softly, his eyes still intently focused on me as he watched me battle my demons. “But the magic will be similar; someone will be stronger than everyone else. That is who we are looking for.”
I swallowed at the idea, my throat constricting and making it hard to breathe. I gasped as I tried to push the fear away, to bring the song and the memories to my mind and stay in the here and now. It wasn’t helping, just the idea of feeling Cail’s magic against me again was crippling.
“You are bigger than it,” Ilyan soothed, his voice soft and familiar. I turned from the bleeding walls to look at him, my eyes wide as I tried to fight the feeling, as my magic pushed the fear away.
“You can do it, Joclyn,” he whispered as he moved to kneel before me in his attempt to soothe me. “You can do it,” he whispered, his voice wearing down the edges of the fear that plagued me.
Ilyan reached up with his free hand and placed it against my cheek, the skin warm as he looked into me, his mind filled with a kiss he couldn’t give me right now. The thought pushed the last of the fear away, and my body relaxed as I looked at him, blocking out the blood-covered walls, stopping my fear.
I could do this.
I nodded once before I closed my eyes, my magic flying away from me as I searched the forest that surrounded us. I felt my way through trees and the anger of the camps that were closest, pushing harder and faster until I was surrounded, the anger almost painful to me. My face squished together as I focused. Ilyan’s hand was a warm pressure around mine as his magic plunged into me, his power strengthening mine. I pulled at his magic, brought it into me and used it, allowing myself to search wider, faster.
I searched through the hordes of Trpaslíks, my magic skimming over more of that weird, un-definable magic I had felt before. My heart clenched at the uncomfortable feeling it gave me—the knowledge that I couldn’t place it disheartening—but I moved on, my desperate need to find what Ilyan sought only growing.
I gasped when I found it, pure anger pulsing through the air, stronger than all the others. It was ice and hot and acid all at the same time, the feeling so much like what I had felt inside of Cail’s mind.
It felt just like him, but it wasn’t Cail.