“Ha! Life is a journey meant to be experienced, Ry. What’s the fun if I tell you all the stops along the way?”
“I would know where I am going … I wouldn’t run into quite so many walls at the very least,” Ryland said, the teenage irritation dripping off him.
It was all I could do to keep the smile off my face, although the attempt to keep the stoic, wise grimace wasn’t going too well, either. “That can’t be good for your complexion, or your nose, for that matter.”
“Thanks, Jos,” he grumbled, the angst dripping off him and infecting me. “And stop being all wise and philosophical and stuff. It’s weird.”
“You’re weird.” I looked away from him, trying to ignore the twist in my stomach at how quickly we had fallen back into our familiar banter after everything we had been through.
We sat, listening to the whispers of the people below us, watching the line of the red sun slowly move over the city as it disappeared past the horizon.
“You were on a beach,” I whispered after a few minutes. His eyes widened as he moved to face me, obviously eager to absorb anything I would give him. “There were other people involved you may … or may not be related to. It was a happy scene, Ry.”
“Happy.” The one word leaked out of him with so much emotion I was surprised it didn’t stick in the air and linger around us like a dozen balloons.
“Very. Just don’t go thinking I’m infallible, okay? I’m kind of done with that lie being spread around.”
“You really aren’t going to give me more than that, are you?” he teased.
I shook my head, a smile spreading over my face. “Trust me. It will be better this way, but that fear you feel, that desperation for normality…” He nodded. “Everyone has it, Ry. Just know it doesn’t last forever. Not for any of us. It may take a bit, but everything will come out all right.”
I had barely said the words when the violent image of Ilyan’s death flooded my vision, overlaying the city roof-scape with the steady flow of Ilyan’s blood. I cringed against it, my heart rate picking up to a dangerous level as the fear overtook me, my own unwillingness to accept what I was seeing erupting through me.
“Everything will come out all right,” I said again, part of me hoping—no, willing them to be true.
I shifted my body forward in an attempt to seek out Ilyan, as if seeing him would set everything right in my mind, confirm the good that I, too, was desperate for. My magic moved away from me to find him, but instead of streaming to the courtyard, I was pulled in a different direction.
My mind and magic drifted over the city, winding through the streets as my heart rate increased, dread filling me as the shadow of what I was certain I wouldn’t feel again drifted over me.
My mind filled with the images of the dilapidated city, the streets shrouded in the black of night, the ancient beauty of it turned into a dangerous labyrinth I had no interest in entering. That was, until the shadow of magic I was feeling sparked through me, everything tensing as the image of a single, cloaked figure moved through the dark, running from street to street as it had the last time I had felt its magic.
“It’s the same.” My voice was a hollow monotone as it rumbled through the dusk, the magic winding through me with a deep mockery as every muscle tensed through me.
He was here.
After what he had done, after what people had seen him do, he had come back.
“What’s the same?” Ryland asked from beside me.
My focus was so intent on what had unfolded I didn’t even answer him.
“Ilyan,” I said aloud, fully aware Ryland could hear me. “Sain is in the city. I can feel him on the other side of the river—”
Sain! Ilyan’s voice erupted loudly, his body running into the center of the courtyard as he looked up to me. Why would he come back?
He asked the question, although the answer was so clear I almost hated having to say it. Sain had been doing much more than spreading rumors; I was confident of that. And if you took the time to play a game, you didn’t walk back into your enemy’s territory without a motive.
“It’s a trap.”
There was no doubt. However, we couldn’t let him get away, either. I had no question that he was very aware of that. It was a game of the worst sort, but at least we weren’t going into it unaware. If we played our cards right, we could have the upper hand.
How many does he have? Can you tell what he’s planning?
“I’ll find out. You get a team together. As many as you can.” I looked at Ilyan as his mind followed mine. His eyes were hard, his jaw straight as he nodded in confirmation.