Imdalind 01 - Kiss of Fire

mother.”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    Ilyan pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, his eyes screwed up tightly. “Edmund tortures his children, Joclyn.” He dropped his hand to look at me. “He uses them to increase his power, to bend their will so that they only answer to him. He trains them to be destructive weapons and pawns in his little game. He holds no love for Ryland; he probably made him torture his mother as a way to break him, to teach him a lesson.”
    “Them?”
    “Yes, Joclyn. Them. All ten of them.”
    I stared at him, my hands opening in a question.
    “What do you want me to tell you? It’s nothing good.”
    I could tell how uncomfortable the subject was making him; he was very edgy.
    “I think I have handled quite enough to prove I can handle a bit of bad news.” My voice was firm.
    He sighed exasperatingly at me before turning away, his hand running through his long blonde hair.
    “Ilyan.” I wasn’t sure if I was angry or worried. The way Ilyan was reacting, it was so unlike him. I could almost feel the waves of negative energy flowing off him. He spun around to face me, his eyes damp.
    “He tortures them, Joclyn. He tortures them until he breaks them, and then he uses them or he kills them. It’s not a monarchy he is running here. There is no next-in-command. It is only Edmund and the children he gobbles up and spits out. He did it to Zetta, he did it to Markus, Drayven, Ovailia, Sylas…”
    “Wait,” I interrupted him, my heart clenching in my chest, “Ovailia?’
    Ilyan breathed out deeply, his face looking like a cornered dog. He looked away from me, his hand dragging through his blonde locks again.
    “Ilyan?”
    “Yes. Ovailia. He tortured my sister by making her watch as he killed her mate. He forced her to track down and kill her friends. She bears a scar from her neck to her tailbone where he cut away, bit by bit, until she agreed to do it.” His voice was so bitter, so pained. I reached out to him, desperate to comfort him, to make it go away. But then my hand dropped; the awful truth of what he was saying hitting me hard.
    “Your sister.” My voice was a whisper.
    “Yes.”
    “No!” I took a step back in horror.
    Ilyan looked into me, that unyielding defiance I was used to, coming on strong. His eyes, so familiar, so much like Ryland’s. I had been too focused on Ryland to put the obvious puzzle pieces together. I felt ridiculously stupid.
    “No!” I repeated, but my voice had lost its shock.
    We just stared at each other; I had no idea what to say. All my life I had hidden. I had moaned and groaned and whined about some stupid mark. I had let it ruin my life, and all the while my best friend, the one person who meant the most to me, was being tortured every day of his life. But it wasn’t just him; it was the man who had saved me, it was his sister, it was seven others who had lost their lives. I could have cried; my body almost begged me to. But instead I squared my shoulders and held it in.
    “We need to save him.” My magic surged beyond the barrier as I spoke.
    Ilyan looked at me for only a moment before striding away from me. I ran up beside him, his pace winding me.
    “We are going to save him, Ilyan, aren’t we? He’s your… your brother.”
    “We are going to try.”
    “Try? I thought this was a sure thing!”
    Ilyan looked at me, his pace quickening even more. I wanted to ask him to slow down but didn’t dare.
    “Edmund has increased the security around the estate. We will have to get through a lot more of his ‘henchmen’ than I had originally hoped. What I could glimpse of Ryland did not paint a pretty picture; he can barely move at times, and when he does, he twitches so badly that he can’t accomplish much. However, the party seems to still be ready to go on as planned, which can only mean that we are walking into a trap.”
    I stopped in my tracks, remembering all of Ryland’s warnings to stay away from him, to leave him alone. He was still trying to protect me, and here I was preparing to stroll into the lion’s den to save him. It was ridiculous. Ilyan noticed I was no longer walking beside him and trotted back to get me, now dragging me by the shoulder beside him. My feet stumbled before I caught up to his pace again.
    “Don’t sulk like a child; we are still going in to get him.”
    “We are?” My spirits soared.
    “Yes, I need you two together.”
    “Why?” I knew I needed him with me, but it seemed odd that