Burnt Devotion by Rebecca Ethington Page 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