Burnt Devotion

by Rebecca Ethington

  “I did that? I made her want to kill you?” He was so close now that I could feel the heat of his magic against my skin, the burning power of it scalding.

  Still, like the child I was, the fool I had been raised to be, I did not back down.

  The voice wouldn’t let me.

  Don’t let him get away with this.

  Fight him.

  I will.

  “You lied to me!” I yelled again, desperately hoping to agitate him. I needed to get him drop his guard enough that I could break free from his hold and destroy him now before it was too late.

  “I do not lie!” he roared, his magic shifting with the outburst, although it was still not enough to let me break through. “I kept her safe, but I could not stop him from destroying her. I could not stop her from being tortured and breaking your bond. I did everything I could, but sometimes, things do not fall the way we plan.”

  “You liar!” It was a childish outburst, yet I couldn’t stop it. The words were rousted from deep inside my broken mind, fueled by my father’s voice as it echoed within me.

  “Whatever our father has done to you—to both of you—it is deeply rooted in your souls. I am worried that we may never be able to reverse it.” His voice rumbled, even with the regret behind it, the desire to help that I had always known from him so thick it made me uncomfortable. It only fueled my anger more.

  “You are saying that because you want her for yourself. Because you love her!”

  “I do love her!” The words were ice and flame, and while they should have ignited the monster that Cail had implanted inside of me, they didn’t. It was like a cold water bath to hear the truth, even more so to hear the emotion behind it that Cail had almost missed. To hear the love.

  “I have loved her for eight hundred years. Since the sight was first given that showed her to me, since the first time our magic bridged the gap of time and let me hold her in my arms, I have loved her. Her. Her laugh, her smile, her wit. I love the way her eyes sparkle when she plans a trick and the way she laughs to herself when she thinks of something funny. I love the way she sleeps curled into herself. I love her. And, because I love her, I would give her the choice. I would let her return to you if that’s what she wished.

  “But all you two wish to do is kill each other. She is so terrified of you she cannot form complete sentences, and you cannot hear of her without the voice in your head exploding to life. Do not play me, Ryland Krul. I know what that look in your eyes means. I have seen it in her before.”

  More lies.

  No. These are different.

  His rant sucked all the anger from the room, the powerful pressure of his magic ebbing from me as he paced before me, and the fire in his eyes extinguished to a manageable passion that made me feel somehow insignificant to the emotion they held.

  I watched him pace, knowing it was my chance to act, to attack, and yet … I could not move.

  Kill him. Stop waiting.

  I barely heard him.

  “You love her?” My voice was my own, something that hadn’t happened in who knew how long. I could not bask in the small accomplishment, though. I could not even hope to retain it. I could already hear my father’s screams. I could already feel the pain pulling at my chest as the monster reawakened.

  “Yes,” he whispered as he turned back to face me. “More than anything. Don’t you?”

  The question was honest and rooted in a deep caring that I wasn’t sure I had ever witnessed in my life. The simple question kept me sane somehow. The way my brother sat before me, waiting for my answer, kept the incessant voice calm.

  Kept me calm.

  “I thought I did,” I finally said, grateful when his magic began to loosen, my tense muscles relaxing. “But now I am not too sure. Now everything seems broken. And I know she doesn’t love me. Everything has been shattered.”

  I slid down the wall to sit before him, fully aware that, despite the fact that his magic was no longer pressed against me, it was still there, a protective barrier between us, keeping me restrained. Keeping both of us safe. I watched the shimmer in the air before I turned back to him, grateful to see much of his fire had left, though I could tell it was still there, right under the surface.

  “Edmund did that.”

  I could only nod.

  “Our father does more than he should. But his meddling was foreseen by sight long before he ever dreamed of playing his little game of hearts and souls.”

  He’s lying.

  Can’t you see his lies?

  Stop playing.

  Kill him.

  I twitched at the voice, pushing it out of my mind as I stared at my brother and let his words play on repeat in my mind.

  It was an interesting way to put it—a game of heart and souls—but I guess, in a way, that was exactly what it was. My heart, my soul, had been shattered then bound in a knife like so many others. I wondered if Joclyn’s soul was locked inside the blade, as well.

  That was his game.

  He who holds the blade, holds the key, much like Sain and his fountain of magic.

  My eyes darted to Sain at the thought. His green eyes were hooded with some secret that I knew at once he would never divulge.

  It was a look I had seen before.

  He had seen something.

  I wanted to ask, but something told me that, even if he chose to share this particular sight with me, he wouldn’t, not with Ilyan here. Especially not after what I had said about his kind moments before.

  I exhaled shakily as Ilyan moved closer to me, his shield flexing and moving. While I was still completely shrouded, he was able to move toward me with his hand extended out in a show of support and kindness.

  As my brother.

  “I’m sorry this happened to you, Ryland. I am sorry for your pain and anguish.”

  “So am I.” I took his hand slowly, fully aware his powerful shield was between us, preventing any and all skin contact. I knew it was needed, but still, the lack of trust hurt. Even though I had escaped that dungeon, even though I was fighting the voice, I was still a prisoner. I probably always would be.

  “I wish I could take it all away, but if I have learned anything in my long life, it is that we are all only a piece of a bigger puzzle, and each piece is placed where it is for a reason. I believe soon that reason will be made clear to us.”

  “Because of Jo … Joclyn?” I could barely get her name out without slamming my head against the wall in agony. He wanted me to, anyway.

  Kill him!

  Kill them all!

  They hurt you!

  They lied to you.

  No.

  “Yes.”

  “My daughter has a bigger part to play than even she realizes at this point, than any of you do,” Sain said as he looked at Ilyan.

  Ilyan pulled his hand away from mine as he met the old man’s gaze. He looked at him, his brow furrowed as he contemplated what to say, before turning back to me. Whatever beast had been turning the gears in his head was forgotten.

  “You are my brother, Ryland. And my promise to help you still stands. What can I do to make you well?” He spoke in Czech, the familiarity of the language almost enough to incite fear, but where my father had always used it in retribution, in hatred, Ilyan used it honesty, the familiar words sounding like any other to me. “What can I do to help you?”

  I stared at him, trying to decide what I could say, and most of all, if I could really trust him, despite the screaming that was moving through me.

  I knew I could.

  More than that, I knew what I needed. After all, I had said it before I had been so absorbed with getting Joclyn back, with making her “mine,” that I had forgotten the very basics of what I did need.

  “I want to be myself again. I don’t want to hear our father’s voice in my head.”

  “I can bind your heart as Thom told me Wyn did for you, but it will only be a crutch. Binding your memories will be stronger, but again, it may only set you back. You
must fight the control our father has you under if you wish to be free completely.”

  As I looked at him, the thought of the soul’s blade moved through me. While binding my heart sounded like a gift, the memory of the clear mind still fresh, I knew he was right. It would only cover the problem. I wanted to be free, though. Completely.

  To do that, I would need my soul to be whole, exactly as Sain had said. I glanced at him, his eyes drifting from black to green as he stared into me, the intensity of his gaze making me sure he could see exactly what was on my mind.

  I needed the blade.

  I wasn’t sure if I should tell Ilyan that. Something about it made me feel like a cripple, like my father had done something more than I was willing to admit.

  I bit my tongue and only nodded, unwilling to put voice to the fact that, all things considered, Ilyan probably already knew.

  “Will you let me help you defeat him on your own? I know you are strong enough to face this.”

  I looked at him as the voice repeated through me, the drum of the word growing in volume with each beat. Hearing it so loud, being swallowed by the thunder, made it hard to remember what I really wanted—if I wanted to be myself or if I wanted to kill Ilyan.

  Either way, having him help me would put him in the path of both outcomes.

  Kill him.

  I will.

  Five

  I pressed my hand against the roughly hewn door, the grain of the wood rough underneath my fingers and my forehead that was pressing into it so hard it was beginning to hurt. I let the pain come as another reminder that I was alive and could feel, and she was there, right out of my reach.

  Ilyan had come to me not long after we had last spoken with a proposition heavy in the air.

  Joclyn wanted to speak to me.

  It was dangerous and scary, but I also wanted it. Especially with Ilyan’s promise of being able to bind my mind and heart enough that I wouldn’t hear the voice. I would be able to talk to her the way I used to. I could talk to my friend.

  Even if it was through a door.

  Sain’s breathing was loud from beside me, and the subtle movements from where Joclyn and Ilyan stood on the other side of the door were a deep echo in the stone hallway we stood in.

  In the back of my mind, I knew I should be more upset over the shadows of sounds that reached me. I knew the monster my father had placed within me should come alive and growl in violent vibrations of property and proprietary that I didn’t completely agree with.

  Nothing happened, though.

  Nothing except a deep numbing that drowned my emotions in an oddly comfortable fog.

  This time, I heard the sounds, and to me, they were nothing more than the whispers of my best friend.

  Unlike any time I could remember, I was free.

  The sounds of my father’s taunts were now only shadows, dull mumbles of sound that, if I didn’t know any better, I would easily have mistaken for nothing more than a buzzing in my ears.

  Still, I heard it in the back of my mind, waiting to burst out of me. Waiting to take control.

  I was running out of time.

  Running out of this precious sanity that I had been given, this clarity I had sought for so long. I didn’t want to waste a moment.

  “I miss my best friend,” I broke the silence that had shrouded the start of our conversation with the words that in some ways had been trapped inside of me for weeks, possibly months. “I miss laughing and joking. I miss you.”

  I waited for her to respond, my heart a thunderous pulse in my throat as the fear began to grow. Sain’s breathing became a heavy metronome that kept time at a much higher pace than I would have liked.

  “I miss you, too, Ry,” The weighty breath I had been holding released at her reply, the distanced sound of the monsters inside of me growling in anger, while my heart swelled in release. “But I don’t think I can—”

  “I know,” I stopped her before she had a chance to continue, my voice a despondent lull.

  No matter how much it hurt, I knew what I had to say. I had to release her from the emotional prison I had trapped her in. I knew we couldn’t be together, not anymore.

  The monsters inside of me growled louder at the realization, the hum of Edmund’s voice breaking free. I cringed, and Sain pressed his hands against my back on instinct.

  “I have something for you, Ry. Something that might help.” She spoke before I had the chance to recover fully, her voice distorted through the wood.

  “Jos?” I asked in confusion, my ear pressing against the door in a fervent need to hear her more clearly. “What?”

  “It’s your necklace…”—her voice was so soft—“on the floor.”

  Words so simple, so soft. A voice that I had treasured for so long. Right then, though, I only felt ice and frustration at hearing it.

  My hand began to shake against the door, and my body tensed as the voice broke through the barrier of my mind in a malicious laugh. I shook my head in an attempt to expel the sound, my muscles tensing violently as I pressed my forehead against the door. Then my eyes fell on the swirl of a silver chain and the deep red of the diamond glinting in the dim light of the hallway.

  The light from the sconces flickered against the surface as I fell to my knees, my fingers twitching in a desperate craving, not for the necklace, but for what was inside.

  My heart thundered at seeing it there, the smooth surface seeming to answer to the call. My hand drew itself toward it on its own with a zealous need I didn’t think I would ever experience flooding me.

  It was mine.

  However, it was also a gift I had given her, one that might give me back a bit of my sanity. I couldn’t think like that, though. It wasn’t mine anymore.

  “I can’t take this back, Jos. It’s a piece of me, remember.” I could barely get the words out, the frantic desire for what was enclosed within the diamond was so strong.

  “I know.” Her voice broke, and I tried to shield myself from the pain that followed. “But I need you to. I need you to take your heart back, Ry. It doesn’t belong to me anymore.”

  She doesn’t want you anymore.

  With her rejection, the barrier slipped away from my mind, the voice erupting in a violent shift that rippled through my body and brought physical pain. My muscles tensed, my heart beat amplified, and even the wood beneath my fingers seemed to be moving.

  I tried to control it. I tried to fight it, to find the barrier and shift it back into place, but the voice was too loud, the anger all-encompassing.

  She probably didn’t even want you in the first place.

  Don’t say that.

  She kept it close only to give it back when it would hurt you the most.

  She wants you to fail.

  Ilyan wants her to fail.

  No, Ilyan is my family.

  He only told you that to get what he wants.

  Her. He wants her.

  They are both liars.

  No!

  The word spouted in my head as I flinched, my hands pressing into the wood of the door so roughly I was sure it was going to move through the thick slab. I almost wanted it to. I wanted to hurt her.

  “Did Ilyan tell you to say that?” The words ground their way out of me on their own, the voice deep with a hatred that was filling me.

  Before I had even stopped speaking, Sain’s hand was pressed against my back, his magic a dead weight against my soul as it began to fill me.

  “Focus, Ryland,” Sain whispered, his voice a soft anchor that I tried to cling to. If only it was enough.

  “I will not focus,” I knew I was speaking too loud, but I didn’t care. “She’s giving back something that means so much! You have no idea what I went through.”

  I know what you went through.

  Make her pay.

  I lifted my hand in an attempt to pound my fist against the door, the tense ball shaking with anger that only kept growing as the voice did. I was one quick motion away from shattering the d
oor into a million splinters, my magic surging with the powerful energy that would be needed for such a feat.

  Make her pay!

  Yes.

  My fist fell toward the door, only to be stopped by Sain’s soft hands. His touch gentle even though it was strong enough to stop me in my tracks. I froze in place as he moved to stand before me, my breathing a torrential heave as his soft eyes dug into me.

  Don’t let him stop you.

  Now is your chance!

  I know.

  She promised she wouldn’t give it back.

  And now she is breaking that promise.

  Now. Do it now.

  “I was in that dungeon, too, Ryland.”

  Simple words that meant so much more than I was sure even he understood. The words weren’t enough to slip the bind back in place, but I could feel it shift. I could feel the muscles in my arms and back relax, my breathing becoming mellow.

  If only the voice would fade away again and give me back my mind.

  “I saw what they did to you, Ry,” Sain continued, his voice a hushed whisper so as not to carry through the door. “They did the same to me so many times before.”

  He’s lying.

  No, he’s not.

  Even though the voice was growl, I knew at once it was wrong. I had sat with this man only a day before and spoke of the terrors that we both had faced. I had seen the shadow of torture in his eyes, and I saw it now.

  “She wants to give it back, Sain,” I said, disappointed that the growl still ran through it in a heavy vein. “After all I went through for her in order to give it to her, she wants to give it back.”

  The tension in my back increased with every word, the painful pressure of heartbreak growing until I was certain I was about to be ripped apart.

  “No, Ryland, she wants to help you.”

  “How do you know?” I roared, my shout ricocheting off the stone walls of the alcove we stood in, the sound loud in my own ears. “You don’t even like her.”