Dawn of Ash (31 page)

I smiled while he cowered, and with one click of my heels against stone, I moved toward the low voices filtering through the heavy doors. Their mumbles were filled with curiosity and worry.

We didn’t hesitate. I didn’t even look at Sain before we walked into the room, the large barracks I briefly remembered as a child now lined with beds and filthy people I was moments from killing.

I smiled at them as their eyes widened in shock and awe at our sudden appearance.

Men sat up a little straighter as they saw me, women straightening blankets and flattening tangles of hair. My smile grew at their insecurities, at how instantly they began to worship me.

Meeting their faces with a smile, I was ready to end each and every one of their lives. If the Black Water hadn’t erupted within me. If the door hadn’t slammed shut, trapping me in with Sain’s scream, the agony matching my own as a sight embraced me—embraced us. The vision of the future, past, and present was so powerful I had no idea where it had come from or what was going on.

It was all I could do not to scream as an entourage of images barraged me, sending me to the ground in pain. My own scream echoed in my ears. Except, it wasn’t just my scream. It wasn’t just Sain’s…

There was another.

One that was much clearer, one that was full of more pain and agony than either of ours. Even without seeing, I knew who it was because I knew who the sight was coming from, and I knew what had happened.

Joclyn’s magic.

It was more powerful than I had ever assumed.

And she was taking us all down with her.

My screams continued, loud and hollow in my ears as the sights came. One after another, they flashed with violent aggression, showing me things I had heard rumors of and I had heard my father speculate about. Things I had killed people over in an attempt to discover.

And now, I saw them all, flashing before me in strobes of color and light: burning images, voices screaming, pain ripping aggressively, as though I was being ripped limb from limb. As though someone was inside of me, digging around.

In a flash of red, the barrier over the city exploded into fragments of light and color. A second later, the vision shifted, revealing Edmund and Joclyn walking down a beach, laughing in a joy I could not understand. Then there was a scream, and Ryland stood before me, a child in his arms, while Sain laughed in the corner of a cave, madness clear in his eyes.

Flashes continued as I screamed.

Images lingered as I thrashed.

Pain gripped me as I tried to escape.

And then it was all gone.

The visions, the sounds, the pain.

It was all gone except for a blinding white light that surrounded me, leaving me standing in a white room. The makeshift hospital, Sain, the mission, the agony of my body—it was all forgotten.

I attempted to move, but I was too calm. Even my heart rate was regulated above the fear and anger that rampaged through me.

“Hello, Ovailia,” a calm, female voice rang through the white that surrounded me as if it was inside of me. I was confident it was familiar, yet I couldn’t place it.

Lurching at the sound, I tried to twist my trapped body in an attempt to see what was here, but I barely moved, and even what little movement I could force provided me with the same view—the same blinding, white light.

There was nothing save for white. No one save for myself.

“I’m surprised to see you here, but then, with who your father is, I am not so surprised.”

“Hello?” My voice shook, the vibration of it so heavy it disgusted me. My lips curled as I attempted to move, finding myself even more restrained than before. “Who’s there?”

“I am here.”

I could have punched someone with the redundancy of the answer. “And who are you?”

“I am a Drak. You are not.” The voice came without hesitation, but this time, it was heavy, angry, suffocating. It reminded me so much of the anger of my father, of the violence that would follow. I cringed against it, my spine curling together as I braced for whatever was coming.

“I am…” I started, not quite certain how to finish the sentence, the uncharacteristic fear making it hard to form thoughts.

“A Drak? Oh, no. You pretend to be, but you are not. You are not stable.” The tempo of the voice increased, and I cringed more, hating how childlike and vulnerable I felt in this place, how something in the voice was bringing that out in me. “You would do well to fix that … before it ends you.”

“Hello?” I asked again, genuine fear now shaking through me.

“I will not permit you this. You are not a Drak.” With those last few words, the sight shifted, and the white world I had been trapped in fell away, sucked into a black void and replaced by a golden glow I didn’t recognize, the same images I had seen before flashing again.

The pain rushed back as the sights began, as everything I had seen played before me. The same scream came from my mouth, the same pain wracking my body. Except, everything was playing in rewind, as though I was being forced to watch an old video on repeat.

Edmund and Joclyn walked backward over the beach. Blood rose from rocks like rain. The massive barrier snapped back around the city like a glove.

Watching them, the pain that raged through me swelled until the harsh reality of what was really happening was made clear.

The images were not only moving backward; they were being sucked from my mind. They were being drained from me, as if I had never seen them, drained from the world as if they never were.

The scream increased as the pain in my head did. Whatever was happening to me was turning me into a sniveling fool. Even when my father controlled me through the Black Water, the pain had never been this severe, this debilitating.

No matter how much I tried to fight it, nothing could take the weight off. Nothing could free me from the prison I was trapped in.

My mouth opened wider as the scream grew in octave, the sound more musical than it should have been for the amount of pain it represented.

I listened to the sound, vaguely aware of the beauty behind it until it began to change, to swell and condense into words.

Words I understood, even if I couldn’t control them.

“The gift of future has been restored,” I said, keenly aware I was not the only one talking. I could hear Sain’s voice right alongside mine, which meant the sharp scream I was positive belonged to Joclyn was echoing the exact same thing. “The magic was spread too wide but has been returned. The son will rise, the son will fall, and all the blood will cease to flow. The time is now. It grows too late. Kill the fool before the slate. Love no longer seeks revenge. Your power has come to an end.”

I cringed as it continued, a million hidden meanings seeping from behind my lips as my mind tried to make sense of the clues. However, the sights I knew would guide me were erased and untraceable.

The pain in my body lifted as my eyes snapped open to the barracks where I had collapsed. The voices of dozens of confused and frightened Chosen rumbled like bees, the smell of rosewood and antiseptic strong.

Glowering at the forest of bed legs before moving, I fought through the ache that rampaged my body, knowing I couldn’t stay here if I wanted to finish my task.

Blonde hair falling down my back, I tried to look as elegant and frightening as I always did, but these people had no idea who I was. Even though they had reveled in me at my first appearance, they had just seen both Sain and I collapse to the ground.

That wasn’t doing anyone any favors.

They all looked at me with the fear I had come to expect, but this wasn’t based on the fear of death. It was based on the fear of confusion. I would have to change that.

I needed to take control of my one clear asset first.

The sharp clack of my heels echoed through the large room as I walked toward Sain who was still lying on the ground, curled into a ball like a despicable child.

“Get up,” I growled, my foot moving swiftly as I rolled him over, the man flopping onto his back like a lifeless puppet. “You’re pathetic.”

“They know,” he said, his voice dead as he looked at the ceiling.

“They know what?” I snapped, my lips curling as I watched him, waiting for something more, but he lay there, his eyes lifeless as he stared straight ahead. “What happened to the powerful man in the courtyard? You’re pathetic.” I spat,

His spine straightened a bit before I turned away from his pitiful display, unsurprised to see all eyes on me. I was going to have to play this a different way. I wasn’t certain if I should be frightened or excited by the new game plan. Then again, it didn’t matter. They had no idea what was coming.

Smiling sweetly, I took a few steps toward one of the girls closest to me. She was young, perhaps not any older than her mid-twenties. Her face was scarred and ravaged by my father’s wonderful creations. The deep cuts hadn’t even started to heal, thanks to the poison in them. It was something I knew was causing her great pain, but that was nothing compared to the pain I was about to show her.

“Hello,” I said sweetly, careful to put as much honey in my voice as I could. I was convinced I had overdone it by the look of even further confusion the woman gave me. “Sorry about all that. It seems your queen summoned Sain and me into a sight. Her magic has been a bit out of control lately. It affects all Drak’s when it does that.”

“You’re a Drak?”

“Who are you?”

“Is the queen okay?”

“What is happening?”

The questions came in a barrage, words crowding around me as I stood.

“I am one of the first,” I said, the lie comfortable against my tongue. “I hold the Drak magic within me.”

I will not permit you this. You are not a Drak.
The voice ran through me, the same one from the sight, and I flinched, the smile slipping from my face as a fear I didn’t quite comprehend seeped through me. My memory tried to pull at the sight in an attempt to understand, but it was long gone.

“You saw.”

I jumped at the voice so deep that I spun in fear, my eyes wide as I came face-to-face with the same powerful man I had seen in the courtyard.

His eyes were hard, his jaw stiff, a power I had never felt before flowing off him. I felt it against my skin, warm and wanted. Sighing, I was lost for a minute in the strength of it, in the strength of him.

“You saw the sight,” he repeated, the strength in his voice growing.

“Yes.” It was the only word I could get out, but it was enough.

His eyes narrowed slightly before he smiled. The grin was wide and beautiful. “Perfect,” he gasped, his joy confusing me. “You’ll work perfectly.”

“Sain?” I asked as he stepped away from me to face the confused people who were still intently focused on us.

“Is she a Drak, Sain? I thought you were the only one of the first?”

“No, but she is special.” The once again pious man walked through the beds like a god. “Ilyan sent her to help you. She has found something that can cure you even faster, help your magic grow.”

My grin spread wider as the woman closest to us recognized our presence for the sinister warning it was.

“How?” she asked, the admonition in her voice evident.

“Sain, darling.”

His back straightened even more as the room of confused Chosen looked between us. My magic continued to move toward him, the memory of the man I was bonded to so strong I was starting to have trouble breathing.

“Yes, my Ovi.” He said, using the nickname that, for the first time in centuries, made me melt in an oddly pleasurable way.

He stepped close to me, closer than he had since the night of our bonding, and even though his hands did not move to touch me, his distance still secure, our magic had completely wrapped around one another in a fusion of power that was dancing a very dangerous tango.

“Am I of your kind?”

“You are part of me,” he whispered.

I hadn’t expected that.

“We need to leave,” he hissed, his strong voice low enough I was positive only I had heard him. “Every Drak was pulled into that sight. They know what I’ve done.”

“What have you done?” I asked, a small spark of elation twisting through me, the danger that surrounded us making it grow.

“You will know soon enough.” He smiled. “You are going to help me.”

Reaching forward, his hand gripped mine, his magic flooding me in a warm bath I couldn’t help sighing from. It was a sigh that did not go unnoticed.

“I have to leave here.”

“Leave?” The elation drained from my body as my agitation skyrocketed.

“Yes. Now.”

“I will leave when my job is done,” I corrected him, dropping his hand from mine in anger. “Your place is here.”

“Not anymore, Ovi, and if you and your father want use of my sight, we are both getting out of here
now
.”

He had barely finished speaking before his eyes plunged to the color of sight I had seen so many times before, sight I had always been told was only possible with Black Water, and yet, he stood before me, a mug or pitcher nowhere to be found.

Something serious was going on, and I had no idea what, which agitated me more.