Burnt Devotion (25 page)

It was strangely beautiful—the way the sun moved through the clouds and shone brightly over the blissfully ignorant people that moved through the ancient square. I was sure it would have been beautiful no matter what time of day or situation, but seeing it for the first time, combined with the flood of memories that flowed off Ilyan like a river, it actually felt like home.

Like I had known this space all along.

Ilyan said nothing as he grabbed my hand, leading me into the antiquated place. Then the groan of the iron doors closed behind us so loud I was surprised no one turned to look. It was like they hadn’t even heard, something which I was sure was far more than likely.

With my feet slipping on cobblestones as I tried my hardest to take everything in while keeping with Ilyan’s pace, my eyes moved from place to place like little ping-pong balls as Ilyan led me through the ancient square—the old stone houses, the antiquated carvings above each door, the old fountain that stood on the other end of the courtyard. I wished we could get closer to it. I wanted to inspect the medieval animals that spouted streams of water from their mouths, but Ilyan plowed ahead, taking us into a dim alley, following right behind Wyn and Ryland who looked to be running. Not that I blamed them.

Even though I had been so absorbed by the city, by the happiness of Ilyan’s memories, I could still feel the heavy beat of my heart. I could still feel the worry that raged through Ilyan. I could still see the vivid images of my sight.

I picked up my pace as Ilyan did. His hand tightened around mine as we moved farther into the dark and around the corner that Wyn had disappeared behind only moments before.

The alley stopped in an abrupt line of light and dark, the towering buildings falling away as we moved into a wide street with the same cobbles lining the road. Nearly identical rows of apartments grew from the dirty stone street as if they were no more than planted flora. They stretched to the sky, the dimming blue tinged with red from the setting sun. It almost felt claustrophobic, as though the buildings were falling round us, enclosing us away from the golden light of dusk.

It was then, as the light from the setting sun broke in golden flecks over the red shingled eaves of the houses, that the world broke out in screaming.

I stopped running before Ilyan did, my blood flaring in memory and magic as the Drak in me awakened, as the sight replayed itself as though someone was fast forwarding through an old home movie.

Everything seemed frozen to the spot as the screaming increased, the sound coming in ripples from before us, the earth shaking beneath us in what I was sure the mortals were assuming to be an earthquake. I knew better.

The sound of their fear moved down the street toward us in a flood of sound I knew at once we couldn’t escape. My heart raced in a pulse of panic as my muscles tensed in agony at the sounds, the panic, and the exhilarated fear moving over me.

I barely recognized Ilyan moving into protective position, his magic flaring angrily as he tried to figure out what had happened and, more importantly, what he could do.

Nothing.

He could do nothing.

“It’s starting,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if the words were mine or that of my sight. The depth of my voice was entirely dead.

I had barely spoken before the golden light of the sunset, the light that had been seen so clearly in my sight, was sucked from the sky and replaced with a sheet of red. The color was thick and all-encompassing, as though someone had thrown a thin blanket over the world.

I looked toward the sun on instinct, the red tinged orb that was trying to sink behind the skyline. As the earth rattled beneath me, the strength of a distant explosion rumbled through the ground as the red blanket of sky was streaked with pillars of black.

Thousands of winged creatures cut through the sky, through the red veil, descending on the city.

Devouring the city.

Devouring us.

I stared at the tower of Vilỳs in horror, my jaw tightening as I waited for it to end, for the sight to pull me back into reality. However, I knew it wasn’t a sight, that the screams and the pillar of diseased Vilỳs were all terrifyingly real.

Panic engrossed the city as, one after another, more columns began to erupt into the sky. The blasts of the distant explosions, the shaking of the earth underneath our feet, and the blood red hue to the sky only increased the already rapid rate of my heart.

The creatures poured into the sunset on all sides of us, streaking over the blood red sky like bats, flocks of winged monsters encapsulating the city from all sides.

Enclosing us in.

Trapping us.

Even if we wanted to escape the city, there was no chance of that happening now.

Edmund had drawn us here.

To this.

Ilyan had been right. I had been right.

It was a trap, and we had walked right into it.

I looked toward the street I had seen Wyn fleeing through only moments before, but she was nowhere to be seen.

What had been a joyful, European city was now nothing except chaos. People ran blindly as they tried to escape an unknown enemy. Running into buildings, trying to start cars, many frozen as they looked up to the sky, fear keeping them in place. The screams, the chaos only increased as the first of the Vilỳs hit the ground around them like wet rags then came to life with terrifying speed.

Wings unfurled, bodies glistened, teeth gnashed, and their sharp claws attached themselves to the humans like locusts, biting, ripping, and tearing at their flesh as they infected them with their poison. The once revered “kiss” was placed upon them like a disease, infecting them and their newly born magic with the same infection the Vilỳs held.

Edmund was creating his army.

I had seen sight after sight reveal itself before my eyes. I had been amazed and taken back by my own power. But this? This should have stayed hidden in the shadows of the Drak blood I held. This should have never come to pass.

A car zoomed past us, at least twenty of the little things clawing at the metal in an attempt to get inside just as a roar of anger and madness broke through the air beside me. Ilyan’s magic flared in a violent surge that shifted through me, igniting my own power as the two forces blended together in a wave of the same fairy lights I had seen so many times before. Except now, they were not wrought in love and passion. Now, they were bred from the flame of Ilyan’s anger, an anger I had only seen once before. However, then it had been nothing compared to the power I felt move through me, nothing compared to the rolling force of his power that emanated from him.

Now, the lights were dangerous.

Now, he was dangerous.

But he wasn’t the only one.

I was dangerous, too, and I was going to stop this.

We moved from our frozen shock as one, our shields dropping from our bodies as we met the new battle head on, as we ran into the tangled mess of blood and carnage.

Hands moved, magic and light and power surged from our bodies as the Vilỳs left the bloodied and battered people they had dug into writhing on the ground. They flew to attack us, to attack the danger we represented.

The mortals were easy pickings. Even the ones who tried to fight back were felled in seconds.

But Ilyan and I?

It was as if they sensed that we could stop it.

A swarm of heavy leather wings charged at us in a wall of teeth and blood, and my hands moved as my magic flared, erupting around me in an orb of white light that sent the cluster to the ground. It seemed like a good tactic until the light alerted the hundreds of other creatures that still attacked the innocents. As one, the monsters froze to face us, their ugly, deformed, sphinx faces turning into a grin of malice that ran through my body like ice.

I couldn’t have run if I had tried. They moved too fast as they encompassed us, the dimly lit world disappearing, swallowed by the hot wind against my face, the smell of excrement and blood that filled my nostrils.

My head swam at the smell, swam at the feeling of their rancid magic, so heavy in the air that it seeped into me, infecting me the same way it had in the forest outside of Rioseco, heavy and thick. The claustrophobic pressure was unrelenting against me, against my magic. It was a fight to stay upright, to not fall to my knees in pain then let the Drak magic take me like it was trying so hard to do.

It took all my focus to keep the sight at bay, my ability sagging in energy as my vision continually blacked in and out. The world around me and the fight I was trying so desperately to win felt more like a strobe-filled nightmare I should be escaping.

My skin grew warm as tiny claws dug into me, flashes of fire and light rippling over us from where Wyn now fought not far away. I couldn’t even focus on that. All I felt was what I was sure was my own blood pouring over my skin.

I knew at once I was in trouble. We had attacked the Vilỳs in the forest like cowards, burning the tent they were held in to the ground. However, now—facing them as an enemy that was able to fight, feeling their rotten magic press against my skin and swim in my mind—I knew there was no way we could win this fight.

Not against the rancid power, not against the sheer amount of them that Edmund had unleashed on the city.

I wanted to save the city. I wanted to save the people it held. And I would gladly fight to the death. But I was born to defeat Edmund, and I couldn’t do that like this. Not if we were dead. There had to be another way.

Ilyan
, I didn’t even need to call for help. He was already there, ripping the creatures from my body, throwing them into the rough stone buildings around us. Their screams echoed in my ears alongside the mortals, the echo only growing as the world dipped into the ember red color of sight again.

Let it come, mi lasko.
His voice was loud in my mind as the red flared through me in heat and power.
I will protect you.

Without another word, I let the vision fill me, let the ember-filled light seep into the same city streets we were trapped in. The Vilỳs were running rampant as they moved from human to human, devouring them, marking them, destroying them. Bodies lay battered in the streets as the Vilỳs tried to pry open windows and claw their way under doors. The screams of the humans was all but replaced by the high-pitched squeal of the monsters who had destroyed them.

The sight moved through the streets as if at a run, only to stop at an old, wood-slab door that was covered with the long scratches of the Vilỳs’ claws, splattered with the blood of some poor soul who hadn’t made it past the entry and into safety again.

I stared at the door as I waited for it to open, my magic flaring in recognition of the dread that I had felt plague the earth below, that sadness and fear that had been hidden in the city. It was the same, and it was hidden behind that door.

For some reason, I didn’t see it as the terrifying enemy I had before. Now, it was safety. My magic promised that it was.

The vision ended with a snap as a crumpled Vilỳs body slammed into the cobbles before my folded body, the thing twitching once before it sagged into nothing.

I stared at it, but I still only saw the door, my mind and magic spreading before me as I searched the city for it, only to find nothing.

Although I knew I needed to find it, we needed to get out of here more. I had to trust that we would find it on the way.

My magic surged alongside Ilyan’s powerful torrent as I stood. The Vilỳs that surrounded us fell to the ground with yet another surge of light, the pulse of the power giving us enough reprieve to catch our breath.

“It’s no use!” I screamed above the animalistic battle sounds, a trio of quickly approaching winged monsters falling to the ground with a swipe of my hand, their once frenzied bodies looking like nothing more than crumpled leather. “We have to get out of here!”

I know,
his voice was a sorrow-filled pang as it moved into me, his jaw tightening as he continued to fight, desperate to save his home, to save the humans that he counted as his people, even if they didn’t know he existed. The emotions that accompanied that knowledge gripped him, and with only those two words, he took my breath away.

I moved away, my back pressing against his as my magic surged, igniting around us in a destructive orb as I gave us enough room to run through them. As much as we both wanted to stay, to fight, we didn’t have a choice anymore.

Dragging Ilyan away from the street, we ran. Vilỳ after Vilỳ dropped from the sky as I we bolted toward where Wyn had been only moments before.

Burned remains of at least a hundred of the beasts littered the ground, the white stone of the building beside it burned away as if someone had thrown acid on the glistening surface.

I looked around in panic, trying to understand what could have caused such destruction, but Ilyan only laughed, his grip around my hand tightening as he pulled me away from the blackened space and down a narrow alley that lay all but hidden in the shadows.

They will be at the clock,
Ilyan said as we continued to run. The echoes of our footsteps were loud in the claustrophobic depths of the alley, even over the ever-increasing screams of the massacre we were surrounded by.