Before I knew it, I was running toward it, running despite my aching joints, despite gasping for breath. The fear mounted at what had happened and what I would be facing.
There was only the sound of my frantic breathing, the black spec before me taking shape, molding itself into the bodies of two people.
I could see their outline, see the way they held each other, feel the way their power moved around them.
No, not around, not between. Away. Away from them.
I had been wrong before. They weren’t consuming this power; they were creating it.
They were the bomb.
Continuing my run toward the pair, I looked around for some clue as to what I was supposed to see, what insight this was supposed to give me. There was nothing. No matter how much I ran toward the two figures, I wasn’t getting any closer.
My fear was increasing, my panic stuttering through me.
“Joclyn!”
The familiar scream pulled me out of the world I was trapped in, the two figures replaced by one I would recognize anywhere—the way he moved, the swing of his hair so familiar to me now.
“Ilyan!”
He ran toward me as I toward him, my body stuck within the blinding sight, his running through it until I could see the wild worry lining his normally bright blue eyes.
I saw him, but I saw so much more.
I saw him from two hundred years ago, running like a shadow through the ancient halls, his face wide in terror as he raced away from something. The fear in him was more than I had ever seen before, the strength of it infecting me.
“Ilyan!” I sighed, collapsing in his arms as the frightened shadow of the ancient man continued to run past us, a scream breaking from the sight and ringing in my ears. “What’s coming?”
I felt his strong arms, but all I could see now was the fear in his eyes, the scream on his lips. Before I knew it, the scream was coming from me, the same voice I had heard before yelling from somewhere around us.
“Run!”
“He’s late.” My father’s voice was a growl from where he stood beside me, the heavy frustration that was intertwined with it putting me on high alert.
“I’m aware,” I said to no one in particular.
Of course he was late. Sain was partially reliable at best; it would make sense he would pick today, when my father had chosen to meet with Sain inside the city, inside the dome, to push the limits of what was acceptable.
“I did not want to have to beat the information out of him, but if I am forced to stand in this alley much longer, I may be forced to.”
Grumbling to myself at the warning behind my father’s voice, I took a few steps away from where he stood in the shadowed alley, the sound of my heels clicking loudly in the deathly silence of the decimated city.
Narrowing my eyes toward the red-bathed street we stood next to, I chanced a quick glance away from the relative safety the alley gave us, even though I didn’t know if that was where he would emerge since we had no idea where Ilyan’s camp was.
It was one of the many reasons I didn’t like this plan.
We were too exposed, too vulnerable inside the city. Even though my father didn’t go anywhere without his guard, the powerful men already hidden by their magic as they surveyed the streets surrounding us, I didn’t feel comfortable, especially with how close Ilyan had come to capturing Sain the last time. For all I knew, my irritating brother had already gleaned information from the pathetic Drak and was standing on the rooftop right above us, watching.
Waiting.
It wouldn’t have been the first time in the last century he had done something so brazen.
I wouldn’t put it past him.
With a groan and a glare, I shifted my view, taking one quick glance at the roofline before looking back to where my father stood in the shadow of a dilapidated store overhang, the words poslední z květ? barely discernible. If it wasn’t for the rotted twigs and wilted roses, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell what it was.
“Leave it, Míra,” Father snapped, as though he was controlling a dog. I supposed, in a way, he was.
He had barely finished the warning before the little, fair-haired beauty he had made his forward guard snapped to attention, running to his side and looking very guilty for having picked up what had been a beautiful red rose.
“Sorry, master,” she grumbled, deep and fearful, obviously expecting a strike.
Smirking at her reaction, I took a step away, not really wanting to see what would come next. She was lucky my father was more concerned with Sain’s absence than her foolishness, or a strike would probably be the least she would receive.
She stood beside him like a rail, her tiny frame a foot above his waist, her hair a long sheet down past hers. If it wasn’t for the dirty rags she was still forced to wear, I would say she looked like a life-sized porcelain doll, right down to her bottle green eyes. It would be a much nicer sight when she completed her training and was allowed to wear real clothes.
“Find him, Ovailia,” Edmund growled, the depth of his voice pulling me away from the child and right to him.