“Not now. I want them to pay, too, but not now.” Wyn kept her hand flushed against Thom’s cheek as he weakly fought against Ilyan’s hold while she looked into his eyes.
She looked at him as if she knew him, spoke to him as if she knew exactly what he was talking about. Spoke about him as if she understood him.
It didn’t make any sense.
I had heard Thom comfort her when she was dying. I had seen him hold her as he calmed her, soothed her pain. Right then, she was doing the same to him. I was obviously missing something; it was distressing not knowing what. I looked toward Dramin in question, but he only shook his head, obviously unwilling to enlighten me.
Ilyan dropped his hold as Thom turned to him, his dreads swinging with the quick movement. “Ilyan, brother, he is so close. Please.”
A streak of lightning lit the room as the earth shook beneath us, illuminating Thom and Ilyan as they stood still in the light of the storm. Ilyan’s lips were a hard line as he pressed his hand against Thom’s shoulder. Ryland’s arm wrapped around Thom’s as he, too, came up behind him.
The three brothers stood side by side in the dim light of the room, the silent comfort they offered each other speaking for them. Their father was coming. Edmund. A father that had harmed each of them, a father who had attempted to destroy each of them, one by one. Even though they all desired his end, they wouldn’t let Thom do this on his own. They understood him.
“I know, Thom, but now is not the time, and it is not your place.”
“Then when, Ilyan?” Thom asked in little more than a whisper as he glared at Ilyan from behind the thick dreads of his hair.
“Soon,” Ilyan said as he stepped away from Thom, a golden glow emanating from his hand as he moved it over the room. The furniture shook as the light he held cast over them, the power he controlled causing the chairs, dressers and tables to slide across the floor and slam against the walls. Dramin’s hand was ripped from mine as his bed skated away from me, pressing itself against a table and chairs that Ilyan had already cast aside. The furniture shook against the walls as a massive table sped through the door, the large slab of wood hovering unsupported in the middle of the now cleared space.
I took a hesitant step forward, my heart banging in my chest as Ilyan rushed toward the large map that still lay on the surface. His jaw was a line of steel as he placed a large star next to the ‘O’ that was already surrounded by half a dozen guards.
I could tell at once that this was different. This wasn’t the possible ‘what-if’ planning everyone had been arguing over before. This was the final stage; this was real.
This was the end.
“When will my father arrive, Sain?” Ilyan asked, his eyes unwavering from the map in front of him.
“The sun will be in the sky.” Sain’s voice had lowered to the tone of a sight, but his eyes had remained green, his vision focused on the large map that covered the table in front of us, making me wonder if what he had said was sight or knowledge.
“It will begin tomorrow,” Ilyan announced, the dread seeping out of his words until they felt like lead and poison in the very pit of my heart.
Angry voices erupted at Ilyan’s proclamation, their questions coming in Czech and English so fast that I probably wouldn’t have been able to understand what was happening even if I had been able to focus on it.
I couldn’t focus on it, however, because the earth had shattered. The air that I was sure I had been breathing a minute ago had vanished, leaving my lungs feeling strangely pained and heavy, like lead weights had somehow been secured around my neck to drag me down.
I had known it would be soon, but to know with absolute certainty that it was hours away—that I had hours to live—was terrifying.
The dread that had settled in my stomach grew as images of that first sight crashed through my mind, the visions of me strong and powerful, bravely fighting. I saw my face as I fought, Ilyan by my side as he kissed me before he held my body in agony.
Before I died.
I had been trained to fight; Ilyan had showed me how to find who I really was. Part of me still believed I was that person, still had faith that I could do what was needed of me. However, another part of me tensed in fear and saw blood drip down the walls.
Part of me still thought I was weak and imprisoned, the way that Edmund had made me, breaking me down so that I could no longer rise to what I was supposed to be.
Who I wanted to be, though I just wasn’t sure I could be.
I wasn’t sure I could willingly walk into my death.
The fear that had been trying to snake through me won out and my hand shot forward, my shaking fingers wrapping around Ilyan’s arm in desperation to find something to steady me.
My fingers pressed into the warmth of his skin, his magic flooding me at the contact, unprompted by him. I could feel his warmth, my nerves calming just with the knowledge that I wasn’t alone in this.