Still, nothing.
I gasped aloud, hating how high the anxiety around me had built.
Turning back to the dark shadows of the street behind me, I watched Ilyan jump from the rooftops to land before me, his arms open wide. The look on his face made it obvious he knew what I was feeling, and he had felt it, too.
I let him enfold me in his arms, his magic plunging into me as I listened to the steady strum of his heart. Though he was as concerned as I was, he was calming me down a bit. My heart rate was already slowing to something that could possibly be considered normal.
“ ‘Kay, I think I survived that…” Ryland gasped as he came up behind us, his body still visibly shaking, even though he was trying to act all macho. “But never again, Jos. I’m still not completely convinced I haven’t died.”
“Ryland?” Ilyan asked, his back tensing a bit underneath me. “How did you get here?”
“Jos brought me. Didn’t she tell you through her wicked mumbo-jumbo telecommunications radio thing you have going on?” I wasn’t convinced his brain was screwed on all the way. That made no sense.
“No, she didn’t.” I would have expected the tension in Ilyan’s back to lessen, but it stayed. His eyes were wide as he looked down at me, the tempo of his heart wrapping around me. “And you didn’t pass out for days. I guess I did choose wisely.” He spoke in deep Czech, his voice rumbling over me deeply, and I melted a bit, right there in his arms, collapsing against him as I smiled like a loon, my lips seeking his out automatically.
“I love you,” I sighed against the tender skin, and his reply echoed right back to me.
I kissed him deeply, moaning a bit when he pulled me into him. Part of me knew I should pull a way, at least before the crazy lights showed up.
“ ‘Kay,” Ryland snarled, disgust evident in his voice. “If you are going to drag me along, can you at least keep this down to a minimum?”
“Oh, I quite agree,” another voice broke through the darkness around us, a snake that wound through my spine and froze me in place. The tones of the voice were unfamiliar and foreign, yet I knew who it was.
I knew before he stepped out of the shadows, the hood low over his face. I knew before he smiled at us, the wide grin cutting through his face differently than I had ever seen.
I could see him there, yet his magic was gone. I could feel nothing, as though a mortal walked toward us, although I knew that was not the case.
Ryland stiffened as he turned, and Ilyan’s arms tightened protectively as his magic flared, his nerves moving into high alert. Still, the cloaked man stepped forward, straighter and taller than I had ever seen him.
“Sain,” I whispered through clenched teeth as he removed the hood, his smile spreading while eyes as black as the night looked into us, the color fading back to their normal green with one blink.
“Oh, come now,” he cooed, his voice as unrecognizable as the person before us was, and judging by the anguished tension that had wound through Ilyan, it was unfamiliar for him, too. “I think I deserve a more formal greeting than that.”
“Deserve may be the wrong word there, Father.” I spat out the last word like it was poison, part of me expecting him to flinch or howl in anger. However, his smile deepened, his steps hollow as he continued forward, step after step grating against me.
“Oh, no, child.” His voice was soothing in the dark. If the threat behind his words wasn’t so clear, I might have believed the lie he was trying to weave. “Deserve is exactly the right word because I deserve what is about to happen to me, just as you deserve what is about to happen to you. I have been working toward this since before any of you were born. It’s fitting that you be here to see it to its end.”
“What have you done, Sain?” Ilyan’s chest rumbled beneath me as he spoke, the feral snarl erupting through the dark street like a drum. Sain, however, took one more step toward us, obviously unfazed by Ilyan’s questioning and the many different meanings it held, none of which were lost on any of us.
“Done?” Sain asked with a laugh.
Ryland slowly stepped back, away from the man and closer to where Ilyan and I stood. His back was tense as his magic flared.
“I have done nothing. I was not the one to kill your mother. I was not the one to start this war. I have merely given—eh—helpful guidance along the way.” He flipped his hand to the side as he spoke, the movement so casual you would assume he was discussing anything other than the orchestrated destruction of an entire race of people.
My blood boiled with every word he spoke as I looked into the reality of what—no, of whom—we were truly facing. “It’s all a game to you.”