“He said that?” Joclyn asked as she finally pulled herself out of her revelry. The depth of her voice was so close to that of sight that my blood reacted, my chest tightening in an anxious anticipation I hadn’t felt in a while.
“I don’t believe him, Your Highness, but it was too close to what we have been hearing, to the rumors that have been going around since you first—” Risha stopped halfway through, her own confidence failing from what she had been about to say. No one liked to mention what Joclyn had been dealing with, least of all to Joclyn. “But he’s your father; he wouldn’t say such things…”
Ilyan and Joclyn exchanged sharp looks as Risha took a step back. Wyn and Ryland looked like they both had walked into a slaughterhouse, thinking it was a petting zoo. Sitting in the bed that had become my prison, I gawked at my sister, not wanting to believe what I had heard.
“Why would he tell you that?” I asked, not convinced anyone else understood my true meaning. No one except Joclyn, whom I had taught enough about her magic, about the Drak inside of her that she had obviously pieced it together. “Did he say anything else?”
Risha looked to me in confusion, unable to get any response from Ilyan and Joclyn, who were again locked in an intense, silent conversation, before answering, “That, because she wasn’t listening to her sight, she wasn’t able to understand what she was seeing.”
No. It couldn’t be.
“The Zlomeny,” I whispered, the familiar phrase pulling Joclyn and Ilyan’s focus right to me.
“What about it?” my sister snapped at the single word.
I wasn’t surprised by her sudden anger. The word had been thrown at her often, and I guessed it still was. We hadn’t realized until right then.
“What Risha has heard from Sain is the reason for the Zlomeny. But there is so much more…” I stopped, unsure what to say, what I could say. Father had always been clear never to repeat the truth about our kind. Yet he was doing that to everyone other than the one person who needed to know.
“What did he—” Joclyn began, only to have her eyes gloss over, her mouth dropping open in fear. “Sain is coming.”
As though someone had shot a bolt of electricity into them, everyone moved, the tension and fear erupting. Wyn jumped up, obviously ready to pin the old man to the ground if she had to; and Ryland shifted around, his loyalty to the man who had helped him for so long turning into a confusing mess.
I sat still as I watched Ilyan clinging to Joclyn as my own anxiety rose to inhumane levels. I tried to mask it, silently sipping the Black Water, letting it warm away the agitation I had been infected with. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working so well.
“Uml?et!” Ilyan commanded, his voice a loud boom as his magic washed over everyone in the room, pressing into them and taking control. As one, everyone turned to him, their bodies unable to disobey the control he had taken. “I need you all to watch. Watch the movements of everyone around you. Not just Sain, everyone. We cannot act until we know beyond any doubt who is behind this. We need to find this person before anything happens. No one else can know of your task. Wyn, you are the guard for the night. I had to tear down the Young Prince look-out building, so you will need to use the Old Man.”
Everyone nodded before they left, dispersing from the small room like a leaky faucet. Drip, drip, drip, and then they were gone, leaving me in the bed I couldn’t move from, Thom still a listless shape, Ilyan and Joclyn standing at the foot, wrapped around each other in such a tight embrace I couldn’t help smiling at them despite the ache in my chest.
The gaze they held between them was long, deep, and loving, their arms wrapped around each other, absorbing each other, as if they couldn’t get enough, as if they were scared to let go. It had been so long since I had seen love that deep. In fact, I didn’t know if I ever had.
It was beautiful and yet…
“It’s times like this I wish Thom were awake. I could sure do with one of his snide comments about propriety right now.”
Joclyn laughed, the sound deep and free, a welcome sound after the tension that had invaded my room for the last few minutes. “Are we bothering you, Uncle?”
“Well, you are my sister…” I smiled, lifting my mug toward her in a twisted toast that I wasn’t sure she saw as wrapped up in Ilyan as she was.
Her lips met his as lights flashed, popping around us all in a beautiful array that was almost comforting. I lay back as I watched them, content to observe the dancing sparkle of the earth’s magic, sad when they left as Joclyn breathlessly pushed Ilyan away.
The normally stoic man laughed, stealing another kiss.
“Seriously, will you get a room?” I groaned.