Just as before, when she spoke so plainly, she could see. She was here. It was something I had never seen before. To observe while seeing.
“Joclyn?” I asked aloud, unsurprised when she turned toward me.
She was here.
“Ilyan,” I gasped, my body tipped toward her so far I was convinced I was going to fall. “I think she can hear me.”
“What? How?”
I watched her, trying to find some clue that would tell me what to do. If I had my magic, I could connect with her sight, see what she saw, and guide her through it like I had done when she had seen for the first time.
Simple.
So simple.
The reality of what I had told him hit me, a small, misplaced fact falling into place like pieces of a puzzle.
“Ilyan,” I whispered hesitantly the moment Joclyn had calmed, the last note of Ilyan’s song fading into the silence. “Do you remember when I told you about the water? About how the more you put into—”
“The more I come in contact with it, the more I have in my body? Yes. Are you suggesting Sain can somehow control me, too?”
“No, I was actually going to suggest the exact opposite. Because of the Drak magic your father holds, thanks to his kiss and the magic you hold in your body from the water that has touched your skin, you could control her.”
“I don’t want to control her.”
“Perhaps control is the wrong word,” I mused, my hands twisting as I shifted in the rickety chair, wishing there was some way I could support my weight enough to pace the floor.
“When we were in the cave, when Ryland had pulled her into Cail’s mind”—the boy recoiled from where he stood, but I ignored him—”you tried to connect with her magic to pull her back.”
“Yes?”
“Do it again,” I gasped out, the tension in my chest growling with anticipation. “But this time, connect with the Drak inside of you to see what she sees. Give her the Drak magic you possess in order to strengthen her, to help her find a way out of whatever my father has done to her.”
“My Drak magic?” He was obviously skeptical.
I interrupted him without waiting, something I knew he normally wouldn’t appreciate, but given the situation, I was willing to risk it.
“Yes, that magic that is tied to your father, your mate, and the Black Water that flows through you. Connecting to magic is how Draks share the sights. Perhaps it is what she needs—someone to share the sight with her, not control it. Someone to help her find the base of reality and take control of her ability. Break whatever bind Sain has placed over her. Set her magic free. Set her free.”
He gawked at me, his pride keeping him from admitting his lack of knowledge. No one knew anything about Drak magic. It was always carefully guarded with secrets Sain had imposed on everyone since the beginning. Even then, with everything I had ascertained in the last few days, I wasn’t sure how much of that was based in truth.
For all I was aware, I knew nothing about my own magic or even what it could do. I had no tools to give him beyond what I had already shared.
Sain’s rules had kept everyone pinioned under a control so deep they never saw the sun. Now I was breaking the rules. I was going to set them free.
“I have been fighting,” Joclyn moaned, the broken speech drowned by the tension in the room. “I’m going to keep fighting.”
“Sain is trying to restrain her for a reason,” I went on as Ilyan broke his contact with me to look from Ryland to the girl in question. “What her magic is doing is more powerful than any Drak magic I have seen, any Drak magic I have been told exists. Perhaps her magic is what Drak magic truly is. Perhaps it is what Sain has kept hidden all along.”
“If you don’t try, Ilyan, I will,” Ryland spoke up from the foot of the bed, his voice shaking a bit. I was confident he was fighting with whatever demon still dwelled inside of him. “She’s my best friend, and our father’s blood is in me, as well.”
The two brothers looked at each other, locked in a gaze I was positive was not built in competition for the first time, but in understanding. In support.
“No,” Ilyan contested, his hands shaking as he pulled the burned one out from underneath Joclyn. “I will do anything to save her. I have already proven that time and time again, and this isn’t so much saving her as unlocking her.”
The moment Ilyan had spoken, there was only silence intermingled with the sobs of the girl and the shuffled noises of the boy.
No one could look anywhere other than at Ilyan as he pressed his hand to the nape of her neck, the burn on his hand connecting again to the mark on her skin with a jolt that, considering the way he moved, was filled with enough electricity to charge a city street.
He gasped at the contact, hissed at the power, and his eyes flew to mine in a request for guidance.