Burnt Devotion by Rebecca Ethington

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