Burnt Devotion

by Rebecca Ethington

  “You don’t, just as she doesn’t want to kill you,” Wyn continued as if nothing had happened.

  My eyes darted to hers for only a moment before continuing their tour of inanimate objects around the room.

  She’s lying.

  She wants to kill you, too.

  No, she’s good.

  Don’t fool yourself.

  You can see it in her eyes.

  She wants me dead.

  I want you dead, too.

  The thought came unbidden. The truth of the phrase, the knowledge that I wasn’t alone in my desire, no matter how wicked it might be, calmed me. While I should have been able to grab that calm, it only angered the monster that lived inside of me, trapping me with his screams as I began to shake and rock in place.

  She wants you dead.

  Look at her.

  She’s going to kill you.

  No, she’s safe.

  She’s like her brother.

  Her brother hurt you.

  Cail hurt me.

  You should hurt her.

  I twitched as the voice continued gaining in volume while I slammed into the wall. What little calm and clarity I had found vanished with the flash of white light that filled the abbey.

  “Want to … need to…” I wasn’t sure if I was speaking to Wyn, Sain, or my father. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to kill anymore or if it was all of them. The result was the same. “Kill. Kill. Kill.”

  “No.” Wyn’s voice was a little more forceful than it should have been, given how weak she appeared. The strength behind it moved through me with a jump that pulled my wavering focus back to her. “You don’t. Edmund does. The demon that Edmund has placed inside of you does. You need to stop listening to him, Ryland. Don’t listen to your father’s voice.” Her words were calm, full of more knowledge and experience than I would have given her credit for.

  I stared at her while every part of my body began to shake as the sound of my father echoed in my head. The words that had plagued me so much for the past few months sounded like little more than a broken speaker in my mind.

  Kill … now…

  Don’t wait.

  Kill them all.

  No.

  You are strong enough.

  You can do it.

  How did she know? How could she know? Did she hear him, too? Did she hear him yell and scream? Did she have the same memories of pain as I did?

  I could tell by looking in her eyes that, even though she knew, it wasn’t the same. Regardless, there was still something else there, some other pain I couldn’t quite place.

  You saw her … Don’t listen…

  “How?” I asked, the word broken as I forced it past the madness, past the voice that only grew louder.

  “How did I know?”

  I could only nod, the sagging curls of my hair falling over my face and obstructing my vision. I didn’t bother to move them. I only kept moving, my back slamming into the wall, though my focus didn’t deviate so much as a hair from the girl in front of me.

  “Because he’s done it before, Ryland,” she whispered. The gravelly depth of her voice was so different from what I had heard before that it caught me off guard.

  “To you?”

  “No.” Her voice caught on that one word, the sounds choking in her throat as the emotion pulled at them. It was an emotion so raw and honest it yanked at my soul, bringing some long forgotten memory to life. For whatever reason, the plank became a bridge, one cemented in the knowledge that I wasn’t alone. Someone understood.

  I only barely registered that I wasn’t rocking anymore. Despite the voice being a scream, for some reason, I was strong in this moment. It was like before, when Cail had pushed the soul’s blade into us, and we had moved into the waiting place, the only place where my mind was my own.

  Though I could still hear the voice, though my body was still tensed and ready to attack, to scream, to yell, to fight, I still felt control. I felt a whisper of who I was now.

  Who I used to be had been killed many months ago by the man who gave me life. To give life, only to then take it away seemed to be the sole thing he was good at.

  “He did it to Cail before he became what he was. He did it to Mym, your sister. He did it to Rosaline, my...” Her voice caught again.

  Thom’s hand wrap tighter around her, bringing her closer, wrapping himself around her in comfort and support.

  Lies.

  Don’t listen.

  You know you need to find her.

  Find her before it’s too late.

  But Wyn knows something…

  Don’t trust her.

  But I do…

  Don’t be a fool!

  Make her pay.

  Make them pay.

  Make Ilyan pay for what he has done.

  What he has taken from you.

  I cringed as the voice came again, strong and powerful, and my muscles twitched in fear and anger. My hands moved up to my ears in another desperate attempt to lock him out, but I knew it would only keep him in.

  “Don’t listen to him, Ryland.”

  Find her.

  Kill her.

  “Can’t,” I gasped, the word grinding behind clenched teeth. “Too loud.”

  Before I knew what had happened, I was rocking again, the back of my head slamming into stone. The panicked whispers of the three people before me ground through the air as the bridge began to disintegrate underneath me. Planks and supports that had seemed so strong only moments before fell away into nothing.

  I watched my hair bounce before my eyes, heard words repeat on my lips as they did in my mind, but all I felt was the rhythmic pounding of my back against stone and the hand that wrapped around mine.

  The heat of an unfamiliar magic filling me.

  I tried to pull away from the painful wave that sparked against my nerve endings and filled me with thousands of pin pricks, each one filled with heat and fire. They ran over my body like thousands of tiny knives, the pain only growing as the heat did, as the hand clung tighter, as I began to scream.

  “No!” The word ripped from me as the scream did, as I writhed and tried to fight, but it was no use. The pain continued, the screams continued, the words ‘kill,’ ‘destroy,’ and ‘no’ mixed with my screams until it was nothing but noise. Nothing, but the gasps of those who sat before me, who held me.

  And then there was only … nothing.

  Nothing except heaving breaths and tense waiting.

  My screams stopped as abruptly as they had begun, the voice in my mind silencing into nothing but a memory.

  Silence I hadn’t heard for months. Silence that, in many ways, I hadn’t heard my entire life. He had always been there, whispering, criticizing, ripping me apart. Now, however, there was nothing.

  Nothing but me.

  My mind was clear.

  Yes, the pain was still there. The painful fire wrapped around inside me as the hand clung to mine. However, compared to the freedom my mind now felt, the pain was bearable. The pain was unimportant.

  My eyes snapped up in wonder, moving from the shadowed markings on the hand that held mine to the girl who leaned against Thom in such a weakened state she could barely keep her eyes open.

  “Wyn?” I asked, the steadiness of my voice sounding unfamiliar to me.

  “That’s how,” she breathed, the words taking far more effort than should be necessary.

  Her eyes fluttered open from where she leaned against Thom, a playful smile dancing on her face at what she had accomplished, despite the fact that the risk and danger to her had been great.

  “I used to do this to Cail,” she gasped, squeezing my hand. “Bind his heart with a shield. It kept Edmund out of the Štít and his mind. It gave him freedom. You feel it, don’t you? Free?”

  I could only nod. “A Štít? Is that what he did to me?”

  “No,” Sain answered, his voice sounding louder without the competition inside of me. “What he has done to you is much more dire. You are
his son. You already have his blood, so he can control you without such complex methods. You will never escape what he has done to you. You must become stronger than it.”

  My stomach dropped at the accusation, a million memories of what I’d had to endure as his son flooding me. Every beating, every snub, every moment I was ridiculed. Perhaps it was because I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want him to ‘own’ any more of me. I didn’t want Sain to be right.

  Even though he was.

  “But, right now … Everything is clear … like when we were in the waiting place.”

  “Yes, but even in the waiting place you were plagued by the monsters Edmund placed inside your soul. Wyn has only shielded your soul from the monsters, but the memories and the emotions are still there. She has just made it easier to decipher them.”

  I knew he was right. Even though the voice was gone, even though I felt more of what I used to be, I wasn’t whole. I still had the memories of Joclyn hunting and hurting me, memories of a distorted version of me that he had used against me from the moment he had broken my mind, when he had begun to take ‘me’ away.

  Everything tensed as the memories began to grow, weighing me down until it was hard to breath.

  As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew Sain was right. I had more to defeat than the voice. I had to rise above what Edmund had done to me from the beginning.

  What he had created.

  What I had become.

  None of this was me.

  I was dangerous.

  My breath heaved with a shake as I let the shield cover me, savoring the freedom of my mind for as long as Wyn could give me the gift.

  “Don’t give into it, Ry,” Wyn said, her voice shaking as I felt the shield begin to slip, her exhausted magic retreating back into her.

  I wanted to scream at her not to leave, but with one look, I knew there was nothing I could do to stop her. Besides, what little calm I had been given had been a lifesaver. Like a reset button, it had given me another chance to gain control of my mind.

  I lay back against the wall as I prepared for the onslaught and steeled my mind against the voice that was coming. I promised myself I could defeat it, even if I felt as weak as Wyn looked.

  The stone was strangely comforting as I huddled against it, pressing myself into it, wishing that somehow I could fall asleep and escape the voice for a while along with the acute longing to attack and hunt Jos down.

  This much anger, this much hatred wasn’t me. Well, it didn’t used to be. Not before my father took control. Not before he changed me.

  Before him I would have done anything for Jos. I sacrificed myself for her, because of the carefree life she gave me.

  He had taken that all away.

  I pressed my body into the stone again, right as it began to shake, right as the feral sounds of a never-ending pain echoed through the abbey, rippling through my bones until it was as if I felt it for myself.

  I knew exactly what it was.

  “What was that?” Wyn asked, her voice sounding half exasperated and half fearful as the building shook underneath us again.

  “Ilyan,” was all I said, grateful when my brother’s name on my tongue didn’t insight another onslaught of anger and fear. Though the voice screamed within me, I ignored it, at least for now.

  “Ilyan?” Wyn asked, more in surprise than in question. “What happened? They couldn’t have been fighting, could they?”

  “Nothing is perfect, Wynifred,” Thom grumbled from beside her. “If their porcelain chamber pot didn’t break soon, I was going to smash it against the wall. It’s about time they went at each other’s throats.”

  Wyn nodded numbly as the yells continued, the abbey continued to shake and tremble with his pain. We sat there in silence, waiting for it to slow, waiting for it to calm. It never did, though. It only grew until my own heart began to ache with him.

  “Shit storm or no, I am beginning to wish Talon was still here,” Thom said, his hand moving up and down Wyn’s arm as she flinched, the sound of her mate’s name causing her physical pain.

  “I guess I better stop it before it gets to out of control.” Thom spoke as though it was the most unsavory thing in the world, a severe lack of disinterest making me question his intentions. Then again, as the room rumbled and yet another scream of pain and heartbreak roared around us, I guessed I could see why he wouldn’t want to go to his brother.

  Our brother.

  Thom sighed and pressed Wyn against him in farewell. Dust fell around us like rain, the abbey rumbling right alongside it. Then, without out another word, he stood and moved toward the door, his dreads swinging wildly with the movement.

  “You coming?” Thom asked before he had moved more than a few steps.

  I froze at the question,

  “I’m sorry?” I could barely get the words out. He couldn’t be talking about me, could he? He shouldn’t be. Putting me before Ilyan right now would be madness.

  Thom only laughed. I guessed madness was his forte.

  “He’s your brother, too. You know, family sticks together and all that. One of the many lessons our loving father taught us.”

  “But, it might … I mean … I know why he’s…”

  “So do I.” Thom spoke sadly as he looked toward the sound of breaking glass and crumbling stone. The first real sighting of emotion in him seemed very out of place against the tough biker guy that stood before me.

  “I would only try to kill him.”

  “Your choice. Soon, you will have to get to know who your family really is.” He began to move before he had finished, leaving me cowering against the wall with Sain’s hand firmly on my knee, the pressure keeping me in place more than anything.

  “Sain”— Thom turned as he stood in the doorframe, his forehead wrinkled in an emotion that didn’t quite meet his eyes—“will you take Wyn back to her room … or at least pretend to? We all know she has no intention of staying there, after all.”

  His voice was so flat I couldn’t be sure if he had spoken in jest in or in truth, but Sain only laughed and nodded in agreement.

  I didn’t know what to make of Thom. He was far too quiet and sullen for me. The idea that we shared a father, that we were related, seemed a little too ridiculous.

  Thom stuffed his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket then walked out of the room in a shuffle, his shoulders hunched as if he had been born with a hump.

  I watched him go, the voice growing steadily louder as I fought it, fought the pull to follow Thom out of the room, though I knew it was an impossibility. I knew I couldn’t fight the voice for much longer.

  No matter how hard I tried.

  You should kill him, too.

  Thom and Ilyan.

  You should kill them.

  I should?

  Four

  As if Thom had somehow known exactly what Wyn had in mind, she left moments after he did. However, unlike Sain had said, he made no move to stop her.

  She had stared into him in some silent conversation I didn’t even try to follow before she had slowly pushed herself to standing, her weak body leaning heavily against everything we were surrounded by in an attempt to get to Joclyn, to handle the aftermath of the fight with her boyfriend in some ridiculous best friend way that movies liked to pretend they understood.

  Months ago, I would have been the first to stand, the first to offer her my arm and lead her out of the room to wherever her destination was, but not now.

  Not anymore.

  Now, it was all I could do to focus on the chill of the stone wall I pressed my face against and keep my body from rocking, my hands from clawing at my hair.

  At least I was trying. At least I was able to.

  The small moment of clarity that Wyn had been able to give me had granted me that. Even if everything was loud and confusing, I could remember what sanity felt like now. I had a goal to work toward, no matter how simple it seemed.

  I already knew it would be much harder tha
n even I understood.

  Until Ilyan had expelled Ovailia from the Abbey, I had been under someone’s control from the moment I had found Joclyn’s mark. For months, I had been trapped in a prison with bars and monsters that were controlled by my father and one of his pawns. What was more, despite the fact that the bars were gone now, despite being in the care of someone who should have been deemed safe, the monsters were still there.

  I was still locked inside of my own head, trapped with the voice that plagued me.

  Stop messing around! Get up. Find her.

  She doesn’t love me anymore.

  I know. That’s why you need to stop playing around.

  Kill her.

  I can’t.

  Do it now.

  You heard me.

  Kill her.

  I groaned, a long throaty exhale that rattled my chest and filled the air with more pain. The pressure of Sain’s hand against my leg increased at the noise, and the touch sent a jolt through me with a jerk, the movement going through me like a live wire.

  “What is it, Ryland?” Sain’s voice was lined with that same paternal calm that I had learned to love, that had calmed me from the very first time I had heard it.

  My focus turned to him before darting away again, and my heart rate picked up to a speed that felt both painful and impossible.

  Tell him.

  When the voice rattled through my head, I couldn’t stop it. My hand moved to tangle through my hair while my stomach tightened in defeat and fear. I tried to focus on the chill of the stone, the pull of my hair as I had always done. While it did its job, it still wasn’t enough. I continued to hear my father’s voice echo in my mind, his laugh rattling through my soul in such a way that it only brought more fear.

  Fear not only for me, but for those around me, as well.

  I was sure he was standing right beside me. I could almost feel his hand on my back, prompting me to find and kill them.

  “Ryland?” Sain asked again, his voice filled with the same depth I had heard so many times before. “No one is here. It is only you and I.”

  He’s lying.

  Ilyan is here.

  Not far away.

  Close enough to kill.

  Kill.