Scorched Treachery (Imdalind #3)
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Scorched Treachery
By
Rebecca Ethington
Book One: Kiss of Fire
Book Two: Eyes of Ember
Book Three: Scorched Treachery
Book Four: Soul of Flame (12/13)
Book Five: TBA
Text Copyright ©2013 by Rebecca Ethington
The Imdalind Series, characters, names, and related indicia are trademarks and © of Rebecca Ethington.
The Imdalind Series Publishing rights © Rebecca Ethington
All Rights Reserved.
Published by Imdalind Press
No Part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For Information regarding permission, write to:
Rebecca Ethington – permissions@ Rebecca Ethington.com
Copyediting by Kim Sheard & Katie Mac
Production Management by Imdalind Press
ISBN: 978-0-9884837-5-0
This Edition, July 2013
To
Cassi
Who is Afraid of Trampolines.
To
Anna
Who Was Amazing.
Contents
Wyn
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Ilyan
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Wyn
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Ilyan
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Wyn
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ilyan
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Joclyn
Chapter Twenty Eight
A Sneak Peek of Striking By Lila Felix and Rachel Higginson
A Sneak Peek of Clicks by Amy Evans
Wyn
Chapter One
It was the same dream. Always the same dream. I had been having it since Cail first marked my skin with the curse, the night Ilyan saved me from my father.
The dream usually featured a beautiful little girl dancing in a meadow. She danced through the tall grasses with flowers in her blonde hair. After about twenty years, I began wondering if it was some repressed memory, but I didn’t have blonde hair. My hair was dark; it always had been.
With time, it became clear that I was not the little girl. Instead, I sat and watched her with some guy sitting next to me. I would like to say the guy was handsome, but he was not Talon. No guy could hold a candle to Talon. Talon was tall and built like a football player. This man was sinewy, his coloring lighter. Besides, the mystery guy from my dreams was dressed like Henry the Eighth and there was nothing attractive about that. He looked like a peacock. It didn’t look good then, and it wouldn’t look good now. Not like anyone would dress like that now.
The dream had always started the same; I sat next to the man in my dreams as he talked, his lips moving, but no sound coming out. Then the dream would morph. The girl, the man, and I would move from the meadow to a village, then to a marble lined room, and then to the darkness. It was in the darkness that I would begin to hear sound. The only sound the dream ever had was in that room, when the little girl screamed as Edmund tortured her.
I would hear the screaming and see the man as he fought to save her, and in the back of my mind, I knew I was fighting too.
The dream was the reason I had never consented to try to have children with Talon. Not only was pregnancy a strange and uncomfortable prospect, but I was scared of what Edmund would do to a child. Everyone was. It was the same reason so few children were born. People had seen what Edmund had done to his own children. It was not worth it to risk him doing the same to their own.
Up until a few weeks ago, when we first heard the screams of the woman in the tunnels below Prague, the screams of my dream had always ended in the dark room. But, the more the woman yelled, begged and screamed, the more my dream changed. It lengthened until I watched the little girl succumb, her screams dwindling to nothing.
The screams in Prague continued, however.
We could only listen as the woman pleaded to and fought against those who attempted to make her give away Ilyan and Joclyn’s location.
No matter how hard we looked, we could never find them. Our failure to find them, combined with Ovailia’s decision to keep the information from Ilyan, led to her removal as the další v příkazu and the replacement of Talon in the ruling position. Something I was not happy about.
Now, he was gone all the time, and the screams of the woman still echoed through the halls.
So, the new ending to my dreams stayed. The screaming moving from one person to another before I would wake up and scowl at the high ceiling of our room.
Except this morning. This morning, I was rudely awoken by the blasting of Ilyan’s phone playing ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’.
Wait.
Ilyan’s phone.
His direct line.
I rolled over and kicked Talon, my magic surging through him. He jerked as I zapped him, my not-so-nice way of waking him up, shooting him out of bed. He moved to get back into bed, grumbling at me for a moment, only to jump when the sound of the music hit his ears.
Talon’s fingers reached toward the phone as he sat down on his side of the bed. I chose to stay lying under the covers, my eyes focused on him.
Yes, it was the middle of the day where Ilyan was. Yes, he was free to call whenever he wanted. However, the fact that he would have known it was the middle of the night here, and he was calling the white phone that was a direct connection to Talon, set my nerves on fire.
Talon pressed the phone to his ear, the skin contact triggering the magic and completing the call.
“Ilyan?” Talon asked, his voice drowsy but still on edge, my mood mirrored in his clipped words.
I waited, reluctant to move, hoping for something exciting, but knowing, absolutely knowing that nothing positive was going to come out of this call.
“Princess Mudgy.” Talons voice was low, the statement making no sense to me. For all I knew it was a code word, and if it was a code word...
I watched Talon as he listened to Ilyan talk, his shoulders knitting together more and more, his body language spelling danger to me. Talon stayed silent as Ilyan spoke, his voice a mellow buzz that slipped through the air until the line went dead. Talon never said anything more after the code words, his silence only making me more nervous. He lowered the disconnected phone to his lap, his movements tense.
Talon didn’t turn to me; he didn’t say anything. He just sat with the phone in his hands, his knuckles white from clenching the small white box. I watched his broad shoulders flex, the tension never leaving, and found my own fears growing.
The silence was painful. I wanted to hear. I wanted to pry, but I knew it would not be right. I placed my hand on Talon’s back, willing him to turn and smile, but knowing it wasn’t going to happen.
“Meet you in my dreams,” Talon said tersely. Not once did he look at me as he lay down and opened his arms for me.
I was seriousl
y on edge now. Whatever had happened was monumental enough that neither he nor Ilyan wanted anyone else to know what had happened. I laid down next to Talon and closed my eyes, letting the magic of the Tȍuha take me away to meet with him.
My mind pulled right into his, the large expanse of the Münzenberg Castle Courtyard surrounding us. Wispy projections of people walked around us as Talon’s memories fueled the Tȍuha. The castle was whole and intact as it once was centuries ago, the cobbles of the road pristine. I was never alive in this castle’s time, but this was Talon’s mind, what he envisioned our Tȍuha to be.
“Talon?” I asked as he wrapped his arms around me as we stood in the middle of the courtyard. His tense muscles strained against me as he held me, the movement not helping to ease my anxiety.
“They were attacked.” My body froze, my eyes flying open in shock. The tension that now flowed between both of us was too much to contain, and the people around us zapped into vapor, colors floating through the air as they disappeared, leaving us alone.
“Are they all right?” I asked. I didn’t want to hear the answer, I didn’t. I did not need to hear of injuries or brutal battles. I could already feel what hearing this had done to Talon.
He had reacted the same way a few years ago when Edmund’s men captured Ilyan. Talon had felt like a failure. He had been raised to guard Ilyan. It was his job, but Ilyan had dismissed him when he took me as his mate. No matter how much he tried, Talon could never move past what had been his entire life up until a hundred years ago. He still felt responsible for Ilyan, and blamed himself if anything went wrong. I knew he was doing it now, putting the words of guilt into his own head, even though there was nothing he could have done.
Ilyan was far more powerful than Talon. If Ilyan could not protect himself, then nothing could be done. Except now, there was Joclyn too, and I had no idea if she was capable of protecting herself or not.
Talon shook his head no in response to my question, and I felt my stress intensify. His muscles tensed, his arms pressed uncomfortably into me as he lifted me off the ground to his eye level. I wasn’t surprised to see the sparkling sheen in his brown eyes, the tears threatening to escape from him.
“It’s not your fault,” I said before he had a chance to let the words he was painting himself with become more of a weight against him. He nodded once and held me against him again, his hold tight as his breathing slowed. He lowered me back down to the ground, releasing me.
He pulled away, the wetness gone from his eyes, his composure back. He did not show emotions like that very often, but when he did, it was my job to build him up and always love him. I would always do that.
“Does he know who betrayed him?” I asked as Talon moved away from me and toward the large, carved stone bench we always sat in. I followed him, my bare feet slipping against the slickness of the cobbles that lined the courtyard, before sinking into the hard, unrelenting seat next to his.
“No,” Talon answered simply. His hands brought my feet onto his lap, and he began to trace the dark marks that graced my left foot, the jagged swirls matching the ones that ran along the entire left side of my body.
“He wants me to watch for signs that someone might know what happened before we announce it. It is probably our best chance at tracking whoever it is down.”
I nodded, not knowing how to respond. Everything Talon had said only re-affirmed that someone was inside of our perfectly protected shelter. Someone who should not have been able to had gotten past Ilyan’s protective shield. You had to have Ilyan’s blessing in order to get past the gate, you couldn’t even use a stutter to get inside. But, somehow, someone had managed it.
All it would take was one.
Get one of Edmund’s men inside, and then, like ants, the rest would follow. They would place themselves in dark corners and hide where no one else would go, waiting until the time was right. Then they would jump out and attack, and within moments, the last of the Skȓíteks would be gone. I had seen it happen before. There was a reason there were so few of the Skȓíteks left. It was probably the sole reason I still was not fully accepted in these halls. I had marched against them once upon a time.
I shuddered at the thought, for once actually wishing I wasn’t so morbid.
“Are you okay?” Talon asked, his voice worried.
I ripped my eyes away from the blob of mud on the cobblestone path that I had been unwittingly staring at to smile at him, my smile more like a grimace. It seemed somewhat fitting, so I didn’t try to fix it.
“Who do you think it is?” I asked, avoiding his question and moving to snuggle into him. He welcomed me into him, his arms wrapping around me as he held me tightly against him.
“I don’t know, Wynny.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know how to phrase what I was feeling. I wished we could find the traitor, and fast. I wished I could tear their arms from their sockets and torture any of my kind they had let into the halls of Prague. It was my sanctuary now too, my home after my father had exiled me and my brother had tried to kill me. I felt my magic increase in eagerness beneath my skin, my heart thumping erratically in either excitement or fear; I wasn’t quite sure which.
“I will keep you safe, Wynifred.”
I froze, my breathing caught in my chest, my heart lost between beats. Usually, I would have screamed at him and clocked him upside the face for insinuating that I couldn’t take care of myself, I didn’t need him to protect me. But, I heard what he said between the lines; I heard how much he cared, and so, my frantic heartbeat continued. I listened to the sound of my full name on his lips, the promise of my safety heavy on the air.
“You promise?” I asked, not needing to hear the answer. I asked because I knew that he needed to know that I had heard him, that I had understood.
“I will protect you above all else.”
“Even Ilyan?” I asked, unable to help the question and the accompanying laugh from seeping out of my lips.
“Even Ilyan. I took a vow to protect him the day he was born, but that vow was broken the day I sealed myself to you. It is the vow I made with you that is the most important bond to me. I will honor and protect that before all else.” His voice was serious, his tone so true and honest. I felt it melt into me, and our magic surged with the feeling of love.
As our magic intertwined and seeped into our souls, everything inside of me caught fire. I felt a dulled version of this connection outside the Tȍuha, but here, inside the Tȍuha, everything was heightened. It was a feeling we could only get here.
I was not sure how long we spent in the shadow of the castle, but before either of us was ready, we were pulled away, only to find ourselves in each other’s arms in the flesh, the door already being banged off its hinges. I sighed as Talon left me, his další v příkazu responsibilities already in full force, just as I assumed they would be.
He was gone most of the day, leaving me alone to attempt to clean the huge mess I had made when I had attempted to make dinner the night before, something I never do.
Talk about a nightmare. I had cut my finger off when trying to chop carrots. Yes, off. Luckily, I was magical, or I would have forever been walking around reverse flipping people off. As it was, I just reattached it. But, after the soup became inedible and more solid than it should have been, and I had burned the Galder – I remembered why I never heated food. It was better cold anyway.
The whole experience was a great reminder as to why I hated human food. It’s gross, and the texture is so off. I don’t know how or why, but humans can take a simple tomato and turn it into a slime-covered bit of goo. I mean, just leave it alone. Don’t touch it. Just put it in your mouth and eat it.
Humans eat weird food.
After I had cleaned the house, it became quickly evident that I needed to wash the lace tablecloth. After the finger-loss induced bloodletting, it was clearly required. Unfortunately, the dratted thing was bearing the label ‘hand wash only’.
Hand wash only!
Whoever had created such stupid fabric needed to be shown a washing machine. There was a reason that washing machines were created, and that was so hand wash only items need no longer exist. But some fool decided to make an un-natural fabric that needed to be hand washed only. Then another silly fool (ah-hem, Talon) decided to buy a bright white tablecloth for his lovely wife (that would be me) made out of said abhorrence of natural fabric.
I took the tablecloth down to the old guards’ chamber, the closest place that the freezing cold water of the underground spring ran. The dark grey stone of the cavern was jagged, unlike the rest of the tunnels we called home. The roughly hewn walls arched high above my head, the only light source a small collection of magical orbs that floated and bobbed amongst the shallow cavities of the stone ceiling. The green light that blossomed from above gave the room a dark glow that cast hundreds of eerie shadows around me.
The underground spring ran through the lowest level of the tunnels below Prague, well the lowest level that anyone dared to go to anyway.
This room and the ancient dungeon below were old relics of when Edmund had first declared war on all magic. In the beginning, the dungeons were used to house traitors, and Edmund’s men that Ilyan had captured but refused to kill. There had been at least ten of the Skȓítek army in here at any time, guarding the prisoners in the rooms below.
That is what the Skȓíteks were after all, an army. An army with the sole purpose of guarding the wells that sat in the lowest points of these caves.
The wells of Imdalind, the center of magic.
Ilyan and Edmund were the last ones alive who knew the way through the labyrinth of tunnels that led down to the muddy wells. Which is why it was so scary that someone could be letting Edmund’s people in here. If Edmund got in, he could stroll right down to the source of pure magic as if he were walking into a Denny’s.
Now, however, the dungeons were bare, the rooms below and the guard chamber I now stood in only a reminder of how the war had started and how many magical beings there had once been.