Dawn of Ash

by Rebecca Ethington

  Locking the door with a snap, I ran past the wide basin sinks to the mirrors, the glass old and rusted out near the corners. Some were harder to see through than others, but it didn’t matter.

  I didn’t need to see much other than if there was more than the dirt I had already found.

  Blood, snow, grime.

  Some sign that I had been on the outside.

  “What did I bring back with me this time?” I queried, peering through the specks of red and brown that littered the mirrored surface.

  Luckily, thanks to the heated air I was currently surrounded by, the snow had long since melted from my hair, and all that remained was a slightly soggy hem around my dark, frayed pants. That could be taken care of without much effort.

  With one small spark of perfectly placed magic, the damp cloth dried with a small tuft of smoke, the smell of slightly singed cotton mixing with the smell of borax soap in an oddly enjoyable bouquet.

  “Beautiful,” I sighed, my eyes closing against the lingering scent of clean death. The fragrance was lovely, and I was tempted to let it grow, to let it flow over me like a cologne, but I was sure that would give me away. The smoke, the death.

  The burn.

  It was unfortunate I couldn’t. I was sure Joclyn would catch on too quickly.

  “Joclyn, foolish girl, where are you?” I growled at the thought, my heart tensing painfully in impatience. I needed to move.

  I had seen a few people gathered before the cathedral when I was on the other side of the barrier, preparing to return. I thought I had a good idea who it was, but even if I was wrong, it was a good place to start.

  With one last check in the mirror, I tore from the bathroom, pushing my magic into my heart as I moved. Teeth clenched, heart pounding, I fought the need to yell, the familiar pain ripping through me like someone was trying to tear me in two. I growled, anxious for the agony to end yet also needing to restrain the power, to hide it away where Joclyn couldn’t sense it, couldn’t sense me. I didn’t need her to feel, to understand, the true power she held. I didn’t need her knowing for sure that it was me hiding underneath that cloak.

  Peeking in doorways and hallways, I moved through the complex at a sprint, growing more and more eager to find her with each slap of my shoes against stone, the sound loud, like the ticking of a clock. It was agitating, something I was sure showed on my face judging by the way everyone I passed was looking at me.

  My anxiety had grown into a panic when I turned the final corner to find Joclyn and Risha huddled together on the other side of the long corridor. Joclyn was leaning against Risha heavily, her body sagging so deeply I was sure she couldn’t walk very well on her own. My heart rate sped up at seeing her so impaired, but not for the fear or anxiety I had felt up to this point.

  Yes, she was my daughter, and deep down, I wanted to say part of me really, truly cared for her in that way, cared for her as I cared for Dramin. As a father should. But, I didn’t.

  She was nothing more than a liability to me, a liability I needed to keep under control. I had to keep her under control until Edmund disposed of her. Her and her stubborn, little head seemed to think her magic was telling her to break rules the Draks were raised to obey, every rule the Skȓíteks and Trpaslíks were taught to fear.

  I was sure her magic was actually telling her all those things because what she was saying was actually true, which was why controlling her was so necessary. Discredit the queen and my step to the thrown was that much closer.

  “Joclyn!” I yelled from the end of the hall, my voice terrified, even though the beat of my heart said otherwise.

  Risha looked up as I yelled, relief washing over her as she held Joclyn close to her. “Oh, Sain, thank all.”

  “What happened?” I yelled as I continued to move closer. “Is she okay?”

  Joclyn looked up moments after Risha did, but where Risha’s expression was one of relief, Joclyn’s was one of anger and frustration. Her silver eyes flashed, her jaw tightening as she bit the inside of her mouth, something I was sure Ilyan found endearing. To me, however, the lack of self-restraint and poorly handled mortal outbursts angered me more. She was a Drak, and she needed to act like one.

  “Joclyn?” I asked, trying to conceal the loathing that looking at her gave me. “Are you okay?”

  “Where were you?” Her response was a snap that rebounded across the stone to me.

  I knew what she was referring to and did my best to make it seem as if I was as clueless as she was to the world.

  “Where was I? What are you…?” I reached my hand out to her, desperate for the skin contact I needed in order to check her magic, to regain control of her sight and know what she had seen.

  She flinched away from me, and my stomach wound together.

  I had obviously misread exactly how weak she was, exactly how much sight she had regained. I couldn’t be sure without touching her, but if I had to guess, considering the look on her face, the thin layer of sweat rolling down her pale skin, I would say she had seen something.

  Something more than I had been force-feeding her.

  Something real.

  “You look terrible, Jos. Did you see something?” I swallowed, trying to stifle the panic that rose up in me as I reached toward her again, anxious for contact.

  “Where were you?” she snapped again, the pale red of her anger coloring the ash white of her face.

  I fought the smile that little detail gave me. She was getting angry, and I knew as well as anyone how volatile her emotions were. Combine that with the instability of her sight, and it would take very little to plunge her back into another vision. It was something that, given her power, would be dangerous, but not now, not with me here. It might be what I needed in order to gain contact. To control her.

  Angering her was risky, but it might be my only chance to regain control of her sights. I had to chance it. Good thing I had already mastered this game.

  “Where was I when?” I looked to Risha in question, pushing as much innocence into my voice as I could, knowing it would aggravate Joclyn more.

  “Before,” Joclyn growled.

  “Risha, what is she talking about?” I asked, but Risha looked just as confused as I did, her bottle green eyes darting between Joclyn and me so quickly they looked like a blur.

  “An hour ago, a few minutes ago.” Joclyn stopped for breath. “All this morning? Where were you?”

  My daughter emphasized each syllable, yet I wasn’t sure if it was in anger or in exhaustion. It very easily could have been either.

  “I was here…” I spoke slowly, condescendingly, hoping to increase her anger, knowing I was close. I could already feel the strong light-headedness that usually preceded a sight. I could already feel the heavy power of her Drak magic trying to join and fuel my own. “I was helping some of the new Chosen children understand what the future held for them.”

  She knew I was lying. Risha probably did, too, but Risha was more concerned with what was happening to Joclyn at that moment to care about whatever lie I had sprouted.

  So was I; except, my concern and help came in a different packaging.

  Joclyn exhaled in a low, painful moan, her eyes snapping shut in an excruciating grimace, to open again with the bright ember glow of sight, her eyes dark and deep, the contrast stunning against the blank canvas of her face as she saw into past and future simultaneously. It was beautiful to watch her magic work the way it was intended. Nevertheless, it was a beauty I would not allow.

  Not even with her.

  Especially not with her.

  I didn’t even care if Risha noticed the smile spreading over my lips. I let the grin grow at the orange glow in her eyes, the anger in my gut howling in success as I reached my hand forward and wrapped it around her wrist. My magic plunged into her as my sight connected with hers, as my magic connected with her soul.

  It was easy to do as long as I was connected to her. She was my child, after all.

  The snow-filled world out
side the wall blossomed in recall. The dead corn fields, the barren trees, they all stretched before me as the bitter wind tugged at the two figures huddled in the middle of the wasteland, a small army of guards surrounding them.

  I recognized the moment. Ovailia standing before me, my tall frame shrouded in the black cloak I had been haunting Joclyn with.

  This was more than a sight, more than recognition; it was remembering.

  I had stood before Ovailia hours before and felt the power of prescience, but not in the way that I was the one who saw, rather in the way that sight was being taken from me. And now I understood why.

  It had been.

  Joclyn’s sight had taken her right to us.

  Joclyn had pulled true sight from me.

  She had tapped into a sight I had so carefully concealed I was sure no one would ever find it.

  Yet, she had.

  I watched the perfect recall of those moments play again: Edmund and Joclyn beside the wells of Imdalind, Joclyn fighting, the blood, the screaming. I watched in horror before I began to act, letting my magic take control and infect the sight, to change it, as I had so many times before.

  The image of her and Edmund standing beside Imdalind was now Edmund drowning her inside the muddy waters. The boy fighting was now the boy dying. Some little girl I did not recognize running to Joclyn in help was now the child running to her with a knife.

  One after another, I changed them, intertwining them with the image of Ovailia standing in the snow, her caped companion changing from one person after another—from Wyn to Ryland to Risha to Ilyan.

  A sight that was so perfectly clear before was now nothing more than the maze she had learned to fear.

  I could already feel her alarm as the sight crippled her, the image becoming more twisted as her magic tried to rebel against the changes, rebel against the ironclad lock I was placing on it.

  “Here is where it starts again.”

  I twitched, jumping away from her as though I had been burned.

  I had heard that voice before when I had pulled Dramin from the mud, when the sight had crippled us both, and he had started crying for the first time.

  You have done the wrong. The same words echoed again as Joclyn collapsed in an unconscious dead weight right into Risha. The woman held onto Joclyn’s tiny frame for dear life, afraid she would fall to the ground, and by the way she held her, I could tell it was a real possibility.

  “What is it?” she exclaimed, obviously concerned. “What happened?”

  It took me a moment to realize the question was directed at me and not Joclyn.

  “She had a sight,” I said, my fear still running through me in a numb reality I didn’t want to accept.

  “What was it?” Risha asked, the panic in her voice pulling me out of my own and right to the powerful woman before me and the realization I might be able to get more information out of Risha with Joclyn out of commission.

  “Is she okay?” Risha asked when I didn’t answer, her hands pressing against her skin in an obvious desire to heal her or to figure out what was wrong before they flew off again.

  At first, I thought she was hurt, but in reality, she was only concerned about “touching” her precious queen in such a way.

  It was kind of disturbing. The level of regality the girl had obtained was such that even Ilyan’s second was afraid to touch her.

  Who knew, maybe she was afraid of her.

  Perhaps she was.

  Perhaps it was something else I could use to my advantage.

  “Yes, she’s going to be fine,” I lied, knowing my plans would deter that. “Sometimes, this happens after an especially intense sight.”

  “She’s been having them an awfully lot lately—”

  “I know.” I have been helping that along. “They seem to be doing her some damage.”

  “Why don’t you pass out after your sights?” She looked away from Joclyn, her terror easing a bit as she looked at me in wonder.

  The awe I had missed so much over the years flooded through me in a heavy reminder of why I was doing all this, of the rightful place due to me, and the respect I was missing.

  “Because I know how to control my magic. Drak magic can be powerful, and if you are not strong enough, it can destroy you.”

  “Is that what’s happening?” Risha asked, concerned. “Her magic is destroying her?”

  “I believe so. Normally, I can help my people, help them restrain their magic, but she won’t let me. She knows what the vision about the end says, and she’s trying to change it. It makes all her sights unreliable when she goes against one like that. When she doesn’t listen to her magic, it destroys her ability.” Yet another little lie, yet another worried glance.

  My lips trembled, though I tried to stop the grin. At least I was able to restrain it before it turned into a full smile, before the sweet taste of victory beat against my tongue.

  “Did she have a sight before?” I asked as innocently as I could, my head spinning slightly at the prod of a sight I would never let come.

  “Yeah”—she was hesitant—”right when she and Ilyan came back … She couldn’t really stand—”

  “It was the same sight,” my voice growled as I looked at her, the hatred for her coming back even in her partially unconscious state. “I saw it as she did.”

  “Did you see it then?” Her eyes narrowed at me in suspicion, a question behind the words I didn’t quite understand.

  I didn’t know what I had said wrong, but my guard went up, my eyes narrowing a bit as I tried to decipher where this was going.

  She stood before me, staring at me, her mind pulled from the unconscious child she still held.

  “See what?” Better to feign my innocence again.

  “The sight … Did you see it when you were with the kids?”

  And there it was. I was sure Risha had no idea why Joclyn had been so concerned with my whereabouts; I could see that much on her face. Regardless, she knew Joclyn was, and therefore, she was going to take every chance she could to find out the information Joclyn could not.

  “My sight is not hindered by her inability. I can control what sights come to me, and I was with the children. It was not the right time to see.”

  Risha glowered at me, her eyes hard, all thoughts of the injured girl she held gone.

  I had never liked Risha before. Through all those years, she had acted more like a spoiled brat than the powerful Skȓítek she was. Right then, though, I was sure Ilyan had chosen wisely for his second.

  She hadn’t missed anything.

  At least I had been able to plant a seed of doubt within her, and considering the questioning light in her eyes, it was already starting to take hold.

  “I don’t know what either of you are getting at, but I was helping the Chosen with their futures. I was here. I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have anywhere else I can go.” I had tightened my jaw as I looked at her, waiting for her to say something, when a sudden pulse of powerful magic alerted me to the arrival of someone I really didn’t want to see. Luckily, I had already stepped into an easy escape.

  “Now, if you will excuse me,” I growled like a lion, stepping around Risha and my invalid daughter, determined to put as much space between me and them before Ilyan’s arrival. “You should see that she makes it to someone who can help her.”

  It was harsh, but right then, I didn’t care.

  I needed those seeds to grow, and I would do anything to make sure it happened.

  Tension had wound through the room in an anxiety so thick it was hard to breathe. In fact, I wasn’t certain if anyone was breathing. I wasn’t.

  I sat still, my old body sagging against the headboard of my bed. Stagnant air pressed against my skin while the dim, red light faded to a deep black as the sun set.

  Everyone stood around the tiny room Thom and I shared, refusing to make eye contact. Each of us was lost in the new development Ilyan had thrown at us. Not that it should be surprising; it w
as one more thing to add to the list of many.

  I wished I could solve this new, more complicated problem. I wished I could see where it was leading us. Nevertheless, all of that had been gone for months. I knew as well as everyone here that it wasn’t going to come back, just like the tension and fear and war weren’t going to leave any time soon.

  “So, when you say this … person … stuttered…” Ryland began as he leaned against the wall, the muscles in his arms tensing from where he had folded them over his chest.

  “We saw him, Ry,” Joclyn retorted, her voice strong from where she sat at the foot of my bed. “Just as Ilyan said, I couldn’t find his magic after that, so either he moved through the wall, or he found some secret world within a stutter that neither Ilyan nor I know about.”

  “That’s what you said before—”

  “Then why are you asking again?” Joclyn snapped, the old metal frame of my bed groaning as she shifted her weight.

  She was getting agitated, something not missed by Risha who looked between Ryland and Joclyn in obvious worry.

  Ilyan took a step closer to her, his hand wrapping around hers in a deep connection that warmed the room. As if it wasn’t warm enough.

  Joclyn had come to my room hours before, half carried by Risha as she dropped her on the foot of my bed. I would have been more concerned for her well-being if she hadn’t been fuming about “stupid sights” and “stupid fathers.” Even though she had been weak, she had recovered quickly enough. That was probably more thanks to her stubborn temper than actual well-being. We should probably be glad she was merely agitated now.

  Then again, without that stubborn temper, I wouldn’t be alive to witness this conversation, something I was still torn over. After all, we had seen my death in the very first sight she received, and yet, there I sat. Despite everything Tatínek had taught me about the infallibility of our gift, despite everything I had thought I knew about our magic, I was here.

  “Can we just say this mysterious, cloaked person got caught in some other dimension?” Wyn mused acidly before Ryland had a chance to retort, leaning her head against Thom’s headboard with a thud. “If only to get Ryland to stop asking the same thing again and again?”